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I just think it's sad that they're doing fixes on a 34 year old telescope instead of sending up a new improved model every 10 years.

moffkalast 2y ago
Well the JWST is in fact a thing. Why not keep getting science from the old ones while they're still working? NASA really needs to just fill their telescopes with gyros upon gyros, like just plaster the things with gyros and reaction wheels for 50x redundancy since that's always the mission critical thing that fails first. Or maybe a xenon powered ion reaction control system or something that would last longer then hydrazine.
- gammarator 2y ago
  > NASA really needs to just fill their telescopes with gyros upon gyros It’s an interesting tradeoff. Missions are designed (and costed) for a nominal mission lifetime; adding more redundancy increases costs. But it’s true that the successful missions tend to stay in operations much longer than their normal lifetime.
  - Dylan16807 2y ago
    The builtin gyros didn't even reach the original mission lifetime of 15 years. There's a limit to how much redundancy you can put in a satellite, but with how consistently these parts fail it would make sense to put in a lot. If 1% of the Hubble's weight was extra gyroscopes it would have 30-40 of them.
- svachalek 2y ago
  JWST is an infrared telescope though, which doesn't really replace the Hubble. It is suited for the interesting science of our times though. An upgraded optical space telescope would probably be less groundbreaking but still very valuable to science.
SiempreViernes 2y ago
I think its sad that single use consumerism culture is so pervasive that anyone would actually bemoan a thing as extremely niche as a cutting edge scientific instrument getting over tens years of use.
- BenFranklin100 2y ago
  That’s a bad faith take. The OP is clearly expressing their opinion that space exploration is underfunded. No one is unhappy the Hubble is going on 35 years. Think how much we would be learning if we had additional similarly scoped astronomical missions in 2000, 2010, and 2020 though.
- BurningFrog 2y ago
  What was cutting edge in 1990 is very far from it today. Sending up Hubble II and Hubble III would of course not mean that Hubble I stops being used.
phyzome 2y ago
On the contrary, I think it's great.
pohl 2y ago
Why not both? Send up new telescopes and keep the old ones running.
- BurningFrog 2y ago
  If feasible, sure. But I'd expect it's often cheaper to send up a new telescope than to repair an old one.

moffkalast 2y ago

Well the JWST is in fact a thing. Why not keep getting science from the old ones while they're still working? NASA really needs to just fill their telescopes with gyros upon gyros, like just plaster the things with gyros and reaction wheels for 50x redundancy since that's always the mission critical thing that fails first. Or maybe a xenon powered ion reaction control system or something that would last longer then hydrazine.

gammarator 2y ago
> NASA really needs to just fill their telescopes with gyros upon gyros It’s an interesting tradeoff. Missions are designed (and costed) for a nominal mission lifetime; adding more redundancy increases costs. But it’s true that the successful missions tend to stay in operations much longer than their normal lifetime.
- Dylan16807 2y ago
  The builtin gyros didn't even reach the original mission lifetime of 15 years. There's a limit to how much redundancy you can put in a satellite, but with how consistently these parts fail it would make sense to put in a lot. If 1% of the Hubble's weight was extra gyroscopes it would have 30-40 of them.
svachalek 2y ago
JWST is an infrared telescope though, which doesn't really replace the Hubble. It is suited for the interesting science of our times though. An upgraded optical space telescope would probably be less groundbreaking but still very valuable to science.

SiempreViernes 2y ago

I think its sad that single use consumerism culture is so pervasive that anyone would actually bemoan a thing as extremely niche as a cutting edge scientific instrument getting over tens years of use.

BenFranklin100 2y ago
That’s a bad faith take. The OP is clearly expressing their opinion that space exploration is underfunded. No one is unhappy the Hubble is going on 35 years. Think how much we would be learning if we had additional similarly scoped astronomical missions in 2000, 2010, and 2020 though.
BurningFrog 2y ago
What was cutting edge in 1990 is very far from it today. Sending up Hubble II and Hubble III would of course not mean that Hubble I stops being used.

phyzome 2y ago

On the contrary, I think it's great.

pohl 2y ago

Why not both? Send up new telescopes and keep the old ones running.

BurningFrog 2y ago
If feasible, sure. But I'd expect it's often cheaper to send up a new telescope than to repair an old one.