This website is kept for archival purposes only and is no longer updated.
 | |
| ||||| Saturday, March 02, 2002 - 12:01 pm I have just glanced over the FAQ page for this site and was pleased to see that NASA has not only included quantities in metric units, they have sometimes given them first. For example, under "What Does Hubble weigh and how big is it?" they give its weight (mass to physicists and engineers), length, and diameter in kilograms and meters, respectively. Equivalents in pounds and feet are given in parentheses. Under "How fast does Hubble travel?" they give the speed in "mi/hr" and in "km/hr". Unfortunately, they don't have the metric symbols quite right. That should be "km/h". The symbol for "hour" is "h" in the modern metric system (the SI). It would also be nice if they followed the globally common practice of separating large numbers into groups of three by using spaces. However, these are small nits compared to NASA's previous practice of excluding metric units in their materials. Under "How high up is Hubble?" they give the altitude in nautical miles, statute miles, and kilometers. Hat's off to you, NASA, for improving in your public use of the metric system! And thank you from one who uses NASA materials in the classroom -- but only when they are metric! J.R. Frysinger, CAMS Dept. of Physics and Astronomy College of Charleston Charleston, SC 29424 http://www.cofc.edu/~frysingj | |
| ||||| Saturday, March 02, 2002 - 07:18 pm where do you dump old/replace equipment from Hubble ? is it in Space or bring those back to home then dump it in Sea. | |
| ||||| Saturday, March 02, 2002 - 07:43 pm Everything removed from HST is stowed in the orbiter and brought back. In some cases (like Wide-Field Camera 3) parts may be reused. The most notable exception to this was during the first servicing mission. One of the old solar arrays would not retract and was impossible to stow. It was released into orbit and eventually burned up. | |
| ||||| Sunday, March 03, 2002 - 09:36 am A lot of equipment is also stowed in our cleanroom back at Goddard Space Flight Center. Also, the Reaction Wheel Assembly from the second mission was stored at the Smithsonian Institute in DC. | |
| |
