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| clooney | ||||| Friday, March 08, 2002 - 10:04 am
I dont really understand what this mission is good for, what exactly are they doing up there. It seems dangerous to me.
Julia |
| Scott | ||||| Friday, March 08, 2002 - 12:51 pm
This mission is to upgrade the Hubble telescope to provide better science than it has in the past. Whether this is a worthy goal is something that might be debated. I think it is, but then again I'm probably not in the majority.
It is definitely true that it is dangerous, but so are a lot of other jobs. For instance, an electrician can easily be killed if he is not well trained and does not take precautions when working with high voltage. The astronauts, just like an electrician, are well trained and take a lot of precautions so that the danger is minimized. |
| Dick Hicks | ||||| Friday, March 08, 2002 - 02:36 pm
This mission is about the viability of the reuse of existing assets. Most satellites are launched into orbit, work well for a short or long time depending on the failure modes, and are terminated, or replaced with newer assets. From the beginning, Hubble was designed for servicing in mind. Without the servicablity of Hubble, when it was originally launched in 1990 it would have been declared a failure because of a spherical aberration in the primary mirror. All of the great Hubble discoveries were only possible because that problem was solved during SM1 in 1992 with the incorporation of corrective optics. Since that time we had SM2 in 1996 and SM3A in 1999. Each of these missions were planned and executed in a safe manner with the end result being a Hubble Telescope in orbit that has more light gathering capability than any telescope on earth, it is healthier now than at any time in it's 12 year lifetime, and whether they like it or not, Hubble is good for NASA public relations. Hooray for Hubble and thank you NASA forefathers for your vision and persistence in believing in servicing, before it was proven. |
| Scott | ||||| Friday, March 08, 2002 - 02:50 pm
I don't believe that this particular mission "is about the viability of the reuse of existing assets." That has been proven for the reasons you stated in past missions. This mission is truly about the science. ACS will greatly enhance the science capability of the Hubble Telescope. |
| Dave | ||||| Saturday, March 09, 2002 - 04:08 am
I'd like to raise one minor quibble with Dick Hicks' comment: Hubble did much useful and unique science between deployment and SM1. Hubble has two advantages over ground-based telescope, high resolution and UV sensitivity out to Lyman alpha. The optical problem only removed one of those advantages.
"Viability of the reuse of existing assets"?! Aren't you the guy who was complaining elsewhere on this board that "NASA can even make space flight boring"? |
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