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.
On the contrary, I think it's great.
NASA releases Hubble image taken in new pointing mode
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Re: NASA releases Hubble image taken in new pointing mode
#62This thing went up when I was in Kindergarten! It blows my mind that it's still running.
You think that's amazing, read up on Voyager!
Re: NASA releases Hubble image taken in new pointing mode
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
“Once Hubble is on target, the steadiness of the telescope in one-gyro mode is almost comparable to that of a full three-gyro complement… Although one-gyro mode is an excellent way to keep Hubble science operations going, it does have limitations, which include a small decrease in efficiency (roughly 12 percent) due to the added time required to slew and lock the telescope onto a science target… If Earth or the moon…
The impact on Jupiter bit seems strange to me. Unless it's something that just pops up out of nowhere, it seems like we'd have been tracking the impactor for some time to be able to have plenty of lead time for Hubble to use its walker to slowly get into position.
Impactors are indeed not seen that far ahead in comparison to the Hubble time allocation time scale, so for scheduling purposes they do more or less pop up out of nowhere.
Since its not very likely that you happen to have a scheduled science target lying close to Jupiter around the time of impact, you would have to do a long slew which now takes such a long time you likely have to cancel some other science. But I think this is a general issue that will discard most targets of opportunity that Hubble could otherwise have observed.
Re: NASA releases Hubble image taken in new pointing mode
#64NASA has such a tiny budget in comparison to other stuff....so they really have to stretch that money as far as they can, and especially considering spacecraft....its a very unforgiving production environment. Am I making a joke about deploying in production? Yes, yes I am. But I also know NASA really does the best they can and I am amazed at the insane work and effort that they do to make sure spacecraft they send a…
NASA looks efficient because you’re comparing it to the rest of government. I love the work they do. I wish they did more with what they have. And then I wish they had more to work with. When they are constrained, like they are with spacecraft already in flight, their ability to problem solve with the tools and systems they have available is absolutely impressive.
> NASA looks efficient because you’re comparing it to the rest of government.
NASA also looks quite efficient when you compare it to many tech companies. NASA has 18k employees and $25bn budget in 2023, let's compare it with some companies:
Spotify and Stripe are each equal to half of NASA both in terms of employees and budget.
Snapchat and Airbnb are both approx 1/3rd of NASA in both employees and budget.
Yahoo has 1/2 the employees and 1/3 the budget of NASA.
ByteDance is 6x larger than NASA on both metrics.
Meta is 6x larger in budget and 4x larger in head count.
These are just companies making social media apps and selling ads.
Re: NASA releases Hubble image taken in new pointing mode
#65I 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.
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.
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.
Re: NASA releases Hubble image taken in new pointing mode
#66Missing from the article: Jared Isaacman offered to fix Hubble for free, and NASA turned him down.
Re: NASA releases Hubble image taken in new pointing mode
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
NASA looks efficient because you’re comparing it to the rest of government. I love the work they do. I wish they did more with what they have. And then I wish they had more to work with. When they are constrained, like they are with spacecraft already in flight, their ability to problem solve with the tools and systems they have available is absolutely impressive.
> NASA looks efficient because you’re comparing it to the rest of government. NASA also looks quite efficient when you compare it to many tech companies. NASA has 18k employees and $25bn budget in 2023, let's compare it with some companies: Spotify and Stripe are each equal to half of NASA both in terms of employees and budget. Snapchat and Airbnb are both approx 1/3rd of NASA in both employees and budget. Yahoo has…
Spotify has a 12bn budget? What are they spending it on? Does it include licensing fees?
Re: NASA releases Hubble image taken in new pointing mode
#68I 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.
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.
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.
Re: NASA releases Hubble image taken in new pointing mode
#69NASA has such a tiny budget in comparison to other stuff....so they really have to stretch that money as far as they can, and especially considering spacecraft....its a very unforgiving production environment. Am I making a joke about deploying in production? Yes, yes I am. But I also know NASA really does the best they can and I am amazed at the insane work and effort that they do to make sure spacecraft they send a…
Except you look at what they are spending on the entire SLS infrastructure vs what they are getting (vs other science options and/or space exploration options) and basically your mind is blown at how wasteful NASA is.
SLS is a $2-$3 billion per launch DISPOSABLE rocket. The orion capsule is going to be something like $20 billion(!). I think things like launch abort and service module with all the propulsion etc are also disposable.
Re: NASA releases Hubble image taken in new pointing mode
#70Missing from the article: Jared Isaacman offered to fix Hubble for free, and NASA turned him down.
>It basically seems like the risks involved aren't necessarily worth taking right now, seeing as Hubble is technically doing just fine.
*https://www.space.com/jared-isaacman-hubble-space-telescope-...