Scrap the Hubble?

For every spacecraft there comes a moment when its keepers must ask “is it time to shut this thing down and move on?” Sometimes the question answers itself, as when the hardware fails in space, the data stream drops out and there’s no way to recover it. Sometimes the answer hangs on a cost/benefit calculation – “are we still getting our money’s worth here?”

Colleen Hartman, deputy associate NASA administrator for science, compares it to deciding when it’s time to get a new car or keep the old one running. “You are going to come to the point where getting a new car is the right thing to do,” she says. But Hartman is referring to the Hubble Space Telescope, and the possibility that it can be kept running even after the space shuttle fleet is grounded for good in 2010.

Next year’s “final” Hubble servicing mission will leave behind a docking device that can be used either to attach a deorbit motor, or to dock some future human spacecraft for yet more maintenance and upgrades. NASA has no plans for the latter approach. Instead, says Matt Mountain, director of the Space Telescope Science Institute that manages use of the Hubble, “it’s done an amazing job, but there are other great things we need to do.”

Ultimately, the decision will be made by the scientists who put together the decadal survey for astrophysics due out in 2010, setting research priorities for the decade of the 20-teens. Just this week scientists have released new Hubble data with evidence that mysterious “dark matter” exists in the Universe. But can a 17-year-old instrument keep delivering new discoveries, or should it be scrapped for something newer? What do you think?

--Frank Morring, Jr.

Comments

[stargazer777]

I agree that we are probably at the point of no return regarding additional repairs to the Hubble Telescope. It's age and the wear and tear on major components to the telescope that cannot be repaired dictate that it is approaching the end of its usable service life. With this in mind it is worth thinking about the design of future space observatories.

I realize that Hubble's successor is not designed to be repaired and apparently has no astronaut "fixable" components. However, apparently someone has had second thoughts on this approach and we are now informed that a mechanism that would enable an Orion spacecraft to dock with the JWST has been added to telescope. It seems that they now believe there are some "simple" large scale repairs that astronauts could perform on the JWST if it became necessary. (http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/070523_techwed_jwst
_dock.html)

I would hope that all future space telescopes will be designed to permit space based repairs and improvements. I think, hope, and believe that human presence in space is here to stay. In view of that, I believe it is a gross misjudgment for America to design its massively expensive space observatories in a way that does not permit astronauts to service them in space. Hubble's "near death experience" following discovery of major flaws in its optics after launch and its miraculous recovery after the daring repair mission should have provided an irrefutable argument in favor of designing serviceability into every future space telescope. Apparently someone wasn't paying attention at NASA.

Despite the best efforts of NASA and its contractors, mistakes happen and there are countless examples of satellites and space probes that have failed or been crippled because of them. Virtually all of those errors manifested themselves far beyond any possibility of human intervention or repair. That is not the case with orbital or near-Earth observatories. Space telescopes and other future instruments and facilities in space are simply too important this nation and to all mankind to risk loss of the entire mission for anything short of a catastrophic failure. With a permanent human presence in space we can and we must move beyond the throw away mentality for high value space instruments and facilities. Too much is riding on the success of our space faring society for us to fail to make these arrangements.

[vibram five fingers]

I realize that Hubble's successor is not designed to be repaired and apparently has no astronaut "fixable" components.

[vibram five fingers]

when the hardware fails in space, the data stream drops out and there’s no way to recover it.