Re: Bush cancels Hubble telescope rescue mission

From: OrionCA (OrionCA_at_earthlink.net)
Date: 01/23/05 

Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2005 13:14:54 -0800

On Sun, 23 Jan 2005 10:46:31 -0600, richard schumacher
<no-spam@invalid.com> wrote:

>In article <7f36v0lgu7rde6h02aeb8sf2bf79t8efnh@4ax.com>,
> OrionCA <OrionCA@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>> On Sat, 22 Jan 2005 09:27:57 -0600, richard schumacher
>> <no-spam@invalid.com> wrote:
>>
>> >http://www.space.com/news/hubble_budget_050121.html
>> >
>> >"The White House has eliminated funding for a mission to service the
>> >Hubble Space Telescope from its 2006 budget request and directed NASA to
>> >focus solely on de-orbiting the popular spacecraft at the end of its
>> >life, according to government and industry sources."
>> >
>> >
>> >No surprise here. Bush gets all his science from the christian bible.
>> >
>> >Time to write our congresspeople to direct NASA to save Hubble.
>>
>> All future Shuttle missions must include the capability to reach the
>> ISS in case of a major emergency that precludes re-entry. Hubble is
>> in an orbit that the three remaining Shuttles can't attain and still
>> reach the ISS. Ergo, no Hubble resupply missions are planned.
>
>That is an arbitrary choice. A Shuttle mission to Hubble is not
>significantly more dangerous than to ISS; true, there's no "safe haven"
>at Hubble (and as we see repeatedly ISS is not all that reliable
>itself), but the Shuttle's engines have to fire longer to reach ISS. A
>"safe haven" is useless if a failure leaves the Shuttle unable to reach
>it.

What part of NO shuttle mission shall not include a "safe haven" route
to the ISS do you not understand? Essentially this means all Shuttle
missions shall be to or in close proximity to the ISS from now on.
There will be no more quick jaunts to pop a satellite into LEO
anymore. There will be no science missions where the astronauts can't
look out a porthole and see the ISS off in the distance, or at least
during part of its orbit. Like it or not the ISS and Shuttle programs
are wedded at the hip now.

> Regardless of destination the safest approach is to keep a rescue
>Shuttle or Soyuz ready to fly within a week.

 We only have 3 orbiters left: When we had 4 we could afford to keep
one prepped for launch in an emergency - barely. In fact the 5th
orbiter was envisioned for just this purpose. Then Challenger blew
and we were back down to 4 with a heavy schedule and no budget for a
"rescue shuttle". Furthermore, there's no guarantee that whatever
breaks on a shuttle mission won't prevent a "rescue shuttle" from
launching.

The Russians don't have money for a "rescue Soyuz" - they say they
have a spare or two they could prep quickly but it'd been hard as
hell. They've started charging for lifting US astronauts to the ISS,
have you noticed? They're broke, too.

>The real reason to limit
>Shuttle flights is to maximize the chances of completing US
>contributions to the astronaut hotel called ISS.

NASA, in case you hadn't noticed, is not exactly awash in money. If
not for the ISS there might not be any US manned missions at all.
Personally I would rather strap boosters on the ISS and rename it Mars
Orbital Relay Station One but that's not my call.

>> Hubble was never intended as a permanent floating observatory. The
>> follow-on telescope is to be launched in 2010 and will greatly expand
>> on Hubble's capability. There's even a possibility that Hubble will
>> remain functional through 2010 w/o replacing the 3 remaining
>> operational gyro packages.
>
>The James Webb space telescope is for IR only, not UV or visible light.
>There is wide scientific agreement that Hubble should stay in use at
>least until JWST is operating:
>http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/hubble_reaction_050121.html

Webb is an IR OPTIMISED space telescope but will have some visible
light capability. They might surprise themselves at how far it can
see - Hubble did. 

--
"It's a cliche that happens to be true: To win support, 
candidates and parties have to stand for something. 
They cannot be strictly against the opposition. Even 
worse, they cannot be for and against what the other 
side believes in."
- Boston Globe, 1/13/05
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/01/13/blurred_messages_from_democrats?mode=PF

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