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NASA releases Hubble image taken in new pointing mode

science.nasa.gov

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Re: NASA releases Hubble image taken in new pointing mode

#101

Post by lupusreal »

hagbard_c wrote: post #99

Hey SpaceX, here's an idea: put a few of your 'Atlas' robots on one of the upcoming Starship test vehicles - maybe the one where you plan to test in-orbit refuelling since it probably takes a bit of extra fuel to get to Hubble's orbit - and get the thing to meet up with Hubble. Have the robots replace the failed gyros, replace the batteries and whatever other consumables that old relic contains. Have them take back t…

What even is the point of looking at space if we give up the pretext of sending people there? It just turns into an expensive way to mint PhDs on the taxpayer's dime, studying things which cannot have economic relevance on Earth (which is why they can't be studied on Earth.)

Re: NASA releases Hubble image taken in new pointing mode

#102

Post by tho23i43244244 »

tonetegeatinst wrote: post #7

NASA 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…

Imagine the leaps the humanity would see if the US spent a tenth on NASA as it does on "defense" (it'd likely still outspend the next 10 countries, combined, even then on the war-dept.).

JFK, come back.

Re: NASA releases Hubble image taken in new pointing mode

#103

Post by semi-extrinsic »

zamadatix wrote: post #76
semi-extrinsic wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

How do I read this employees/budget metric to properly rank efficiency? Is 1,000 employees each with an average burn rate per employee of a $1,000,000/y supposed to be more or less efficient than 2,000 employees with an average burn rate per employee of $500,000/y? If so, why is that a sign of an inherently more efficient company when we haven't even mentioned things like output yet? E.g. some of the companies in the…

I'm not saying look at those two numbers divided by each other. In fact the ratio seems to be quite constant across companies.

What I'm saying is, take what Spotify is actually producing, and compare that to half of what NASA is producing. Or compare Snap to a third of NASA, etc.

Re: NASA releases Hubble image taken in new pointing mode

#105

Post by Laremere »

hagbard_c wrote: post #99

Hey SpaceX, here's an idea: put a few of your 'Atlas' robots on one of the upcoming Starship test vehicles - maybe the one where you plan to test in-orbit refuelling since it probably takes a bit of extra fuel to get to Hubble's orbit - and get the thing to meet up with Hubble. Have the robots replace the failed gyros, replace the batteries and whatever other consumables that old relic contains. Have them take back t…

Jared Isaacman and SpaceX already made a proposal to NASA to do a Hubble servicing mission. NASA recently responded with "no thanks". NASA feels the risk of potentially damaging Hubble in some way (eg, gas from thruster getting on a mirror) outweighs the benefits. Basically a high probability of worse performance is chosen to be more favorable than a lower probability of better performance.

Re: NASA releases Hubble image taken in new pointing mode

#106

Post by BurningFrog »

tonetegeatinst wrote: post #7

NASA 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…

The NASA budget is $25B, or about $75 per American.

Re: NASA releases Hubble image taken in new pointing mode

#107

Post by zamadatix »

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #103
zamadatix wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do I read this employees/budget metric to properly rank efficiency? Is 1,000 employees each with an average burn rate per employee of a $1,000,000/y supposed to be more or less efficient than 2,000 employees with an average burn rate per employee of $500,000/y? If so, why is that a sign of an inherently more efficient company when we haven't even mentioned things like output yet? E.g. some of the companies in the…

I'm not saying look at those two numbers divided by each other. In fact the ratio seems to be quite constant across companies. What I'm saying is, take what Spotify is actually producing, and compare that to half of what NASA is producing. Or compare Snap to a third of NASA, etc.

Similarly just because you and I don't like what Spotify produces as much as what NASA produces doesn't really help weigh their efficiency without a whole lot of other data that's more important (before even getting into the debate of what everyone considers worthwhile output). The most efficient pasta producer in the world could premix their pasta with pesto and I don't get to claim it's the same efficiency as every other place just because I despite pesto.

I mean I get wanting to shit on adtech over NASA, the latters is... significantly more cool. I just don't get why it's related to explaining how efficient or inefficient NASA is at the significantly cooler stuff.

Re: NASA releases Hubble image taken in new pointing mode

#108

Post by mintplant »

cubefox wrote: post #56
olleromam91 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sensor you’re describing is usually called an accelerometer.

No, accelerometers detect acceleration in linear direction (up/down, left/right, forward/backward), while gyroscopes detect rotation (pitch, yaw, roll). Smartphones have both, to detect all six degrees of freedom. Edit: Apparently, for smartphones, all these sensors are integrated into a single MEMS chip, one sensor for each degree of freedom, three accelerometers and three gyroscopes: https://youtube.com/watch?v=9X4…

And the reason accelerometers can be used for sensing orientation here on Earth is, of course, because of the constant force of gravity :)

Re: NASA releases Hubble image taken in new pointing mode

#109

Post by photochemsyn »

tempnow987 wrote: post #69
tonetegeatinst wrote: post #7

NASA 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 a…

NASA's manned mission division does seem to have the bigger problem with bloated contracting budgets and inefficiency, relative to the rest of the organization. I'd guess that's due to direct political influence (the Richard Shelby - Bill Nelson effect in that case). From 2010:

https://www.politico.com/news/stories/0911/62767_Page3.html

Re: NASA releases Hubble image taken in new pointing mode

#110

Post by fallingknife »

dotnet00 wrote: post #80
fallingknife wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a billionaire who has offered to do a repair mission. NASA considers this too risky to let some random guy go up there and fix it. If they worked together on a plan I feel like they could get this done in a way that reduces the risk, but it seems like they just don't want to.

It's worth adding that the proposal was mainly for reboosting the telescope, which can still be done later if needed. Trying to EVA and work on Hubble would be very risky right now with Dragon since you have to vent the entire capsule first, and this creates all sorts of optics contamination risks. They're also balancing this against upcoming technologies, possible cost reductions and the much improved capabilities o…

Couldn't they vent the capsule well before docking with Hubble? I assume the contamination comes from venting the capsule nearby the telescope.
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