Save (or don't) the Hubble Telescope

[IGBT]

It may be all beat up from radation and not worth saving...

 

[conjur]

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: conjur

Originally posted by: lozina
I say let it rot. We got budget problems so let's act fiscally conservative here. Images of distant galaxies won't help us reduce our dependency on Middle East oil, fight terrorism, find a new clean renewable fuel source, or solve any problem we're currently having!

Ah...what a great attitude! Let's nip scientific exploration in the bud...it's useless. Might as well stop cancer research, genetic research, shut down the USGS, dismantle NASA and use the money to build some oil wells in ANWAR.

The hubble can probably replaced for less than it would cost to do the needed maintanance. Hubble cost a billion to desegn and build. It cost 500B just to launch the shuttle. Since the RnD is done, it seems it could be replaced cheaper than it could be repaired.

$500 billion to launch the shuttle?!?

WTF are you smoking?

 

[bozack]

Originally posted by: conjur

$500 billion to launch the shuttle?!?

WTF are you smoking?

500B is definately wrong, heck the thing was only 2b to build, add to that the additional 172 million that was needed for the second service, plus about two billion for the two trips (one to drop it off, and the other to fix it) I don't know what precautions they had to take to secure hubble in the payload bay...I do know that NASA operates at a huge loss, and what they claim only costs them a couple hundred million costs three times that....I think it is 40mil a ton to lift into low earth orbit? or at least it was

"each shuttle flight actually costs about $1 billion. NASA says it is about half a billion, but they count only marginal costs, not the overhead of maintaining the Johnson Space Center in Houston or the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, to say nothing of the vast infrastructure around the country that supports manned spaceflight."

it would be nice if we could privatize the industry, however regualting it would be tough, and not much would be done for scientific gain but rather for commercialization and money making ventures.

 

[charrison]

Originally posted by: conjur

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: conjur

Originally posted by: lozina
I say let it rot. We got budget problems so let's act fiscally conservative here. Images of distant galaxies won't help us reduce our dependency on Middle East oil, fight terrorism, find a new clean renewable fuel source, or solve any problem we're currently having!

Ah...what a great attitude! Let's nip scientific exploration in the bud...it's useless. Might as well stop cancer research, genetic research, shut down the USGS, dismantle NASA and use the money to build some oil wells in ANWAR.

The hubble can probably replaced for less than it would cost to do the needed maintanance. Hubble cost a billion to desegn and build. It cost 500B just to launch the shuttle. Since the RnD is done, it seems it could be replaced cheaper than it could be repaired.

$500 billion to launch the shuttle?!?

WTF are you smoking?

Typo.... $500M

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: bozack

Originally posted by: conjur

$500 billion to launch the shuttle?!?

WTF are you smoking?

500B is definately wrong, heck the thing was only 2b to build, add to that the additional 172 million that was needed for the second service, plus about two billion for the two trips (one to drop it off, and the other to fix it) I don't know what precautions they had to take to secure hubble in the payload bay...I do know that NASA operates at a huge loss, and what they claim only costs them a couple hundred million costs three times that....I think it is 40mil a ton to lift into low earth orbit? or at least it was

"each shuttle flight actually costs about $1 billion. NASA says it is about half a billion, but they count only marginal costs, not the overhead of maintaining the Johnson Space Center in Houston or the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, to say nothing of the vast infrastructure around the country that supports manned spaceflight."

it would be nice if we could privatize the industry, however regualting it would be tough, and not much would be done for scientific gain but rather for commercialization and money making ventures.

I believe it could be Privatized without being over Commercialized. Look at the SETI Project for example.

 

[bozack]

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

I believe it could be Privatized without being over Commercialized. Look at the SETI Project for example.

I agree that it *could* but it would be far too hard to regulate, and once you let any company into the arena policing space would be a major PITA...IMHO SETI is a bad example or one that is far too small scale to truly compare.

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: bozack

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

I believe it could be Privatized without being over Commercialized. Look at the SETI Project for example.

I agree that it *could* but it would be far too hard to regulate, and once you let any company into the arena policing space would be a major PITA...IMHO SETI is a bad example or one that is far too small scale to truly compare.

Nearly 4 million people on the project is too small???