So Hubble has 10 useful years left in its current orbit. I say let the private spaceflight tech bro give it a try… in nine years.
The article goes into a lot of good detail about why it might not make sense to let a Friend of Musk pop on up with an undertrained crew and an under-specced spacecraft and try to bolt on some aftermarket hardware.
I certainly think it makes sense to try to extend Hubble‘s service life, and if someone wants to do it for free and actually has the resources to succeed then let them have at it. But there’s definitely no reason to try something risky now when we should still be able to get another decade of science out of it in its current configuration. I think the article makes clear that no matter how prepared the crew is, working directly on Hubble is risky, and even moreso without the Shuttle’s wonderful bay and robot arm.
However, it’s this quote that really concerns me:
“Up until now, there’s only been, you know, one group that would ever touch Hubble. And I think that they have an opinion of whether — of who should or shouldn’t be allowed to touch it,” Isaacman said. “I think a lot would say, ‘I’d rather it burn up’ than, you know, go down a slippery slope of, you know, the space community growing. So I think that’s a factor now, unfortunately.”
That definitely reads like someone who’s most concerned about his own ego, not what’s best for science. I highly doubt there’s anyone on the science side at NASA who opposes the mission because they don’t want someone who’s not NASA being the hero. I’m very confident they don’t want someone who’s not NASA killing their very expensive instrument prematurely. They probably would feel better about a NASA astronaut accidentally killing the telescope because at least then they’d be confident that they did their best to minimize the risk but at the end of the day there’s always a chance for it to go very wrong.
Yup. I don’t doubt he has a lot of confidence in his entire team, but NASA really come off as the adults in the room here. “Move fast and break things” only works if it’s easy to fix or replace them or if no one would miss them. Hubble is a useful scientific instrument and would be ungodly expensive and involve not-insignificant danger to replace, so I can completely understand if they ultimately decide it’s not worth risking 5-10 more years of data on the hope that his wanting to play-act Starfleet includes the boring preparation parts.
I suspect there’s some NSA/NRO/CIA concerns too.
It seems the Hubble is only one-of-a-kind in that it looks out at the universe - the chassis wasn’t unique. The NSA donated an unused chassis to NASA several years ago.
If the NSA had an “unused Hubble chassis”, how many were made, and what are the others doing?
So it seems Hubble is the public-facing science side of an NSA/NRO/CIA effort.
If the NSA had an “unused Hubble chassis”, how many were made, and what are the others doing?
It’s secret, but not THAT secret, since it requires sending Hubble-sized telescopes into orbit. Looks like there are 6 of that design still in operation.
Reminds me of this old What if? from XKCD
Wow, I didn’t realize they’d launched almost 20 of them over the years…
Why build one when you can build
twotwenty attwicetwenty times the price!
Oh hey, thanks for the link!
I knew of Keyhole, but didn’t realize they were Hubble chassis.
I’m very confident they don’t want someone who’s not NASA killing their very expensive instrument prematurely. They probably would feel better about a NASA astronaut accidentally killing the telescope
I wonder if Polaris II would ever become a joint mission with NASA? Perhaps with a pair of NASA astronauts and a pair of private ones?
