The Hubble Telescope

[42Knight]

Can somebody explain why we couldn't just put that
thing in a permanent mount on the moon? or into a parking
orbit? Guess I just can't see something useful being thrown away.

 

[R1]

If it was not designed to be on the moon, I suppose it could at least be put in a lunar lagrangian
semi-eternal orbit. Or is it actually still within VanAllen's belt? If so, then its design may not allow it to
operate for so long outside the VA belts. (?)

 

[scottb50]

If it was not designed to be on the moon, I suppose it could at least be put in a lunar lagrangian
semi-eternal orbit. Or is it actually still within VanAllen's belt? If so, then its design may not allow it to
operate for so long outside the VA belts. (?)

I would think it better to build a newer telescope, with advanced capabilities and put it on the moon or in a long-term orbit. Hubble has been out there a long time and the technology is pretty dated. The latest upgrades will increase output for a fairly long time and, maybe, further upgrades might be possible with emerging programs such as Dragon.

The biggest problem is advances in land based telescopes makes them pretty much equal to Hubble and a lot cheaper to build, operate and repair. The next advance will probably be moon based and of a vastly greater scale then anything we have now.

 

[docm]

What ground-based scopes cannot do are observations at wavelength shielded by Earths atmosphere - infrared for example. This is where the James Webb Space Telescope is needed; huge and placed at L2, one of those gravity wells.

Funny you should mention Dragon since they're now talking about Dragon crew and DragonLab having a manipulator arm.

If a beyond LEO version of Dragon gets built, and IMO that is SpaceX's goal and a Falcon 9 Heavy H (+ Raptor LH2 2nd stage) sure looks to be a beyond-LEO mission launcher, it could be an option for L2 repair missions.

 

[cosmictraveler]

Can somebody explain why we couldn't just put that
thing in a permanent mount on the moon? or into a parking
orbit? Guess I just can't see something useful being thrown away.

As with ANY mechanical/electrical device it wears out, debris hit it and all sorts of things change. That is why other space telescopes like the Spitzer were put into orbit to improve the quality of Hubble. Take a look for yourself.

http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/

The James Webb, as was mentioned, will be put into space soon as well.

http://www.jwst.nasa.gov/

 

[CalliArcale]

What they said. As wonderful as Hubble is, it's not immortal. Without regular servicing, it's only a matter of time before it fails. Given that, is it worth the cost of developing a system which will capture it and boost it to a new orbit? Or would the money be better spent on building more space telescopes? I'm inclined to favor the latter, as much as I tend to be sentimental about Hubble.

 

[docm]

It's long been my opinion that with the very high cost of doing the Hubble repair missions it should have been retired years ago and the money put into enhancing/accelerating JWST and an array of smaller telescopes to be used as large baseline optical and infrared interferometers.

 

[crazyeddie]

The refurbished Hubble is producing some spectacular new photographs:

 

[Shpaget]

I like Hubble.
No. I love Hubble.
I even like the name "Hubble". Reminds me of "bubble". Bubbles are pretty.
:lol:


On topic...
Hubble probably wouldn't survive the (very expensive) moon landing mission and even if it does it is not designed to operate under gravity.

I'm afraid it's time is near. Soon the day will come when a critical component will fail and it won't be repairable.
I don't like the idea of burning it in the atmosphere, though.
Why not just leave it up there until we develop technology that will either bring it down here in one piece so it can rust behind a thick bulletproof glass in a museum, or even better, build a museum up there. Is there better place for a Space Museum than space itself? Hubble could be one of it's most valuable items.
I know there won't be a space-floating museum any time soon, but there is no reason why we shouldn't just keep Hubble up there until there is one.

Lots of people automatically think of Hubble when they hear "space telescope". Why? It's not the first space telescope, it's now the most powerful, it's not the most expensive. Does it even hold one record? Except for making the most beautiful pictures?
Somehow it's almost a synonym for space telescopes.

NASA people, please don't burn it. Keep it up there as long as possible.
It is legacy.

 

[cosmictraveler]

Does it even hold one record?

Please read here about some of its accomplishments:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubbl ... index.html

 

[Shpaget]

Of course it discovered something. It wouldn't be still operational if it was a complete failure (which it was at first :lol: ).
But would you call it the most important (space) telescope or the best?
It's just the most famous one, since it had phoenix-like history (first extraordinary expectations from it, then its perfectly faulty mirror, and finally miraculous repair of if) which of course got him incredible amount of publicity.
Other than that, IMO it's not that superior.

 

[SpeedFreek]

But would you call it the most important (space) telescope or the best?

Yes, as it has provided us with the most important image, ever.

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap040309.html

http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/sta ... e_UDF.html

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQhaKVifhjI[/youtube]

If you hold a 1mm square piece of paper at arms length, it would cover up all 10,000 galaxies in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field. All this is in an area of space that was considered almost empty, before they got the Hubble Telescope to stare at this region for 3 months!

 

[Shpaget]

I believe you misunderstood me. I'm not trying to say that Hubble is unimportant, or that it's role is insignificant, I'm just saying that it seems that its fame is not proportional to its achievements.
Just because it made some of the most beautiful pictures ever made (in visible light) it doesn't mean that other telescopes (space or ground) are not important and you can't hear much about any of other 98 (counting past, present and future space telescopes) of them, except maybe JWST, and sometimes Chandra if you tune your ears to space talk.

Ultra Deep Field is remarkable, but is it the deepest look ever (not restricted only to visible light)?
BTW, I have a large (A1 format) calendar with nothing but Hubbles pictures, and pictures of Hubble, hanging on the wall right now

 

[Testing]

It's long been my opinion that with the very high cost of doing the Hubble repair missions it should have been retired years ago and the money put into enhancing/accelerating JWST and an array of smaller telescopes to be used as large baseline optical and infrared interferometers.

So you want to accelerate the program. Lets take a small example. Design, build, qualify, test and deliver several small, low power consumption linear actuators for the secondary mirror of an Infrared telescope. Stability and repeatability is measured with a laser interferometer in a vacuum. Survival is 20K. Operational is 22-26K. A temperature Delta of 0.010K screws up the test data. Go ahead, give it a try. Do it in less than three years and I'll hand you a thousand dollars from my pocket.

 

[R1]

The refurbished Hubble is producing some spectacular new photographs:

Are there some before-and-after sets so people can see the difference ?
I mean, without the refurbishment mission, what did the same object look like ?
I understand that they're spectacular, but they were all spectacular before, to begin with.

 

[R1]

Ok, before and after photos are beginning to pop up everywhere.

I think here is one:

 

[dragon04]

It's long been my opinion that with the very high cost of doing the Hubble repair missions it should have been retired years ago and the money put into enhancing/accelerating JWST and an array of smaller telescopes to be used as large baseline optical and infrared interferometers.

I agree. docm. With the money we've spent on repair missions to Hubble, we could have built and deployed JWST and half a dozen other telescopes/sensing devices. IN particular, I personally feel that Hubble has cost us spaced-based interferometry in my lifetime.

That's what Congress (and allegedly The People) wanted though. Americans will bankrupt themselves every time keeping an "Old Girl" alive rather than buying a new, better one and saving money to boot. That said, and notwithstanding, Hubble is a great piece of machinery and has been of great value to science. We've spent money on far worse.

 

[R1]

...wha
? And Bush the republican at the wheel could not veto the expense and allow dragon to live long and prosper enough to see interferometry, I
suppose.

 

[ZenGalacticore]

Hubble is great and it has changed our view of the universe and ourselves, and it was well worth fixing and upgrading.

You guys should be happy about ANYTHING that gets the general public interested in astronomy. If it takes HD photos of galaxies and quasars in deep space fields, or HD exposures of closer galaxies and other objects to get people interested, then so be it.