Bell tolls for Hubble Telescope

[Bozo Erectus]

Death knell for space telescope

Nasa is halting all space shuttle missions to service the Hubble Space Telescope - a move that will put it out of action within four years.
The shuttle craft that maintain Hubble are being retired in 2010 under the new US space goals which focus on voyages to the Moon and Mars.

"This is a sad day," said Nasa's chief scientist John Grunsfeld, but "the best thing for the space community".

Hubble has revolutionised the study of astronomy since its launch in 1990.


It has sent a steady stream of striking images of space back to Earth from its orbit.


The announcement that the telescope would be left to degrade comes as astronomers revealed details of a new image produced by Hubble of the deepest view ever of the cosmos, detecting the youngest and most distant galaxies ever seen.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3405249.stm

Is Hubble the first victim of the Bush Moon/Mars plan? So long Hubble, thanks for the great pics

 

[carlosMM]

[sarcasm]

well, no surprise there, we do not want to know too much about life, the universe and everything (might show there is no God, hu?) but rather own it all!

[/sarcasm]

 

[Tassadar]

Lets hope that the new generation space telescope(NGST) budget wont be cut, i know those project were pretty in advence. But according to your link, their futur in unclear.

If the NGST is still approve for 2011, maybe no more preventive maintenance will be reqire and so , no need for sapce shuttle. I am optimistic, space telescope may even reach interferometry technology, which will decuplate their power.

 

[Aphex_Twin]

This is sad news indeed. Sacrilege !

 

[Speedo]

It would've happened anyway with the shuttle being phased out. Not to mention how expensive the missions were.. $500 million each IIRC. And the shuttle couldn't carry enough fuel to reach the ISS in an emergency.

Sad, but it happens.

 

[Ossric]

why are you guys complaining about the costs? If you have enough many to go to Mars, surely $500 mil to fix Hubble for a few more years won't do harm..

 

[Pontiuth Pilate]

Sounds to me like this measure was overdue. It still sucks though well maybe we'll still get a year or two's worth of photos out of Hubble.

More importantly: if shuttles are being phased out, what exactly are we going to use for orbit work?

 

[Aphex_Twin]

God, Pontiuth. Now let us pray He leads the holy ISS into a proper orbit and that the angels will feed the astronauts on board. Amen...

 

[Speedo]

If you have enough many to go to Mars, surely $500 mil to fix Hubble for a few more years won't do harm..

A big part of the money for the new moon/mars programs is supposed to come when the shuttles are phased out though. (they cost about 3.5 billion a year to operate, and there are currently 3 of them)

 

[taper]

The Hubble is reaching the end of it's life anyway. The orginal plan was for it to have it's last servicing in mid 2002, which would last until it was decommissioned in 2005. www.stsci.edu/hst/HST_overview/

I don't know alot about it, but I know there's plans for a new space telescope that's even more powerful. With Hubble being the public relations power that it is, I can't imagine a new telescope not being approved.

 

[onejayhawk]

A true permanent lunar observatory would be a major step forward. The degradation of materials in space is much overlooked, but significant. Plus, radiation is a hazard to humans on a long term basis. To make a safe living area would require a wall of over 2 feet thick, IIRC, using meteoric iron as a building material.

Putting a lunar observatory up would be a compromise, but one with many advantages. You can build underground, which uses the dirt as a radiation shield, while the gravity aleviates many of the medical problems associated with zero G. Presumably local materials could be used for construction, so that only precision parts, like bearings, have to be imported.

It is long past time to start exploiting the manufacturing potential of space. Zero G has many advantages, such as undistorted bearings, subtly different chemical processes, foam techniques for glasses and metals, etc. Free access to vacuum has another range of industrial applications. Hopefully this will get us going in the right direction again.

J

 

[Archer 007]

That whole moon observatory is a good idea, but we should get rid of Hubble until such is constructed.

 

[Tassadar]

NGST cool news:http://astro.estec.esa.nl/NGST/

A small extract,

NASA, ESA and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) have since 1996 been collaborating on the definition of a Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST) to succeed the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) in 2010. NGST will have an aperture at least twice as large as that of HST and will be optimized for near infrared wavelengths (0.6-28 microns) in order to enable the exploration of the most remote high redshift universe.

A concept agreement has been reached between ESA and NASA which aims at securing European participation in NGST at a similar level as on HST. ESA's contribution to NGST was approved as a Flexi-mission within the ESA scientific programme in October 2000.

 

[blackthorn]

sad about hst.

but if they do get to replace it with that new one,thenthat'll be just fine.

I heard somewhere a while back that the folks at N.A.S.A. were working on a new type of shuttle.
I dont have a link or anything on the subject.
It seem they would still need some type of craft to keep servicing other equipment though.

 

[Aphex_Twin]

If NASA will concentrate on the Moon and Mars missions, there will be little room for another telescope. But, even if they do manage to scrape up one, with the help of the Europeans and/or Japanese, Brazilians, Chinese..., there will be a gap of 5-15 years of no "eye in the sky". Thinking in today terms, that is a pretty long time.

 

[Bozo Erectus]

I've been wondering why a private company couldnt invest in a space telescope and then make a fortune charging for its use. Private companies put commercial satelites in space all the time, why not a telescope? They really would make a fortune with it.

 

[blackthorn]

A private telescope? A good idea<except they would probably charge us to view the photo's.

 

[Aphex_Twin]

Originally posted by Dumb pothead
I've been wondering why a private company couldnt invest in a space telescope and then make a fortune charging for its use. Private companies put commercial satelites in space all the time, why not a telescope? They really would make a fortune with it.

They do that, the Ikonos satellite. It takes pictures of the Earth. However, a space telescope would be way to expensice (over $2,3 bn. US)

 

[Singularity]

The last I heard about next generation telescope was that they'll put it out on the lagrange point beyone earths orbit. They will probably have to launch it with the biggest badass rocket out there. And once it's up there it will be zero maintenance on it since it's so far from earth.

The reason for this is that it will yield optimal viewing conditioins without interference from direct sunlight at it's permanent location in earths shadow. I even heard rumours that it will be able to penetrate the outer rim of close starsystems enabling us to see planets... Edit: It will only be able to see gas giants, terrestial planets like earth will be visible with another NASA project the Terrestial Planet Finder.

I can't see what rocket will carry it there though if it's twice the size of hubble.

Edit:
Found some information about the James Webb Space Telescope , and it's location at the L2 lagrange point. The proposed launch vehicle is the Ariane 5 rocket.

The telescope has less mass than hubble, but the new berryllium material and manufacturing method in the mirror allow it to have twice the diameter of hubbles primary mirror.

If they push the throttle on the JWST project and get lucky with Hubbles staying power we will hopefully see a very short period between the two telescopes.

 

[Tassadar]

Singularity,

I think there is an optical interferometer project also, isnt it ? I remember i read that in a scientific review, La Recherche or science et vie.

If we can achieve optical space telescope interferometer, then i think , we will be able to see earth like planet.