[Coco] Re: off-topic, space program

[Lawrence Weeks]

Once upon a time (Sat Jan 17), Neil Morrison wrote:

> I just heard on the news part of the reason for the announcement.
> Apparently the idea is to abandon the Hubble telescope now before
> it's time runs out, but why Bush and his friends want to do this
> still escapes me.

Once upon a time (Sat Jan 17), Roger Taylor wrote:

> I wasn't aware that the Hubble had an expiration date on it... makes
> no sense at all.

Hubble has no expiration date. Hubble does, however, have gyroscopes
which are known to fail. Two of six are now dead, and it must have
three in order to maintain orientation and operate properly. Odds are,
two more will die before Hubble's replacement is launched, leaving a
gap where there will be no operational space-based telescope. However,
as the new Webb telescope is scheduled to go up around 2010, the gap
shouldn't be much.

Now, despite those who would simplistically blame Bush the Evil(tm)
for this (and much else), the writing has been on the wall, even
before the Columbia disaster. NASA had committed to this fourth Hubble
Service Mission (SM4), but resisted pleas from the science community
to schedule a fifth mission to extend Hubble out beyond 2010. Rather,
they planned to let it die naturally after SM4. NASA didn't want to
spend the money (Shuttle launches are rather expensive) to extend
Hubble's life, when that would likely overlap Webb.

After Columbia, the Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) strongly
recommended that for safety reasons, NASA only send the shuttle into
orbit when the orbit is compatible with docking at the ISS. The Hubble
is not in such an orbit. Therefore, going to Hubble would require,
in order to meet CAIB recommendations which are basically requirements
politically, the means to do extravehicular damage analysis and repair.

Since Bush has actually given NASA a mission again beyond being a low
orbit trucking company servicing the ISS, and has directed that the
Shuttle be used to complete the ISS and then be retired, the new NASA
director made the decision that we could not justify the possibility of
losing another shuttle and crew in order to wring some more life out
of Hubble, when a replacement is scheduled for launch rather soon. My
understanding is that the director made this decision on his own, and
considering Bush the Evil(tm)'s hands-off style, I strongly doubt he
did more than agree with the decision, if he even got involved at all.

Hopefully the two science instruments scheduled for installation
during SM4 will be able to fitted to Webb or another orbital platform.

Larry
-- 
Lawrence Weeks                                    lweeks at anabasis.net
Anabasis Consulting Ltd