Space Forum / Shuttle / April 2005

While the plane change delta-V to move from Hubble's 28 deg. inclination to
ISS's 52 deg is far beyond the shuttle's ability (or any available
conventional vehicle), it is possible using a solar electric space tug. IOW
a solar-powered ion engine. These are already under development for use with
comsats.

Based on the technology already under development for comsat
reboosting/repositioning, a larger solar electric tug has been proposed to
move HST to ISS for repairs.

It would have several advantages: less expensive and more reliable than
robotic repair, less risky than stand alone shuttle mission, HST would stay
in vicinity of ISS thus allowing further servicing if needed.

The main complication is the solar array is pretty big and apparently
requires manual assembly at ISS before the robotic tug fetches Hubble back
to ISS. NASA apparently thinks it's too hard for their astronauts to
assemble the solar panels.

http://www.space.com/adastra/adastra_hubble_050128.html

Get real.  The CEV won't be ready in time - it probably won't get built at
all.  NASA is going to pull a Skylab repeat.

I'm in the one last servicing mission crowd, but the CEV idea is just nuts.  
Better to just attatch a de-orbit module on that last service.

On the whole it's probably a good thing they kept doing that one. I
mean, Ed White would have got pretty tired before long, otherwise.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/01/16/hubble.telescope.ap/

John Grunsfeld, NASA's chief scientist, said NASA administrator Sean
O'Keefe made the decision to cancel the fifth space shuttle service
mission to the Hubble when it became clear there was not enough time to
conduct it before the shuttle is retired.

The servicing mission was considered essential to enable the orbiting
telescope to continue to operate.

"This is a sad day," said Grunsfeld, but he said the decision "is the
best thing for the space community."

He said the decision was influenced by President Bush's new space
initiative, which calls for NASA to start developing the spacecraft and
equipment for voyages to the moon and later to Mars. The president's
plan also called for the space shuttle to be retired by 2010. Virtually
all of the shuttle's remaining flights would be used to complete
construction of the International Space Station.

The shuttle has been grounded since the explosion of the Columbia nearly
a year ago.

Grunsfeld said Bush "directed us to use this precious resource" (the
shuttle) toward completing the International Space Station and
fulfilling U.S. obligations to the 15 partner nations.
******

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/02/07/tech/main672150.shtml

(AP) With the moon on its horizon, NASA sees an increase in the 2006
budget proposed by President George W. Bush on Monday, but the 2.4
percent hike is not enough to save the Hubble Space Telescope.

Only $75 million in the space agency's $16.5 billion budget would go
toward Hubble's future, and all of that would be used to develop a robot
mission to steer the orbiting observatory into the ocean at the end of
its lifetime.

Hubble has enabled scientists to see distant galaxies and confirmed the
existence of black holes.

No money is in Mr. Bush's budget to send either a robotic repairman or
shuttle astronauts to Hubble to extend its lifetime, a decision that is
sure to anger astronomers and members of Congress. Critical telescope
parts on Hubble are expected to conk out by 2007.

In a word, "Columbia."

I don't know if I'm an Apollo veteran, but I was an engineer  at McDonnell
Douglas for 32 years (1965-97) and worked on programs like Gemini, Skylab,
Shuttle (TPS, mostly on the RSI tiles), DC-X/XA, X-33.

IMHO, NASA's Hubble fear reflects a loss of confidence both  in the shuttle
hardware and in the ability of the shuttle operations organization to
prevent a relapse into the mindset that led to the two shuttle disasters.
The loss of 2 of the 5 orbiters and 14 crewmembers in two disasterous
accidents has had a sobering effect on the entire shuttle organization,
including the contractors involved in shuttle operations. My gut feeling is
that the shuttle organization is doing the best it can under very
disadvantageous circumstances. The shuttle managers know that any fixes they
come up with as a result of Columbia will not significantly improve the
overall riskiness of shuttle operations. When shuttles return to flight, the
ET foam problems will be fixed  (hopefully), but the vehicle will still fly
with lotsa waivers and with a long list of Criticality I items. They have to
fly 28 more missions and it's entirely possible that another orbiter might
be lost before that flight sequence has been completed, despite their best
efforts.

Personally, I tend to cut a lot of slack for the current generation of
shuttle operators, including folks like Ron Dittemore and Linda Hamm who
took a lot of heat for Columbia.  I definitely don't think that NASA
management or the shuttle ops folks are a bunch of cowards. Many of these
folks were not even born when we were working on Phase A of the shuttle
project (Jan 1969-July 1970). They inherited our design which was a product
of the 1970 state-of-the-art in reusable launch vehicles and spacecraft,
which was essentially zero when we started the shuttle design work  (no
reusable LV or spacecraft existed then).

And that design effort was marred by politics, OMB and White House meddling,
cost-cutting, and over-enthusiastic NASA hype about the cost-effectiveness
of reusable launch vehicle hardware, about "airline-like" operations, $10M
per flight costs, 160 hour turnaround time, 60 shuttle flights per year,
etc. etc. Thinking back on those early days, I remember the hubris that
permeated the effort. Most of us believed in our god-like abilities as LV
and spacecraft engineers. After all, we were the Apollo generation, the
generation that put footprints on the Moon. If we can do that, we can make
the shuttle work. No problem.

So we designed an orbiter that looks like an airplane, mistakenly believing
that if the vehicle has wings, landing gear and uses a runway instead of
splashdown, then it will have other desireable airliner attibutes (low
operating cost, high reliability, on-time departure, etc). In fact, the
shuttle has none of these qualities.  We handed the next generation an
extremely complicated and very brittle and unforgiving shuttle design that
was stripped of all of the launch and reentry safety features we used in
Apollo (launch escape systems, water landing ability, rugged ablative
heatshield, landing parachutes). And we convinced ourselves that the
resulting shuttle was safer than Apollo, until Challenger happened and the
chickens came home to roost.

The Rogers Commission report uncovered a lot of the truth behind the shuttle
design and the operational flaws that had been hidden since the early 1970s.
It took 32 months to fix the problems that led to Challenger. Unfortunately,
the shuttle operations organizations remained flawed and the same mindset
that led to Challenger (keep flying and fix the problems later) ultimately
led to Columbia.

I hope the shuttle organization can get through the remaining flights
without another disaster. Their reward will be great because they have
served their time in hell.

Later
Ray Schmitt

Since the 1960's the American public has shifted towards an attitude
of 'life is sacred and no expense shall be spared in preventing even
the semblance of risk'.

It's not NASA, but the culture and society it exists in.  Failure to
acknowledge and understand this essential fact is a supreme act of
idiocy.

D.