The Congressional reaction to NASA’s decision yesterday to reinstate a shuttle servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope has been overwhelmingly positive:
- House Science Committee chairman Sherwood Boehlert and space subcommittee chairman Ken Calvert jointly praised the decision. “The Shuttle missions to the Hubble have been by far the most important contributions the Shuttle program has made to science, and the whole nation looks forward to another successful mission that will enable the Hubble to continue to expand the horizons of human discovery and understanding of the universe,” said Boehlert.
- Mark Udall, the ranking Democrat on the space subcommittee (and in line to chair the subcommittee if the Democrats take control of the House in next week’s elections) also supports the decision. “For three years, I have worked with my colleagues and the scientific community to save Hubble, and last year I succeeded in getting language into the NASA Authorization Act which included a human servicing mission for Hubble. Today’s decision is a victory for science, for exploration, and for Colorado.” (The Colorado reference is for Ball Aerospace, which built the two instruments that will be installed on the servicing mission, and the Univ. of Colorado, which designed one of the instruments.)
- Not surprisingly, Senator Barbara Mikulski of Maryland is happy. “This is a great day for Maryland, for America, but most of all, for science. Hubble is a national asset and a national priority.” Mikulski adds that she “consistently fought to provide funding in the federal budget for a Hubble servicing mission… President Bush’s budget did not include funding for a Hubble servicing mission.”
- Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, chair of the space subcommittee of the Senate Commerce Committee, also commends NASA for the Hubble decision. “Today’s decision is a testament to the great progress made by the Space Shuttle Return-to-Flight program which has demonstrated the shuttle can conduct the Hubble servicing flight safely.”
Of course, it’s hard to imagine anyone in Congress speaking out against saving Hubble. That’d be like saying you didn’t like puppies. But then, even the love of puppies has become a campaign issue…
Never mind that it may cost more to service this one than to buy and launch a new one.
Bob Zubrin is crowing about the decision. From what I’ve heard, his account is pretty close to the truth. Many people felt O’Keefe had misled them on risk issues and had never seriously supported the robotic mission.
If you look at the Analysis of Alternatives that NASA commissioned on Hubble, it lays out the various risks of shuttle vs. robotic. It indicates that the robotic mission had a low chance of success and that another shuttle would not have been that dangerous. That’s not what O’Keefe was telling everyone.
I agree, Doug. However, some good for science far beyond any Hubble repair may yet come out of Mr. O’Keefe’s study. The Hubble study showed that repairing a known instrument with known interfaces with robotics was at least as expensive, and had a lower chance of success, than sending human engineers — even using the ultra-expensive Shuttle infrastructure. Using a lower cost infrastructure would push the balance even further from robotics.
What I hope we got out of this was a much more real-world view of what robotics can and cannot do at reasonable cost. If so, and our money is deployed according, it should be a net gain for science far beyond any Hubble repair (which, for the record, I fully support).
— Donald
As glad as we all are to see Hubble get a servicing mission…
It is all well and good to support a mission to Hubble, but what do we give up to get it???
So does this mean that we could extend the life of the Shuttle (you know there are flight delays, etc) until Hubble is serviced? Do we give away one more Station assembly flight to go to Hubble? Do we add money to the budget to add a mission?
Seeing as how the options to pay for the mission are unlikely, how likely is it that the mission will actually fly?
Charles
Charles,
I think it’s pretty high, even in the relatively likely event that the Space Station assembly gets bogged down and Shuttle missions get pushed out. The political support for this mission is very high, and NASA will probably be required to make it the agency’s highest priority, especially now that its been determined to be “safe enough.” Another serious Shuttle problem would change all that, of course, but that would probably change the Station’s future as well.
— Donald
Never mind that it may cost more to service this one than to buy and launch a new one.
Only if it results in the delay of the retirement of the orbiter fleet. The program burns $1 billion every three months whether it flies or not – the marginal costs of an HST flight are negligible in comparison.
It’s more likely the cost will be the opportunity cost of one, perhaps two ISS flights. The HST flight has already been carried as a placeholder for some time on the manifest, but the insertion of its corresponding LON rescue flight will cascade down the manifest and likely result in the deletion of the final two “contingency logistics flights” at the end of the assembly sequence. The logistics for those flights will wind up either sitting on the ground, or carried on international partner craft, or perhaps COTS craft if available.
The last doesn’t seem like a bad price to pay for an HST flight.
Bob Zubrin is crowing about the decision. From what I’ve heard, his account is pretty close to the truth. Many people felt O’Keefe had misled them on risk issues and had never seriously supported the robotic mission.
Zubrin’s account is, shall we put it charitably, less than truthful. The HST servicing cancellation had little or nothing to do with O’Keefe’s departure, despite Zubrin’s claims. And O’Keefe was the one who was misled on risk issues, not the one doing the misleading. The sad thing is that one of the misleaders will get to fly on SM-04.
If you look at the Analysis of Alternatives […]
The analysis of alternatives came after O’Keefe had already announced his decision. It was not something available to him during the decision process.
Seeing as how the options to pay for the mission are unlikely, how likely is it that the mission will actually fly?
Most of the SM-04 mission-specific costs have already been paid, thanks to a budget earmark by Sen. Mikulski last year.
“The analysis of alternatives came after O’Keefe had already announced his decision. It was not something available to him during the decision process.”
One of O’Keefe’s weaknesses was that he was not technically knowledgeable enough to know when people were lying to him.
One of O’Keefe’s weaknesses was that he was not technically knowledgeable enough to know when people were lying to him.
Exactly – which makes it ludicrous to suggest that he was misleading people, when he’s only repeating back what his advisors are telling him.
Actually, O’Keefe was briefed on the AOA executive summary around early August 2004. Everyone involved was pretty startled to hear him fully embrace the robotic mission a week or two later.
He apparently did get into trouble over his testimony and also whether NASA was actually fully funding the robotic mission. And this apparently did contribute to his departure from the agency. That’s what my sources tell me.
Donald writes: “The Hubble study showed that repairing a known instrument with known interfaces with robotics was at least as expensive, and had a lower chance of success, than sending human engineers — even using the ultra-expensive Shuttle infrastructure.”
I think you overgeneralize, Donald.
“Known” is not enough–there are lots more diseases we can diagnose earlier now than we can treat. And it’s not like we’re often dealing with unknown instruments with unknown interfaces–which is why it was news when some cosmonauts held up a black box to video monitors for scrutiny down at Russian ground control, asking “what the hell is this thing?” What’s engineered is more of a determinant of costs than what’s known.
At best, the study might have shown that if you don’t design a “known” instrument for teleoperative repair, and then afterward look into designing teleoperable repair equipment for it, BUT for one-time-only use, the numbers don’t work. Somehow, that doesn’t surprise me. If you DO design instruments for teleoperative repair, and use the repair devices several times, amortizing the R&D, and learning how to design things even better, maybe the numbers do. And maybe those numbers work ever better the more often you do things this way.
Note that I use the term “teleoperation”, not “robotics”. I do wish we’d get used to the distinction. Little as I like Alan Binder and his theatrics about being the discoverer of water on the moon, his Prospector mission showed that if you keep everything simple, and directly controllable from Earth, there are substantial economies to be had. I believe there are many other such economies to be had–theoretically. However, space programs have never really been about economies so much as about images and stories. Human images and human stories sustain them politically. Hubble, although it’s unmanned, is substantially narrative-driven, and so is the talk of its rescue. You’ll never see ballot initiatives with different NASA design teams touting to the voters their respective ways of reducing the cost per kilobyte of getting useful scientific data from space.
Commercialization, if it comes, may change all this. We don’t think of somebody pushing a button on the ground to trigger inflation of a Bigelow habitat in orbit as “robotic self-assembly”, but strictly speaking, it would be. Any similar shell requiring piecemeal human construction would be a lot more expensive. And that’s why Bigelow is interested in inflatables. He’ll probably be interested in any cost-savings gained at the expense of more orbital human staff time, because he’s concerned with costs and customers, not narrative-driven “missions”.
Precisely right. The large costs for robotic servicing of Hubble have vastly more to do with the fact that Hubble was never designed for robotic servicing (and isn’t even all that easy to service when you can get human hands on it).
In this context, the upcoming Orbital Express mission will be pivotal in deciding how to proceed with future science instruments in free space.
Doug imagines the following: “He apparently did get into trouble over his testimony and also whether NASA was actually fully funding the robotic mission. And this apparently did contribute to his departure from the agency. That’s what my sources tell me.”
Hate to burst your bubble, Doug, but the WH tried to talk O’Keefe out of leaving. He left because he had one child heading for college – and two more after that – and $130K a year for a family of 5 living on one income in the DC suburbs doesn’t allow for a whole lot of college savings.
Doug further imagines “Everyone involved was pretty startled to hear him fully embrace the robotic mission a week or two later.”
“Everyone” Doug? Really? How many people were at the meeting? Do you know their names? Did they all tell you this?
Quite a sweeping assumption. Then again, that is your specialty.
Sam says: “Never mind that it may cost more to service this one than to buy and launch a new one.”
I agree – and I’ll bet you could build a much better one these days given advances in technology – and optics grinding
Michael: which is why it was news when some cosmonauts held up a black box to video monitors for scrutiny down at Russian ground control, asking “what the hell is this thing?”
I rest my case!
However, my point had more to do with science, than repairing the Space Telescope. Even though it wasn’t designed for it, we do know at least approximately what’s there on Hubble, where it is, and how to undo it. None of these things are true of an alien planet’s surface. Yet too many scientists dream on about automating field geology when they can’t even automate fixing a known quantity.
Lunar Prospector is actually a good model. Sure, this reconnaissance mission provided evidence and no proof of hydrogen — which, as often forgotten and Doug recently reminded us, is not quite the same as water. However, unless it exists as a block of ice on the surface, or is uniformly scattered through the top two or three meters of regolith, it is a safe bet that no automated mission could find this polar water at reasonable cost. In the far more likely event that is appears here and there, or is deeply buried, or is otherwise difficult to find — that is, we do not know at least approximately what’s there, where it is, or how to undo it — it will almost certainly prove far cheaper to send crew prepared to execute detailed field geology than to try to automate it.
Also, your mention of R&D is key. How much do we spend trying to automate what an astronaut could casually do once you can put them on the surface? In a non-standardized environment — essentially anything having to do with the unknown, i.e., “science” — every time you have to automate something new, you need a whole new development project. That is, for each unit of science achieved on the moon, you will need some level (probably large) of R&D effort. With flexible astronauts on site, developing the transportation and a standardized tool set are one time expenses that can then be used anywhere the transportation system can get to.
I do recognize that the above argument is an over-simplification. But, when analyzing whether to send a robot or a crew to do a specific project on the moon, the long-term up-front costs do not favor robotics as much as advocates for the latter like to believe. This is particularly true when considering the large set of scientific tasks that would need to be done to answer our fundamental questions about the moon, or the samples of the early Earth that are probably available in the regolith.
— Donald
Keith:
People who knew about the AOA results were surprised by O’Keefe’s subsequent embrace of this robotic plan.
The overall story I’ve heard – from people who were involved – matches Zubrin’s account much more closely than it does yours. That tells me that, at the very least, facts surrounding all this are in dispute.
I won’t reveal any sources here because these things were told to me in confidence. I will not break that agreement. Nor would I ever subject them to the shrill “sit down and shut up” public tirades that you direct at anyone who dares disagree with you.
I would suggest that you stop shooting the messenger and start looking into this story again. There is much more to it than you originally reported. As hard as it may be to believe, it’s possible that you may have make a mistake here.
Mistakes happen in journalism. Good reporters go back and check their facts. Be a good reporter.
Doug, hate to break it to you, but you are just plain wrong. So are your “sources.”
Oh yes – have you written anything – in print – or online- about space lately?
Keith:
Are you absolutely sure that the WH and NASA management didn’t mislead you about all this? This government has misled far more prominent journalists and the public about far more weighty issues.
If you’re absolutely convince they didn’t, there very little else to say here. If not, you’ve got some work to do. Up to you.
I haven’t written about space in recent years, but I follow developments in the field closely and maintain good professional and personal contacts. In some ways, not writing about it is a benefit. People tend to be more candid if they know it won’t end up in a blog the next day.
Doug, I know what I know. What you have posted is simply wrong. Believe what you wish, but you are incorrect.
It is quite clear by this post and others that you have made your mind up about the Bush Adminstration. Your bias is obvious.
A closed mind does not a good reporter make.
Clear mind, huh? Well, that’s damned good advice. Much better advice than “sit down and shut up” and “up yours,” your standard retorts to anyone who displeases you.
I don’t really have any real biases against the administration where the Hubble is concerned. I saw benefits and drawbacks in the various options they reviewed. It was, for me, a non-partisan issue.
I do know that NASA’s own outside experts judged the robotic one to have about a 50 percent chance of success and doubted it would even be ready in time. That did surprise and trouble those who knew about the disparity between the findings and what NASA was saying publicly.
In general, I like your sites. They’re valuable and interesting. But, you don’t know everything and aren’t always right. By definite, you can’t be. Try to keep that in mind.
Believe what you wish, Doug, I am right, you are wrong – especially with regard to your comments about O’Keefe’s reason for leaving NASA.
Doug wins. More flies with honey Keith.
It isn’t about “more flies”, Chance – its about “better flies”. Doug (and you) don’t know the difference. he is wrong and I am right.
Off to more productive things.
Flies? Huh.
There were people involved in these matters whom you would not necessarily know by name. They are generally not inclined to talk to the media. Even if they had been so inclined, they would have been very leery of taking their concerns to NASA Watch given Keith’s strong support of Sean O’Keefe and his tendency to publicly demand that critics sit down and shut up.
Face it Doug, you are wrong. Your sources are wrong. What you said about O’Keefe’s departure from NASA is just plain flat wrong. YOU might want to find some other ‘sources’.
Doug, Keith,
Either drop the schoolyard “I’m right, you’re wrong” bit or provide proof behind your statements. Both sound hollow to me.
I might just do that, Guess Who. (And, if I may say so, I really like your music very much. You guys touring again any time soon?)
To get the full story might require some FOIA requests. I noticed that Salon did exactly that regarding the administration’s actions on global warming relating to NOAA and NASA:
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/09/19/noaa/index.html
Good stuff. Not relying on AP stories but getting the actual emails involved.