[smokey]

Apparently the first casualty of the new Bush space directive is the Hubble telescope.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/0....ap/index.html

Too bad this has to happen. Its supposed to be replaced by a new generation telescope around 2011, but it doesn't appear they're going to keep the Hubble up to date in the meantime.

 

[guzzler]

a sad day indeed, I think that Hubble would have provided so much more information than the ISS will ever do which is, to all intents and purposes, a useless political gesture with very small scientific return for a massive expense. The journey to mars is nothing like the journey to the moon: I don't know if anyone has seen the electron microscope pictures of the inside of one of the helmets from Apollo 16 (microscopic holes punched clean through by cosmic rays), but the astronauts would be exposed to them for at least which is the time it will take for them to get there and back, assuming that NASA doesn't decide to cut funding to them when they get there... hmmm

g

 

[Jeff Guidry]

Since the window between when the Hubble will be of no use and the new telescope will be in service is fairly short (3-4 years) I think it is best to reduce shuttle missions to a minimum. Columbia's destruction should have proved to us all that the shuttle is old tech and no longer acceptable to carry on missions. Using it as little as possible until the next generation craft is ready to go is the best way to keep astronauts alive and to continue to have faith in USA space missions. If you must weep, weep for the fact that we have not sufficiently advanced in technology to make manned space missions safer.

 

[tomek]

i really don't think there is much scientific value to be gained versus the cost of sending humans to Mars. Much like sending astronauts to the moon, I think that this probably has something to do with political motives and the emergence of a Chinese space program.

I don't know if anyone has read Carl Sagan's "Pale Blue Dot" but it had an interesting analysis of the motivations for racing to the moon.

 

[andrzejpw]

I've heard that the new telescope won't have visible light support. Can anyone confirm this?

 

[rickcr42]

i for one will lose no sleep over the hubbel

what DOES bother me is the stagnant mission staus of nasa

the shuttle was never designed for what it is being used for but rather it was designed to "shuttle' material and humans back and forth to a space station that was never built due to budget cuts

this station was to be built with the intent of being a staging area for building a lunar base and for missions to MARS !

The space station in conjunction with lunar bases where the mars vehicles would be asssembled and launched with the long range goal of putting humans on the surface of mars itself , a colony

'bout damn time we get on with it

 

[guzzler]

yep, the James Webb telescope is being set to probe in mostly the IR region, as this is the most penetrating. A lot of the space pictures you see are false colour anyway, in fact Hubble has its best resolution in the UV region, then visible then IR, so it makes scientific sense to focus more on the IR region, it really makes no difference where you look, space is still the most amazing place!

rick: the ISS has given us little progress on anything apart from spending disproportionate sums of money. Crucially, it has given little insight into the radiation dangers of space travel as it is still protected by earths magnetic field

g

 

[rickcr42]

that is why wasting the entire nasa budget on improving cell phone service or providing better tv reception pi**es me off

the shuttle mission while claiming to be doing 'research' could be better done by other methods while freeing up the craft for the purpose it was designed for-ferrying materials and manpower

and not as a travelling satellite repair service ,

while not cost effective that has never been the reason for the reaching out for exploration ever . It is and always has been about the reaching out for something-the desire to know and yes,conquer

if a thing is unknown it is our nature to know it

 

[guzzler]

Quote:

Originally posted by rickcr42 if a thing is unknown it is our nature to know it

all well and good if you can find out what it is before it kills you...

i agree that it's the desire to conquer the unknown, but there are better things to be done than sending a human to mars with limited payload. Consider that just a human being weighs about 10x the weight of Beagle 2 before you even start to worry about life support systems, food, and then on top of that you need your scientific payload... starts to add up exponentially me thinks

g

 

[MD1032]

Why the heck won't they salvage it? The thing's gotta have something is it that's usable, especially that huge mirror...what a waste.

 

[daycart1]

Yeah, I think this sucks. The manned stuff should come off only after the cheap, efficient, remote machines do their work.

 

[D-EJ915]

The Hubble's death is a byproduct of the shafting of the Shuttle program, which was outdated a LOOONG time ago, it's really expensive to put those things into orbit and repair them once they land.

 

[smokey]

D-EJ915,

That is my understanding as well, that the death of Hubble is a byproduct of the death of the shuttle program. But it does seem too bad that it'll die several years too early, and that the technology inside will be wasted. Maybe we can sell it to the Chinese and they'll keep it up.

As paranoid as I am, another thing that worries me is that they're going to let this crash back to earth as its orbit decays. It'll probably be something like that old Skylab, where a ton or two survives to impact. I sure would hate to be under it when it hits.

 

[Jeff Guidry]

Quote:

Originally posted by guzzler i agree that it's the desire to conquer the unknown, but there are better things to be done than sending a human to mars with limited payload. Consider that just a human being weighs about 10x the weight of Beagle 2 before you even start to worry about life support systems, food, and then on top of that you need your scientific payload... starts to add up exponentially me thinks g

And this is the real sticky wicket about space exploration. We can overcome any problem, eventually, but at what cost? As it stands now, it is VERY expensive to get even relatively low weight payloads out of earth's gravity. Until we have a new launch vehicle that dramatically reduces the cost of putting stuff out of the earth's gravitational grasp, we will have to rely on governments spending our tax money to make progress in space, because the cost to private enterprise is just too great right now.

 

[rickcr42]

Quote:

Why the heck won't they salvage it? The thing's gotta have something is it that's usable, especially that huge mirror...what a waste.

that "huge mirror" was a disaster from day one

it was made right here in the town i live in and was never up to spec

in fact , the shuttle had to go up numerous times just to get the damn thing to function at 75% of the original design

yeah it has performed in a limited fashion but not the envisioned manner,and cheap it was not

nope,no sleep lost here man