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Print 13 comment(s) - last by Ringold.. on Nov 1 at 10:51 PM
The price tag to service the Hubble Space Telescope could cost over $900 million

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has been contemplating whether or not the Hubble Space Telescope should be repaired. After attending engineering briefings regarding risks and requirements of another shuttle mission to work on the Hubble Space Telescope, NASA Administrator Michael Griffin announced that the American space agency will make necessary repairs to the aging telescope. The repairs will allow the Hubble Space Telescope to operate until at least 2013. Hubble is quickly deteriorating and would most likely be unusable within several years, according to researchers.

Lockheed Martin will lead a team at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center to plan, train and launch a servicing mission for the Hubble Space Telescope. The NASA mission would launch sometime in 2008, carrying new batteries, cameras and gyroscopes. The telescope is currently only using two out of six gyroscopes and battery power is diminishing. The fifth and final telescope upgrade is expected to cost around $900 million.

Some scientists consider the Hubble to be the most important space instrument ever used. Some of the new equipment would allow the telescope to give scientists a more advanced view into the universe. “It needs some refurbishment and repairs, but its contributions and capability to contribute remain quite robust,” Griffin said during a press conference.

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costing and future !!
By Xajel on 10/31/2006 11:36:53 PM , Rating: 2
According to wikipedia, the orginal plan for Hubble cost will be $400 million, but the final cost ( without repairing missions ) hit the $2Billion sky.. the last one wich will be launched no earlier than May 2008, will cost $900 million...

the successor of hubble wich called James Webb ( targeted for 2013 ) will cost around $3.5 billion, but it will only sence the IR wavelength, this is less than Habbles ability to sence Optical, ultraviolet and near-infrared wavelengths.. this for sure will limit the features of James Webb, but the tech behind the IR will for sure be very superior to Hubble for most astronomical research programs. unless when talking about Optical & Ultraviolet wavelengths...




RE: costing and future !!
By Goty on 10/31/2006 11:41:49 PM , Rating: 2
Can't Spitzer take care of the near-IR wavelengths?


By drank12quartsstrohsbeer on 11/1/2006 11:37:52 AM , Rating: 2
The Webb Telescope has to be a lot farther away from the earth in order for it's IR sensors to function. If I recall correctly, It will be over a million miles away from earth. Far too distant for any servicing missions.


after 2010
By kattanna on 11/1/2006 11:08:57 AM , Rating: 2
when they retire the shuttle in 2010..i wonder what they are going to do when such future needs arise to make on site repairs of future orbiting items.

maybe they will make a space repair tug or something that stays attached to the space station when not being used, but then can detach and move around in orbit to work on, or even launch or capture in orbit items.

they will need to come up with something..cause the orion capsule is NOT up to that task.




RE: after 2010
By CheesePoofs on 11/1/2006 3:50:57 PM , Rating: 2
The space station will, I believe, have small motors that will be able to keep it in it's desired orbit. It's going to be completed by then (hopefully), so there shouldn't be anything else needed. But NASA will just have to make due. The shuttle performs the job of orbital servicer decently, but it simply costs too much to operate.


RE: after 2010
By Ringold on 11/1/2006 9:55:08 PM , Rating: 2
To the OP; such a tug attached to the station couldn't do the job. Hubble is apparently in a much different orbit, and I don't even have to look it up to know that significantly changing orbits once already up there with the ability of the launch vehicle sitting on the bottom of the ocean below you would take ridiculous amounts of fuel. The space station, in that regard, is still useless. :)

To Cheesepoofs; I think the current Russian cargo ships give it a boost every time they visit. Not enough, but they're working on improved versions, and maybe Orion can help. I doubt it'll be a problem though.. I've heard many problems relating to ISS, but thankfully falling from the sky when the Shuttle gets retired isn't one of them.


Well spent...
By nomagic on 11/1/2006 12:11:19 AM , Rating: 5
I call this long term investment in the future of humanity...




Not Much Money
By qdemn7 on 11/1/2006 7:06:04 AM , Rating: 4
Considering how much get's pissed away on Social Security and other "Entitlement" programs.




Idiotic people
By encryptkeeper on 11/1/2006 9:23:53 AM , Rating: 1
I was reading another blog concerning the Hubble, and MAN some people are insane. People actually want to end one of the most successful scientific ventures of all time. It's funny to see the people who want the Hubble program to end, because they want to shut down NASA and from their attitude, all scientific programs. One guy actually mentioned that we need to stop exploring space, and explore earth. I immediately thought, "Dumbass we already know what's HERE." Thank God it wasn't a thread about if man had really gone to the moon. There are really still people out there who believe we didn't go, that all the footage was shot in a studio. Now that's insane.




RE: Idiotic people
By aaron10chris on 11/1/2006 9:58:03 AM , Rating: 2
I remember seeing pictures of Hubble's ultra deep scans. They zoom in on parts of the sky that seem empty to us. It sees so far that it can see hundreds of whole galaxies 12B light years away in one image. I can't imagine not living with those images. Who would want to take that away?


New Scopes
By Goty on 10/31/2006 11:40:51 PM , Rating: 2
The Next Generation Space Telescope isn't even [i]planned[/i] to go up until 2010, so losing the HST before then would put a serious gap in the observing power of the Great Observatory scopes. While observing at optical wavelengths is certainly subject to some severe limitations that other wavelengths can overcome, it is still an important part of the spectrum that a great deal of research still depends upon.




Repairs
By KingofL337 on 11/1/2006 7:30:19 PM , Rating: 2
900million to fix the Hubble is off the wall. How the hell do you spend that kind of money on a few gyroscopes and batteries? I understand everything needs to be special for space but this is unreal. I don't believe NASA is the future of space exploration. They are moving slower then slow and just flushing money down the toilet. If NASA is going to continue they need to be removed from the governments bidding process and privatized.

I also agree we have issues here on earth that need to be addressed soon or we may not have to worry about 100 years down the road to some for of mass human space exploration.






Worth the cost savings?
By Ringold on 11/1/2006 10:51:00 PM , Rating: 2
Wikipedia cites an incremental cost of a launch as around $60 million. I'm not sure how much I believe that, because if it were that cheap we could afford, I would think, to lug a small city up to the ISS compared to the meager bones we're throwing our international partners with what will be the final product, but..

I think at least part of this 900m could be saved by skipping on this silly requirement to have a rescue shuttle on the pad, with a crew standing by, during the mission.

First off, astronauts know the risks, they're nominally airforce officers, and are under no obligation to fly.

Second, lets take a look. NASA says a Shuttle could be provisioned for a 16 day mission. By the end of the second day they've examined pretty fully the situation of their heat shield (and always find some pathetic little thing sticking out somewhere and decide to make the news by using a million dollar hand tool, the product of our nations greatest minds that could almost be found at Home Depot, to pull it out). At that point, NASA has 14 days, or two weeks, to get their men.

Shuttle's just don't take a trip to Key West after a long mission; they're hanging around getting poured over by contractors at a level of cost and complexity that NASA admits is ridiculous, and despite reportedly having airline A&P's around to suggest improvements, can't seem to shake the old culture.

I find it hard to believe that, first of all, astronauts can't go a little hungry, turn off non-essentials Apollo-13 style, and otherwise stretch their survivable time in orbit a bit, but second of all, couldn't take an orbiter that was being prepared for another mission and make it ready to fly.

We don't need all the wiz-bang gizmo's working, no scientific equipment, don't need triple or quadruple redundant computers all working, don't even necessarily need every component of the overall life support systems working. They don't need a functional shower, or any food and water if its an up-and-down trip. I'd not be surprised if some of the control surfaces weren't redundant in case of an in-flight loss of an aileron or the likes. And the weather on launch day? As a Florida pilot, I understand the caution, but when work needs to get done, work needs to get done.

I guess I can't imagine why NASA would want to spend all the extra money for a launch prep that will end up being unnecessary when instead they couple shuffle around maintenace schedules to make sure at least one other orbiter didn't have, say, it's SSME's laying in parts on the floor of a warehouse when the mission was underway. Has the NASA that made an oxygen filter out of socks, duck tap and a plastic bag for an astounding damaged famous Apollo mission decayed to the point where politics would have them in such a situation where a 1/2 functional orbiter couldn't get yanked out of maintenance, mated to an external tank & SRBs, thrown on a pad and popped off to orbit to do a simple crew transfer, possibly some repairs, and then deorbit? The original turn around time was estimated to be as little as under 2 weeks; instead, the Columbia holds the record at 56 days. C'mon. The things can do nearly everything under automation; get some veteran astronauts in there and go launch.

Would that add to the risk? Yep, a bit. But given a 1% chance of problems with the first orbiter, and lets assume that total abandon of mile-long checklists on the orbiters toilet makes for a 10% chance of failure for the second one, we're not talking much risk.

The benefit, however, could be the difference between a key project like the Terrestrial Planet Finder getting funded or not getting funded.

I'm a pilot myself, and the whole enterprise is a big game of risk-management. I can't believe I'm the only one to think NASA is now, after 20 years of never doing it before despite vastly inferior orbiters in the early days, just being a big cry baby and wasting critical funds during a time of budget shortfalls.

God that was a long post. I need a drink.




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