Hubble Camera Shuts Down 106
Maggie McKee writes "Hubble's main camera is offline again, but the problem does not appear to be with its power supply, like it was this summer. This time, the issue seems to be the electronics on the sharpest of its three camera-like channels, the High Resolution Channel. NASA says the worst-case scenario is that the ACS could lose half the channel's field of view, so it would take longer to observe its targets. If the problems are truly unrelated, it's been an especially unlucky few months for this instrument!"
Somebody set up us the bomb! (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:This time, its the Americans... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Besides which, all America seems to do these days is terrorise other countries, so I'd like some recent and current defensive banter for the place...
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What utter bull crap. Try reading about the Lend Lease [wikipedia.org] act. The USA funded a HUGE portion of the Allies war programs including Russia. If the USA did not do this Russia would have fallen.
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Ok. Ok. Just kidding.
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From that wikipedia article...
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As a soldier, your job is to make "the enemy" die for his country. Any advantage you have, you take it. Otherwise, the other soldier achieves his job.
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Stupid nationalism (Score:4, Interesting)
Seriously, people... Who cares what country they come from? Space exploration is ultimately the achievement of the people who are involved with it, not most Slashdotters, politicians, or others who just happen to be from the same arbitrary zone of political union.
If the only things you can be proud of are things that you in no way actually caused, then you need to re-evaluate your self-worth [thebestpag...iverse.net].
Now, BAG MY GROCERIES!
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I think NASA is hiding something... (Score:5, Funny)
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Must be out of warranty (Score:2)
Is that on the antenna mounting? (Score:2, Funny)
I'm not sure, but my Fault Prediction Center reports that the AE-35 unit may fail within seventy-two hours.
"Do0d I am so stOned", said Hubble (Score:2, Funny)
cue the shuttle enthusiasts (Score:5, Insightful)
When you do though, ask a simple reality check question. With shuttle trips running on the order of a billion dollars these days, what will generate more actual scientific data? Squander those kind of funds on a rocket ride to fix the aging hubble, or, invest half of it in modern ground based observing infrastructure, then take the other half and feed it into the scientific welfare system known as grants over a period of 20 years.
Re:cue the shuttle enthusiasts (Score:4, Informative)
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Booooooring. Unless there are astronauts involved, you won't get anyone's
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Should read "Unless there are astronauts involved, and unless something terrible may happen to them, you won't get anyone's attention.
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Modern ground based observing infrastructure... we've already got that, don't we? With adaptive optics or interferometry, Keck can g
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Even at the size of a schoolbus, a properly designed replacement satellite would still be a whole lot lighter than the shuttle, and safer in that you won't be launching people in it to go out in a space suit to conduct maintenance and
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Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_program
Anyway, the cost of the Hubble was $1.5B at time of launch (excluding al
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Then again, you'd also have to figure that they can update/improve many parts of the replacement satellite that they can't do with the old satellite.
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Further, HST has made many observations that are simply not possible from the ground, even with 8m-class telescope and adaptive optics (which are notoriously difficult to get working). E.g. observing in the UV is simply not possible from ground-based telescopes.
Re:cue the shuttle enthusiasts (Score:5, Informative)
Spending on Hubble - absolutely no question. Ground based infrastructure (no matter how modern) cannot;
No matter how much you spend you cannot overcome the first two limitations, and third is still somewhere in the misty future. To some extent, more ground infrastructure (though we can always use more) is just 'more of the same'. Hubble is unique. (And don't bring up the JWST - it 'sees' in different wavelengths than Hubble.) No amount of money can change the laws of physics.
Having said that last - I just *know* somebody will pipe up with 'but how do we know there is not some undiscovered principle'. How? This is 2006 - not 1806 or even 1906. These things have been intensively studied - and no principle exists to make the atmosphere transparent to UV. None. Not now, not ever. The same goes for extremely faint objects - barring intervention from Harry Potter the atmosphere isn't going to become less turbulent and more transparent.
Re:cue the shuttle enthusiasts (Score:5, Funny)
We could start using CFC's [wikipedia.org] again...
Lasers? (Score:1)
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There are good reasons to do a new, cheap telescope. I think I would rather see a new duplicate telescope (with different instruments) launched every 5 years rather than
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Back on topic (Score:2, Informative)
Like the article says, its not that big a deal until we know if this malfunction is fixable. From TFA:
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OK, OK, our first attempt at a radio-controlled robotic orbital space telescope should have been MUCH more reliable.
"The amazing thing about a dancing bear is not how well it dances, but that it dances at all."
But yeah, it's a pain it doesn't send us more cool pictures
Solar Flare up? (Score:1)
How much could we learn? (Score:5, Interesting)
The Mars rovers and Hubble have been absolute bargains as far as new knowledge gained. That seems like the right model to follow.
-S
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In my oppinion interstellar travel for humans lives or dies foremost with the success of theoretic physics finding an effecient way of getting from A to B in space.
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I completely agree with you though
If they decide to fix it (Score:2)
Re:If they decide to fix it (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think that would be feasible. The shuttle can't just zip around to multiple different orbital rendezvous over the course of a single mission. I haven't been able to find any info, but I'm doubting very much that Hubble and the ISS are even remotely "on the way" to each other. Not to mention that the shuttle will be using much of its payload capacity to build the station and burning some of its limited orbital-manuevering fuel to correct the ISS's orbit. There's probably not enough room or enough in the tanks. (Hubble needs orbit correction too, as well as new gyroscopes in addition to this recent camera failure--no telling what that'll entail.) Even if they're close in orbital rendezvous terms, the shuttle would still probably have to fly a dedicated mission to fix hubble. Not gonna happen.
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ISS and Hubble are mutually exclusive destinations.
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That is correct. Originally, in the aftermath of Columbia the answer was "far too risky, not a chance." NASA's previous administrator O'Keefe left standing orders that there would be no more shuttle missions that couldn't stop at the ISS . . . which ruled out just about everything that wasn't an ISS construction/resupply mission. Griffin's more open to the idea . . . but I'm
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http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0512/05hubbleserv
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It couldn't possibly (Score:1)
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Hubble Origins Probe (Score:3, Interesting)
http://www.pha.jhu.edu/hop/ [jhu.edu]
It's not that hard people. Call your senators and ask them why in the hell this isn't already in orbit.
Here we go.. (Score:1)
Worst case scenario (Score:1)
This is no where near the worst case scenario [imdb.com]
Maybe.... (Score:1)
feh. where's my robot army?! (Score:1)