Fixing Hubble

Central or Eastern?

 

isnt it a bit too late to watch it by now?

 

Drat I missed it. Hopefully they will play it again in summer re-runs.

 

They can? A Shuttle mission costs around $500 million. The Hubble cost over $2.5 billion to construct. Total Hubble costs (operations included) are now around $6 billion. The The James Webb Space Telescope, currently one billion dollars over budget, is now expected to cost over $4.5 billion to build.

Wrong again. Rendezvous with an uncooperative target is a very hard task. Repairing a device in space with robots is even harder. One of the main reasons NASA put a Hubble repair mission back on the Shuttle manifest (STS-125) is because NASA found a robotic repair mission to be unlikely to succeed.

The Space Exploration Initiative involves robotic and human space flight missions, with a primary focus on human space flight. This is where the real money will go for a long time, and it is where the money belongs.

 

I got your message while on my way out the door. I'll have to look for the next one. :grumpy:

 

The costs for every single space telescope but the Spitzer are astronomical. Even the Spitzer telescope, at $720 million, exceeds the cost of a Shuttle flight. The only heavy lift vehicle capable of taking most of these monsters into space is the Shuttle.

"If they knew what they were doing they wouldn't call it research." NASA does lots of studies on things that don't pan out for one reason or another. This was one of them.

• The Hubble doesn't have a cooperative relative navigation capability. This is the defining characteristic that makes something an uncooperative rendezvous target.
• The Hubble wasn't designed for docking. It was designed for be grappled by the robotic arm. A robotic vehicle would have to do this autonomously due to the time lag (vehicle to TDRS to White Sands to ground station, and then back again). Buffering of signals in computers adds quite a bit to this inherent speed of light delay.
• The repair vehicle has to be able to handle a dead and tumbling Hubble. This requirement makes the Hubble not only an uncooperative target but a hostile target.

I could turn this around and say something equally silly such as "It is really too bad that NASA, with its budget limitations must be wasting money on space science when they should be spending every cent they have human space flight". We need the robotic space program to find out what will be there when we do send people to the Moon, Mars, and beyond and to find out how to make it sufficiently safe to balance the risks of sending people there. Anything else done by the unmanned program is a nice to have.

It is inappropriate to compare the cost of unmanned space probes with human spaceflight programs because the unmanned and human programs exist for different reasons. The cost of the science performed by these very expensive unmanned probes should instead be compared to science done on the ground. For example, how good could we make ground-based telescopes if we spent $4-6 billion (the cost of a Hubble or a Webb) on them? The LSST, at a paltry $15 million, will have an image quality that comes close to that of the Hubble. What would a two order of magnitude budget increase do for ground-based systems?

 

I think you're misunderstanding the primary science goals of these projects. No amount of money is going to make UV or far-infrared light visible from the ground. The LSST is an optical survey telescope and doesn't have Hubble's UV or Webb's IR capabilities. It's true that, with the advent of adaptive optics, there are few reasons to do optical astronomy from space, but that only covers a very small part of the electromagnetic spectrum. The pretty pictures you see from Hubble are useful for science, but are mainly for public relations. The real tragedy of the loss of HST, IMO, will be the loss of the UV capabilities. Hopefully it will be replaced with a cheaper UV probe in the near future. As for Webb, it will also have an optical camera, but most of the science coming from it will be in the IR.

Long story short, optical image quality is not the main reason for space science. We depend on space probes for our observations in most of the electromagnetic spectrum (far-UV, far-IR, X-rays, gamma rays, and parts of the microwave spectrum). Ultimately, the question is whether the public puts higher priority on people in space or knowing the answers to deep scientific questions. Personally, I'd love to see both, but I think the latter will give a much greater return per dollar spent and certainly won't be picked up by the private sector.

 

The commission that investigated the Columbia disaster recommended againts the then-planned Shuttle HST repair mission. NASA investigated a robotic repair mission as an alternative to the Shuttle mission. However, NASA scrubbed the robotic repair mission because it was too costly and because too many things could go wrong (mission success was far from guaranteed). NASA put the Shuttle HST repair mission put back on the docket only after an very strong outcry from scientists and citizens.

Research and development costs. Research is needed to overcome some basic problems with robotic rendezvous with an uncooperative/disabled/hostile target and with robotic repair in space. Doing so properly would require some demonstration missions prior to operating on some valuable asset such as the Hubble. The Shuttle is an unreliable basket? Try again. An untested rush-job of a robotic repair mission - now that is an unreliable basket. There have been two Shuttle failures in well over 100 flights. Not that that is very good, but it is a better success rate compared to that achieved by the unmanned space program.

I am, too. We need a combination of human and robotic spaceflight to make space operations truly viable.

I agree that a ground-based space observation system cannot see much other than radio and visible light. IR, UV, and X-ray observatories can only be space-based. You are, however, misunderstanding my point: The costs and benefits of those space-based observatories should be weighed against the costs and benefits of ground-based science. Scientists from all fields could come up with a research budget that drains the entire world economy. Choices have to be made. Very expensive choices such as space-based research needs an very compelling payoff. IMHO, a lot of money spend on space-based science would be better spent on ground-based science.

Personally, I'd love to see both also. I think that sending humans into space, and not just LEO, will have a much, much greater dollar return than studying black holes in some remote galaxy.

The private sector will not pick up true human spaceflight any time soon. Virgin Galactic will be making suborbital flights. There is a huge gap between sending people on a short up-and-down joyride and sending people to the moon. It is premature to talk about turning all aspects of human spaceflight over to an industry that does not yet exist.

The field of aeronautics provides a good comparison. Humanity has had viable flying machines for over a century now. NASA (the National Aeronautics and Space Administration) still does some aeronautics research because the private aviation sector still has some gaps despite being a century old.

 

Such as? An entire community of astronomers is devoted to finding the most cost-effective means of answering the scientific questions that interest them. If you have ground-based means of studying those things addressed by Chandra, Spitzer, etc., I'm sure that they'd love to hear them.

Are you familiar with the science that comes out of space-based observatories? For example, WMAP recently gave us a stunning view of the origins of the universe itself for just 150 million dollars. In the meantime, what have been the returns of the manned space program in recent years? A space station nobody cares about? A shuttle disaster?

NASA is far ahead of the private sector in manned spaceflight, but what are the ends? In the '60s, the moon landing was of great symbolic importance, particularly in a world caught up in a Cold War. But times have changed. Even if we were to set foot on Mars tomorrow, would it really be worth the money and risk of human life spent to get there? At least with the private development of manned spaceflight, there will be a clear end (i.e. to make money). The stimulus to do so will eventually lead to safer, more cost-effective technology. That's not to say that NASA should stop research into manned spaceflight, but I simply don't see what a huge monetary commitment is going to do for us?

 

Such as something completely different. Research into human longevity, drastically more efficient solar cells, a collider the size of Texas.

And what exactly is the monetary return from that 150 million?

Yes. I would value that a whole lot more than a pretty picture of the universe. Right now, Congress funds NASA at a pittance, around 2/3 of one percent of the federal budget. Choice have to be made. I, for one, finally like the choices that have been made.

That is pure conjecture and is not borne out by fact. Look at the auto industry. The auto manufacturers have a clear end (i.e., to make money). The auto you drive today would not be nearly as safe as it is without government research and intervention.

 

So it seems your point has shifted out of convenience. Before we were comparing Hubble and LSST, now you're saying you'd rather see more money to sciences other than astronomy? Obviously, that's just a matter of personal preference, but I'm not sure why you'd rather know more about the next generation model of particle physics than the origins of the universe.

Since when is NASA's objective to make money? By "return", I'm talking about scientific yield, cultural value, etc. Your taxes aren't like an investment -- you don't get money back if NASA researches something that the private sector finds useful.

I just spent two posts explaining to you how this isn't what the space telescopes do. I'm glad it was time well spent.

Oooohh, this is a political thing. I see now. Yeah sure, yay bush, republicans, whatever.

It would pretty much have to be, seeing that it hasn't happened yet. Safety standards and developments in safety technology are different things. With automobiles, the private sector has certainly done a great deal of work on the latter.

 

There is no shift of convenience. I said

I did not specify which science in this sentence. When I said science done on the ground, I meant just that. Research into human longevity, drastically more efficient solar cells, a collider the size of Texas are all examples of science done on the ground, as is the LSST. I mentioned LSST as one example of how science done on the ground is much cheaper than space science. I mentioned several others. Do you want more? (Hint: I can list a lot of science projects that cost less than 6 billion dollars.)

To answer this specific question, yes. Ignoring the possibility that the next generation of particle physics and the origins of the universe are interrelated, I'd much rather we know more about the next generation of particle physics than the origins of the universe. The payoff to humanity is greater.

Congress has measured the value of scientific research monetarily for a long time.

Translate "scientific yield" and "cultural value" into dollars. Sorry, but that is what Congress and the people who elect Congresscritters want. The arts community is not pressured to yield a measurable return, and they get funding commensurate with that lack of return.

This is so wrong I don't know where to start. Funding something with potentially huge benefits in the long term but is too expensive and risky in the short term is where government spending on research has had the biggest payoff.

I just spent several posts explaining to you why space science should compete with more mundance ground-based technology programs. I am glad that was time well spent.

Both parties are to blame for NASA's budget (or lack thereof). NASA has been underfunded by Republican and Democrats alike.

The Columbia disaster was a wake-up call to NASA. If we are to send people into space, it had better be for something worthwhile. Sending people into low Earth orbit does not qualify as worthwhile. Sending people to the Moon, Mars, and beyond does qualify. The initiative was not something foisted on a reluctant space agency. Far from it: NASA started work on the Exploration Initiative well before Bush brought the idea to Congress.

 

This is getting kinda silly. It sounds like you're claiming that space research isn't worth it because, per mission/project, the average cost is much higher than projects done on the ground. The field of astronomy has experienced a major boom in the past 10-15 years, primarily because of space-based observatories. Yes, there were successful ground-based missions that were cheaper, but it doesn't take a class in logic to realize that this doesn't mean the space missions weren't worth it.

Just answer me this, are you saying that you'd rather see more money devoted to other areas of science and less to physics and astronomy? If so, we'll just have to agree to disagree. If not, then your opinions run contrary to those of the scientists who know a lot more about the best of use of money in those areas.

Possibility?

We know they are. All of the field theories tested at particle accelerators were born after inflation, which is tested by space probes like WMAP. Furthermore, the properties of dark energy are of great interest to particle physicists and gravitational theorists, and this is one of the things tested by those distant observations of galaxies and black holes you were talking about.

How so?

Yet this whole debate is about the fact that we each value these things differently. Could I put a dollar amount on the value of the WMAP space mission? Perhaps, with a lot of effort, and even then I wouldn't see the point. It wouldn't be the same as your dollar amount.

Well, let me know when you get your check in the mail.

That generalization is a bit too broad for you to realistically prove in a debate like this. I suggest we focus on the question at hand.

If this is all your posts were meant to convey, then it certainly wasn't time well spent. That's a triviality. This competition always exists in astronomy. Every time someone proposes to make a space telescope or applies for an observation on a space telescope, the committee asks the proposer whether or not it's something that could be done from the ground. Ultimately, it seems as if the issue is that you simply don't value astronomy enough to give it many of your tax dollars.

I think we both support a bigger budget for NASA, the question was the allocation of the existing funds. I would like to see people on Mars before I die, but I would also like to see some of our basic questions about the origin of universe answered. To me, the latter is more important. To you, it seems that the former is. That's fine, it's just a matter of personal preference.