Discussion Replacement of HST

[T.Neo]

There are several memorable pieces in the basement of Chernobyl station. Will you go and fetch them?

It does not work that way... a flight on STS is risky. A trip into the basement of Chernobyl is probably certain death and/or lifelong sickness.

Of course Hubble is a machine, but it's a machine with an impressive history and impressive achievements, and if you don't have a sentimental feelings for it for that reason, well..

 

[Kyle]

It's in the National Smithsonian Air & Space museum along with the backup mirror. A friend of mine recently (and very kindly) got me some photos of it along with some other things there.

---------- Post added at 13:28 ---------- Previous post was at 13:24 ----------



Problems with this idea:

1. Dragon isn't human rated yet and nor has it flown.

2. Where do you put the RMS, how do you control it (Dragon has no RMS station) and do you have space in the fairing to fit it?

3. Does Dragon have the delta-v to get up to HST?

4. Where do you put the servicing pallet? that's a large piece of hardware.

5. HST and JWST are two different telescopes. JWST is limited in the visual optics range.

6. Lead time for a mission is at least three years and will require a few training runs in LEO. Who is paying? (Cost $3-4billion I'd say).

1. That'll change. But who said it has to be manned. Remember, I also said Orion
2. Excellent question. That I am unsure.. but do you need an RMS? Remember what STS-125 put on the bottom of Hubble?
3. Another excellent question, but again I also said Orion. Orion certainly can get to 600 km.
4. With Dragon, Falcon 9 Heavy? But F9H won't be in service by 2015.. if at all. Direct however with an orion.. but that's another story.
5. I'm aware of that, however JWST is often referred to as HST's replacement.
6. NASA with approval of Congress.

 

[RisingFury]

how about if people from all over the world donate to NASA, for the single purpose of recollecting HST? I mean, we already have derelict telescopes all over the world, which has pretty much outage their usefulness, outpowered by many of the newly built ones, and yet, we do still keep them around, for memory's sake, or even aesthetics, and hell, why not the most prominent Space telescope there is? as long as it is possible to use the shuttle for that purpose though.

Wrong, we don't keep old telescopes around just to stand pretty and collect dust.

However obsolete a 1 m mirror is when it comes to modern cutting edge science, it's still better then any amateur telescope. Some telescopes are open to general public, others are available for students to train on.

Then there are always refits. Even though a 3 meter mirror won't stand much chance at observing distant galaxies, it can still be used for other tasks. The most accurate spectroscope for finding plantest is actually fitted to a 2.3 meter telescope. Then there are autonomous asteroid searches. My universit has an autonomous telescope for that, with only 0.5 meter mirror and they've found a few...

The difference between these telescopes and Hubble is that a simple repair job doesn't cost 5 billion dollars and that these telescopes won't drop on anyone's head in the next few years.

 

[garyw]

1. That'll change. But who said it has to be manned. Remember, I also said Orion
2. Excellent question. That I am unsure.. but do you need an RMS? Remember what STS-125 put on the bottom of Hubble?
3. Another excellent question, but again I also said Orion. Orion certainly can get to 600 km.
4. With Dragon, Falcon 9 Heavy? But F9H won't be in service by 2015.. if at all. Direct however with an orion.. but that's another story.
5. I'm aware of that, however JWST is often referred to as HST's replacement.
6. NASA with approval of Congress.

1. Orion doesn't exist. It's a mockup hence I ignored it. If Orion ever flies Hubble will be at the bottom of the ocean.

2. The capture collar. Yes, but once you dock then what?

3. It can? Where are the specs which state that? It's not delivered yet. Shuttle was supposed to launch once a week but never did.

4. Erm, they are launch vehicles. I asked how you would get it back.

5. JWST is hubbles replacement, in terms of funding. When JWST is up, hubble will have less money.

6. The same congress that just took a year to approve STS-135? The same congress that is more interested in "shuttle derived" just to keep voters rather than actually listening to NASA to find out what really is needed?
The same NASA that has no space capability?

Returning hubble with the way things are right now requires a lot of work and you haven't presented a workable plan. It isn't going to happen.

 

[Grover]

we keep talking about big spacecraft, but they arent necessary, if its going to burn up, it will have to come to LEO anyway, so we can just pick it up then, rather than fetching it right now using a huge craft, we can wait 3/4/5 years, then pick it up below ISS altitude, with a smaller craft, which will be better than what we have at the minute, even if only by a little way, but we cant say for certain.

and in terms of machines, go to any museum, any at all, and i bet there is a historic machine there, one that it THE machine, not just A machine. and it could be put to use, as RisingFury said, thats still a bloody good telescope, better than anything we could own.

when theres a will theres a way, im sure some astrophysicists at NASA could refine the "wait for it to come closer" idea so that it can work.

 

[garyw]

we keep talking about big spacecraft, but they arent necessary, if its going to burn up, it will have to come to LEO anyway, so we can just pick it up then, rather than fetching it right now using a huge craft, we can wait 3/4/5 years, then pick it up below ISS altitude, with a smaller craft, which will be better than what we have at the minute, even if only by a little way, but we cant say for certain.

How does a small space craft get it safely though the atmosphere? Whatever you do, you need something the size of the shuttle to bring it down.

and in terms of machines, go to any museum, any at all, and i bet there is a historic machine there, one that it THE machine, not just A machine. and it could be put to use, as RisingFury said, thats still a bloody good telescope, better than anything we could own.

Sure and I bet it didn't cost $2billion plus to put it there. There are these things called praciticalities.

when theres a will theres a way, im sure some astrophysicists at NASA could refine the "wait for it to come closer" idea so that it can work.

There is no will and by the time it's at the 300km point it's a lump of space junk that will threaten other spaceraft. It has to go whilst it's still under control.

 

[Urwumpe]

It is already in LEO. The problem is returning it - it is huge. You can't just strap a heat shield on it.

And the only Space Shuttle that was able to return Hubble anyway, burned up in 2003. The remaining Space Shuttles can't do that.

 

[Artlav]

And the only Space Shuttle that was able to return Hubble anyway, burned up in 2003. The remaining Space Shuttles can't do that.

Could you elaborate? What was that special about Columbia?

 

[garyw]

Columbia had a longer payload bay than the other shuttles due to the airlock being internal whereas with the other three part of the airlock systems are in the payload bay itself thus eating up space.

Also, additional work would be required to remove the ODS systems and that takes a while.

 

[Keatah]

Columbia had a longer payload bay than the other shuttles due to the airlock being internal whereas with the other three part of the airlock systems are in the payload bay itself thus eating up space.

Also, additional work would be required to remove the ODS systems and that takes a while.

Wasn't weight an issue? Somehow? I thought that Columbia was the only shuttle that could be stripped & lightened enough to bring it home. I understand that a shuttle can haul 65000 lbs to orbit, but can only return something like 33000.. ?

 

[garyw]

Columbia was the heaviest shuttle but also lofted the heaviest payloads. I'm not sure about the return weights but it's certainly a lot smaller than the loft weight.

 

[RisingFury]

we keep talking about big spacecraft, but they arent necessary, if its going to burn up, it will have to come to LEO anyway, so we can just pick it up then, rather than fetching it right now using a huge craft, we can wait 3/4/5 years, then pick it up below ISS altitude, with a smaller craft

What part of "Hubble is the size of a bus" don't you get?

It's 15 meters long and nearly 5 meters in diameter. You don't fit that in your trunk.

 

[orbitingpluto]

If we prevent it's reentry, Hubble won't be able to meet the .

 

[Hielor]

My head says let her burn up, but my heart says bring 'er home.

Statements like this make me think that mankind would be a whole lot better off if we left that annoying heart-thing out of the decision-making process.

 

[Xyon]

Statements like this make me think that mankind would be a whole lot better off if we left that annoying heart-thing out of the decision-making process.

Better off, yes. Human... no, probably not.

 

[Grover]

If we prevent it's reentry, Hubble won't be able to meet the .

unfortunatley, thats impossible. in orbiter, the gravitational fields are very simple compared to the real life versions, its actually impossible for any object in orbit around earth to maintain its orbit unassisted, to get a simple idea of this, put an object in orbiter in LEO and turn on all the realism settings, and watch, it'll either slingshot further and further away or come closer and re-enter.

imagine Mt Everest, thats one HUGE lump of rock, and it has its own gravitational field disturbing that of the "spherical earth", causing a slight wobble in the earth's overall gravitational field. now imagine how many mountains there are on earth, and consider that the oceans are denser than the land, and it makes this a very complicated job to calculate. and on top of that, you have interferences from other celestial bodies (according to the theory of how our solar system began, jupiter and saturns' gravitational forces managed to move neptune and uranus' orbits to the other side of the gas giants), and its the same process here.

so, no matter what we do, eventually, the HST will run out of fuel and in this case, it will spiral down to earth over ~4/5 years and hit the atmosphere, then its toast (and expensive toast at that ) NASA are goinng to let this happen, so we dont end up with outer space gradually getting clustered with dead satalites, if its in space, its a danger.

 

[Wonderer]

Will NASA leave the hubble in orbit or will they deorbit it?

 

[garyw]

so, no matter what we do, eventually, the HST will run out of fuel and in this case, it will spiral down to earth over ~4/5 years and hit the atmosphere, then its toast (and expensive toast at that ) NASA are goinng to let this happen, so we dont end up with outer space gradually getting clustered with dead satalites, if its in space, its a danger.

Hubble has no fuel. It uses gyroscopes to change position but it cannot change orbit and thats why a docking collar was installed on STS-125.

Will NASA leave the hubble in orbit or will they deorbit it?

NASA has responsibility for anything they put in orbit. They will deorbit it by docking a tug to it and sending it into a controlled entry. They will not "just let it hit the atmosphere" as lives could be at risk.

 

[Wonderer]

Good to hear that there will be no mad bus out there :lol:

 

[orbitingpluto]

When satellites reenter, they go to meet the . You didn't read that in Probeday school yet?