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That solves nothing, without maintenance space-based telescopes will run out of consumables (cryogenics to cool the sensors, etc) or their orbits will eventuall

by paulmd 6y ago

That solves nothing, without maintenance space-based telescopes will run out of consumables (cryogenics to cool the sensors, etc) or their orbits will eventually decay, or they will eventually need hands-on maintenance. Nothing lasts forever, even in space.

toomuchtodo 6y ago
Hubble has been operational for about 30 years. An observatory needs to last only for its expected lifetime, until its successor arrives in orbit. One would expect to be lifting newer, improved platforms to orbit on a brisk cadence as the cost of launch continues to decline.
- paulmd 6y ago
  and in that time it's required four servicing missions - which require someone to pay for them, you know. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Space_Telescope#Servicing_missions_and_new_instruments https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Space_Telescope#Servici... sending up shorter-lived observatories which are disposed of after a fixed lifespan is fine, that's already the model for stuff like lagrange observatories, those are obviously never going to get a shuttle servicing crew. but it doesn't fix the overall problem that science doesn't get funded on an ongoing basis, if there isn't funding then there will never be any followup missions with disposable observatives either, it will just be the one short-term mission and that's it, we're done. again, you haven't actually solved the problem that science costs money and someone has to pay for it, whether you're operating on a model of servicing a high-end expensive instrument or a repeated missions with disposable ones, and whether it's terrestrial or space-based one. someone has to pay to replace the space-based disposable instrument if you want to continue that capability, the problem is nobody will want to pay for the next mission just like nobody wanted to pay to maintain Arecibo. if you can come up with some way to guarantee ongoing funding for disposable missions then congrats, please let the world know, we can apply that same thing to enduring scientific instruments too. shouting 'disposable missions!' alone isn't a plausible solution for the actual problem here, it's just spacex fetishism. Cheap launches are great but it doesn't solve the problem of funding - someone still has to buy a new instrument and pay to launch it. Moreover missions will naturally evolve to fit the available launch capacity and expenses. when launch capability is cheap, you will get bigger and more sensitive systems that cost more to build and launch. That's a good thing, in the birds-eye view that will be missions with greater scientific capabilities than we could reasonably mount today, but just cheap launch capacity isn't going to magically drive costs to zero, except for some fixed-capacity 'today mission' which will eventually be of no scientific value. Onwards and upwards is the name of the game.
- freeone3000 6y ago
  Hubble has had 4 servicing missions, each of which cost an entire shuttle launch. Hubble is extremely expensive to service -- and it's currently running with two broken gyroscopes, since there's no shuttle to service it and nobody has the budget to do a SpaceX launch to fix it when it's "working fine". JWST, its replacement, has been in a warehouse for thirty years. "In space" doesn't fix any of the problems!
  - privong 6y ago
    > JWST, its replacement, has been in a warehouse for thirty years JWST development was started in 1996 (25 years ago), so it can't have been in a warehouse for 30 years. The detailed design phase was ongoing in 2007 and assembly of the primary mirror was only completed in 2016 (dates from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Webb_Space_Telescope https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Webb_Space_Telescope). Perhaps you're thinking of the National Reconnaissance Office telescopes that were offered to NASA in 2012 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_National_Reconnaissance_Office_space_telescope_donation_to_NASA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_National_Reconnaissance_O...)? Those are similar telescopes to Hubble in some ways, and one is being used for the WFIRST mission. Despite sometimes being billed as such, JWST can only be partly considered a replacement for HST. HST has ultraviolet observing capabilities (wavelengths a short as ~90nm), while JWST observes primarily in the infrared, with some capability to wavelengths of 600nm. There's some overlap (in the 600nm-1600nm range), but JWST can observe out to about 28,000nm (28micron) wavelengths. The JWST wavelength range is perhaps more comparable to that of the Spitzer Space Telescope (particularly the IRAC and IRS instruments, covering 3.5-40microns; MIPS covered out to 160microns). The LUVOIR concept (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Ultraviolet_Optical_Infrared_Surveyor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Ultraviolet_Optical_Infr...) would probably have the better claim to being an HST successor, given its proposed UV capabilities.
- TylerE 6y ago
  Hubble cost $5B to launch, and has racked up another $5B in ongoing costs sense. Aricebo cost $9.3m ($80m inflation adjusted), had had an annual operating budget of $12m. In other words, you could fund 100 Ariceobs for 1 Hubble.
- pengaru 6y ago
  Hubble is not supporting your case one iota.
  - toomuchtodo 6y ago
    SpaceX, StarLink, Relativity Space, and Planet Labs would be better examples I suppose. The odds of space technologies getting cheaper versus more expensive is pretty good imho, including remote sensing and observatories.

by paulmd 6y ago

toomuchtodo 6y ago

Hubble has been operational for about 30 years. An observatory needs to last only for its expected lifetime, until its successor arrives in orbit. One would expect to be lifting newer, improved platforms to orbit on a brisk cadence as the cost of launch continues to decline.

paulmd 6y ago
and in that time it's required four servicing missions - which require someone to pay for them, you know. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Space_Telescope#Servicing_missions_and_new_instruments https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Space_Telescope#Servici... sending up shorter-lived observatories which are disposed of after a fixed lifespan is fine, that's already the model for stuff like lagrange observatories, those are obviously never going to get a shuttle servicing crew. but it doesn't fix the overall problem that science doesn't get funded on an ongoing basis, if there isn't funding then there will never be any followup missions with disposable observatives either, it will just be the one short-term mission and that's it, we're done. again, you haven't actually solved the problem that science costs money and someone has to pay for it, whether you're operating on a model of servicing a high-end expensive instrument or a repeated missions with disposable ones, and whether it's terrestrial or space-based one. someone has to pay to replace the space-based disposable instrument if you want to continue that capability, the problem is nobody will want to pay for the next mission just like nobody wanted to pay to maintain Arecibo. if you can come up with some way to guarantee ongoing funding for disposable missions then congrats, please let the world know, we can apply that same thing to enduring scientific instruments too. shouting 'disposable missions!' alone isn't a plausible solution for the actual problem here, it's just spacex fetishism. Cheap launches are great but it doesn't solve the problem of funding - someone still has to buy a new instrument and pay to launch it. Moreover missions will naturally evolve to fit the available launch capacity and expenses. when launch capability is cheap, you will get bigger and more sensitive systems that cost more to build and launch. That's a good thing, in the birds-eye view that will be missions with greater scientific capabilities than we could reasonably mount today, but just cheap launch capacity isn't going to magically drive costs to zero, except for some fixed-capacity 'today mission' which will eventually be of no scientific value. Onwards and upwards is the name of the game.
freeone3000 6y ago
Hubble has had 4 servicing missions, each of which cost an entire shuttle launch. Hubble is extremely expensive to service -- and it's currently running with two broken gyroscopes, since there's no shuttle to service it and nobody has the budget to do a SpaceX launch to fix it when it's "working fine". JWST, its replacement, has been in a warehouse for thirty years. "In space" doesn't fix any of the problems!
- privong 6y ago
  > JWST, its replacement, has been in a warehouse for thirty years JWST development was started in 1996 (25 years ago), so it can't have been in a warehouse for 30 years. The detailed design phase was ongoing in 2007 and assembly of the primary mirror was only completed in 2016 (dates from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Webb_Space_Telescope https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Webb_Space_Telescope). Perhaps you're thinking of the National Reconnaissance Office telescopes that were offered to NASA in 2012 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_National_Reconnaissance_Office_space_telescope_donation_to_NASA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_National_Reconnaissance_O...)? Those are similar telescopes to Hubble in some ways, and one is being used for the WFIRST mission. Despite sometimes being billed as such, JWST can only be partly considered a replacement for HST. HST has ultraviolet observing capabilities (wavelengths a short as ~90nm), while JWST observes primarily in the infrared, with some capability to wavelengths of 600nm. There's some overlap (in the 600nm-1600nm range), but JWST can observe out to about 28,000nm (28micron) wavelengths. The JWST wavelength range is perhaps more comparable to that of the Spitzer Space Telescope (particularly the IRAC and IRS instruments, covering 3.5-40microns; MIPS covered out to 160microns). The LUVOIR concept (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Ultraviolet_Optical_Infrared_Surveyor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Ultraviolet_Optical_Infr...) would probably have the better claim to being an HST successor, given its proposed UV capabilities.
TylerE 6y ago
Hubble cost $5B to launch, and has racked up another $5B in ongoing costs sense. Aricebo cost $9.3m ($80m inflation adjusted), had had an annual operating budget of $12m. In other words, you could fund 100 Ariceobs for 1 Hubble.
pengaru 6y ago
Hubble is not supporting your case one iota.
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  SpaceX, StarLink, Relativity Space, and Planet Labs would be better examples I suppose. The odds of space technologies getting cheaper versus more expensive is pretty good imho, including remote sensing and observatories.