Comments on: Hubble’s impact

By: The Hubble keeps eating dollars « An American Lion

The Hubble keeps eating dollars « An American Lion — Thu, 14 May 2009 12:36:55 +0000

[...] Isn’t Maryland Senator Barbara Mikulski responsible for this boondoggle? Is this really a wise allocation of money and resources? I am a man of science, and I support the space program. But if you do any thinking on this matter, you come away with a conclusion that a good idea went astray because someone figured out that it was a cash cow: [...]

By: Irishman

Irishman — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 16:26:12 +0000

Dagger said:
>In 1993 Endeavour launched to fix the problems with Hubble’s vision, amongst other things. This mission was one of the most complicated missions ever attempted and the wealth of knowledge from that mission has yet to be exceeded. No doubt it cost enormous sums of money to fix those issues, but we learned more about operating in space from that single mission than any previous or subsequent mission launched.

I think you are overstating. I know the original Hubble repair was significant, but not to the degree you state. First off, Hubble was designed from the ground up to be servicable with Shuttle. Tools were developed specifically for use with Hubble from the Shuttle. The repair in question was not quite within the original planned scope, but it wasn’t out of the ballpark, either. Yes, STS-61 was a big step in oribital EVA activity, though lunar EVAs had already reached those amounts of hours (lengths per EVA and repetition over days). Subsequent EVAs have included Intelsat recapture (3 person EVA, grab by hand, not tool), and ISS assembly and maintenance, including EVAs without Shuttle support (relying on SAFER as the backup safety device).

Though the upcoming Hubble servicing mission does have some new challenges.

SnakeHandler said:
> It was also a maintenance nightmare, plagued with problems, and generally a typical bad, grossly expensive design of the shuttle area.

That is an inaccurate and unfair description.

> The fact that the shuttle is the only way the thing could have been maintained worries me no end — risking lives for hubble is not worth it.

Lives get risked for a lot of things. People risk their lives to go to the mall. It is important to consider the amount of risk against the payoff.

True, for Hubble to be serviced, Shuttle is the only existing choice. True, an alternate plan could have been chosen that didn’t consider maintenance and servicing. It’s even arguable that given the launch costs of Shuttle, it would have been cheaper to make several Hubbles and launch them sequentially rather than try to reuse/upgrade the existing hardware. But given the existing design, it makes a lot of sense to complete the already planned mission to reservice and upgrade again, and this time prep for future controlled reentry that makes for a safer end of mission.

By: One Era in Astronomy | The Compleat Stargazer

One Era in Astronomy | The Compleat Stargazer — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 18:11:36 +0000

[...] Hubble’s impact Share and Enjoy: [...]

By: Dave Hall

Dave Hall — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 05:02:31 +0000

All praise of Hubble aside, as a person old enouth to remember the return of Skylab, I see the words “Hubble” and “Impact” and I reach for my hardhat.

By: Cmajor7

Cmajor7 — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 22:58:51 +0000

I can’t believe we’d even debate the value of Hubble. I believe Phil, et al, are overthinking this a bit. The Hubble, as a government-funded endeavor, is going to cost more than it should. We’re all grownups and we all recognize that, right?

And because Hubble is taxpayer-funded, it’ll also be politicized. To tell you the truth, I couldn’t care less about some random astronomer’s career. It seems to me that if careerism ever raised its ugly head around the use and abuse of Hubble, that’s the astronomers’ problem, or, at most, astronomy’s problem, not mine as a taxpayer or as a “consumer” of the science they produce.

By: J. D. Mack

J. D. Mack — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 16:45:35 +0000

A few people have mentioned the Ultra Deep Field photos. I have one of those photos as my computer wallpaper and as a poster on my wall. I ponder its significance often. The universe is not merely huge, it’s inconceivably huge! When a person of faith suggests that the odds of life arising through chance is astronomically small (pick some odds – how about 10 trillion to 1?), I just point to that picture and say “you do the math.”

J. D.

By: Charles

Charles — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 13:03:43 +0000

I know that construction and engineering are not considered science on earth. But those activities will surely impact space science in years to come.

Amen, Don…and scientists are some of the worst of the worst where that is concerned. They just take it for granted.

A professional astronomer asked me last night what was the whole fuss about returning to the moon and I asked him in return why he even bothered looking into the sky.