Hubble can be Saved

[tw]

Hubble Space Telescope does not fit into George Jr's legacy agenda: a Man to Mars. Hubble may be the most successful space science experiment ever. But science has no relevance on a political agenda list.

George Jr administration was quick to declare no Hubble repair would occur. That money was needed to put a Man on Mars - for political glory.

Well, patriots - innovators - are rising up again. Reported by ABC News on 19 Oct 2006:

Mission to Save Hubble Could Put Astronauts at Risk
Hope for NASA's celebrated Hubble Space Telescope, which has produced some of the most spectacular images of the universe, hinges on an engineering meeting to analyze the risks of a shuttle mission to repair its aging systems. The meeting is scheduled for Friday, Oct. 27, and the person who will decide whether the mission takes place is NASA administrator Michael Griffin.

What engineers are wrestling with, though, is the rescue plan. If something goes wrong on a shuttle flight to fix Hubble, could the crew be saved? ...

Engineers at NASA are considering prepping two shuttles in parallel, with the second shuttle waiting on the other launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center, ready to take off on short notice, something that has never been done before at the space center.

[Griff]

You forgot to mention "big dic" whatever that is.

[tw]

Originally Posted by Griff

You forgot to mention "big dic" whatever that is.

Think rapist, Foley, or Cheney. It's not hard... no ... not difficult.

[Hippikos]

Hubble has been a great asset to science and mankind. It's the Columbus of Space. Wish they could bring it back and display it somewhere.

[xoxoxoBruce]

I'd rather they keep it up there..... working.

[9th Engineer]

I read somewhere that we're close to having a telescope that give higher resolution pictures than Hubble, only from the ground. The man on Mars deal will probably have to wait until the space elevator is completed, search on Howstuffworks.com for details on that.

[tw]

From ABC News of 31 Oct 2006:

NASA Waits for Go-Ahead to Save Hubble Telescope
The Hubble Space Telescope looks like the comeback kid of the decade.

Just two years ago it was doomed to die when the shuttle mission to service it was canceled, one of the first casualties of NASA budget tightening to finance President Bush's ambitious Moon-Mars mission vision.

The mission was also deemed too risky to fly by former administrator Sean O'Keefe.

But political pressure and the emergence of a new NASA administrator who once worked on the Hubble revived hope that the celebrated telescope could be saved with one more shuttle mission, scheduled now for spring 2008.

Paint George Jr with disparaging remarks that he has earned - and eventually great innovative Americans get liberated. There was no doubt that George Jr administration destroys science for the glory of their political agenda. But they are not so powerful when words such as 'mental midget' get attached to his legacy. Remember the fuss when two bolts were lost on the last shuttle mission?

The Hubblle astronauts will have to remove 110 very tiny fasteners to fix the imaging spectrograph. Engineers have designed a plastic capture plate to grab those tiny screws and keep them from becoming space debris.

Details that demonstrate why space war would be a disaster for mankind equivalent to airborne nuclear weapons use.

Eventually, mankind will have to promote an international treaty to keep orbital space clean. But that would be akin to other things that neocons so hate such as clean water legislation, global warming, and air pollution standards.

Coming is another telescope to join the current constellation - James Webb Telescope. It's long in the future. Scientists would like Hubble to overlap Webb so that the accomplishments of both can be coordinated.

Ground based telescopes have much higher resolutions. Adaptive lenses mean many earth borne telescopes can be coordinated to achieve even better perspectives. But Hubble is outside the atmosphere meaning that it lower resolution still achieves more.

One final point. Science with telescopes - like most advanced science today - is best done without humans on site. Astronomers rarely go to the telescope anymore. Best work is accomplished remotely - with the telescope acting as a robot. Just another reason why Hubble - like the Martian Rovers - have been so successful.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Even with the Webb up and running, having two is better than one. There is so much to see out there and some of the things, the astronomers would like to watch for longer periods of time instead of periodic glimpses.

[Elspode]

Fixing the Hubble is an incredible no-brainer. They've already done it twice. How much more dangerous can it be now than it was then?

Go for it, NASA.

[Elspode]

GREENBELT, Maryland (Reuters) - NASA said on Tuesday it would undertake a potentially risky shuttle mission to extend the life of the Hubble Space Telescope until at least 2013.

NASA Administrator Michael Griffin, speaking to cheering scientists who had feared Hubble's earlier demise, said a space shuttle would make one final maintenance trip, tentatively in 2008, to the orbiting telescope.

The trip will go ahead even though the shuttle astronauts would be unable to take shelter on the International Space Station if something went wrong, Griffin said in announcing the decision at the Goddard Space Flight Center near Washington.

Hubble is considered by some scientists to be the most important astronomical instrument ever. It seized the public's interest as it captured images of star birth and death, detected planets outside our solar system and snapped eye-catching visions of the Milky Way and other galaxies.

It has also examined the atmosphere of an extrasolar planet and helped determine the age of the universe.

Goddard Space Flight Center Director Ed Weiler said Hubble had fundamentally changed what scientists know about the universe. "The universe doesn't read our textbooks," he said. "It has this bad habit of not doing things we say it should."

Scientists say that without repairs the 16-year-old orbital observatory would function for only two or three more years.

NASA had earlier planned a servicing call to the telescope -- the fifth since its launch in 1990 -- to install two new science instruments and replace spent batteries and faulty steering gyroscopes. It canceled that trip after the shuttle Columbia was destroyed as it returned to earth in 2003.

Safety upgrades put in place since then call for shuttle astronauts to stay aboard the International Space Station if they find their shuttle has been damaged. Crews heading to Hubble's orbit, however, cannot reach the station.

Griffin said a second shuttle would be ready to launch if a Hubble repair crew runs into trouble. There are no guarantees a rescue mission would work, however.

"We all as a nation know now that flying the shuttle carries more risk than we would like," Griffin said.

Shortly after it was launched on April 24, 1990 from space shuttle Discovery, Hubble was found to have a flaw in its main mirror that blurred its vision. Astronauts corrected the problem in a shuttle mission in 1993.

The final maintenance trip is tentatively set for May 2008. Astronauts on the 11-day flight will take five separate space walks to add the new equipment.

"We're essentially going to get a new Hubble," said Maryland Democratic Sen. Barbara Mikulski (news, bio, voting record), who fought to preserve the telescope when NASA decided to cut off support in 2004.

Cancellation of the Hubble servicing drew harsh public criticism and NASA later vowed to reconsider its decision.

Because the shuttle fleet will be retired in 2010, the Hubble mission will mean one less shuttle flight available to finish building the $100 billion space station, a project of the United States, Russia, Europe, Japan and Canada.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

I seem to remember mention of an orbiting Hubble replacement to go up there in due course. A part of these deliberations was whether they actually had to have a working optical-wavelengths telescope right up until its replacement had been launched.

And there's the under-discussed matter of the Shuttle's replacement. Perhaps something designed to mission rather than designed to cost.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Here's a lot of good reasons why it should be fixed

[tw]

#1 reason why we need Hubble:

... because Pablo Picasso is dead.

[xoxoxoBruce]

If it will keep him dead, I'll pay for the Hubble.