On Saturday, October 1, 2022 at 7:31:40 PM UTC-6, RichA wrote:
> Compared to the squandered money used for the ISS, this seems to be a good
> idea.
>
> https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-63084707

It's interesting that the article noted that while servicing, as well as boosting into
a higher orbit, was possible, the servicing could not match in complexity the
Shuttle missions of the past.
If it was possible to build the Space Shuttle in the past, then clearly we have the
technology to build something as good or better today. Of course, aside from the
fatal accidents involving the Shuttle, it was controversial in its day as being overly
expensive because it was designed largely to serve military uses.
So it was the perfect vehicle to create a boondoggle like the ISS, but it was not
particularly useful for going to the Moon or Mars. So not starting a program to
build an updated Shuttle just to have more servicing capability for Hubble is
probably the right decision.

John Savard

On Sun, 2 Oct 2022 02:43:01 -0700 (PDT), Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca>
wrote:

>On Saturday, October 1, 2022 at 7:31:40 PM UTC-6, RichA wrote:
>> Compared to the squandered money used for the ISS, this seems to be a good
>> idea.
>>
>> https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-63084707
>
>It's interesting that the article noted that while servicing, as well as boosting into
>a higher orbit, was possible, the servicing could not match in complexity the
>Shuttle missions of the past.
>If it was possible to build the Space Shuttle in the past, then clearly we have the
>technology to build something as good or better today. Of course, aside from the
>fatal accidents involving the Shuttle, it was controversial in its day as being overly
>expensive because it was designed largely to serve military uses.
>So it was the perfect vehicle to create a boondoggle like the ISS, but it was not
>particularly useful for going to the Moon or Mars. So not starting a program to
>build an updated Shuttle just to have more servicing capability for Hubble is
>probably the right decision.

I think the future of space telescopes involves building more of them,
and for a lot less. We could probably build ten telescopes similar to
Hubble for a few hundred million dollars if we used modern tools and
technology, and those could be launched by upcoming private heavy
launch vehicles for 1% of traditional launch costs.

A huge part of the development costs for most missions these days
comes from demanding extremely high reliability. In many cases, we'd
be better off accepting a 5% failure rate and just putting up multiple
instruments.

On Sunday, October 2, 2022 at 5:43:03 AM UTC-4, Quadibloc wrote:
> On Saturday, October 1, 2022 at 7:31:40 PM UTC-6, RichA wrote:
> > Compared to the squandered money used for the ISS, this seems to be a good
> > idea.
> >
> > https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-63084707
> It's interesting that the article noted that while servicing, as well as boosting into
> a higher orbit, was possible, the servicing could not match in complexity the
> Shuttle missions of the past.
> If it was possible to build the Space Shuttle in the past, then clearly we have the
> technology to build something as good or better today. Of course, aside from the
> fatal accidents involving the Shuttle, it was controversial in its day as being overly
> expensive because it was designed largely to serve military uses.
> So it was the perfect vehicle to create a boondoggle like the ISS, but it was not
> particularly useful for going to the Moon or Mars. So not starting a program to
> build an updated Shuttle just to have more servicing capability for Hubble is
> probably the right decision.

The Shuttle and the HST were both thought up back in the days when liberals were complaining about how much one-use, expendable equipment was costing. They didn't even like space-stuff in the first place.

So NASA/congress came up with equipment that was so complicated that it actually cost MORE to build and operate. The idea that one might send up a two-meter telescope and not have any way to adjust or repair it, was unthinkable back then.

So if you wanted a large space telescope or space station, why, you had to build a space-faring cargo plane to take it up and maybe even bring it back.

Basically the HST was a cheap optical tube assembly that needed new cameras and gyros from time to time.