Re: Hubble tug
- From: Chris L Peterson <clp@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 30 May 2009 18:17:59 -0600
On Sat, 30 May 2009 17:02:18 -0700, "Scott Smader" <smader@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Agreed that the cost of getting to orbit dominates, but this seems an
argument to salvage what's already in orbit.
It's also worth considering that the HST is very expensive to simply
operate, and the mission isn't funded forever. Newer instruments will be
coming on line, and there is only a limited amount of funding available.
While I'd certainly be the first to vote for a lot more funding for
unmanned space studies, that probably isn't going to happen. The HST is
aging, it is in a harsh environment, and at some point it will simply
become too expensive to maintain at all. It isn't clear we aren't
getting close to that point.
No argmument that politics can set NASA priorities, but given that politics
dictated that NASA was going to use a shuttle to "upgrade" the Hubble, it's
hard to believe, that the program managers would choose the lesser
performance of incremental repairs when they could get a whole new telescope
for the same cost. Thus, I still conclude that there is cost savings from
reusing resources already on orbit.
I believe I've heard that for the total servicing cost of the HST to
date, between four and six additional space telescopes of the same
design could have been launched.
_________________________________________________
Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com
.
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