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Oh, and Just for Kicks...
And apparently the whole universe decided to be just as stupid:
They've banned sledding on campus and are trying to ditch the Hubble Space Telescope. Sign the Petition here. Maybe it might do something.
They've banned sledding on campus and are trying to ditch the Hubble Space Telescope. Sign the Petition here. Maybe it might do something.
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As for the Hubble, I'm torn on the issue myself. While I would love to see Hubble continue it's mission, you do have to look at other issues as well.
First off is the safety of the astronauts who will be going up to service it. Since Hubble is in a higher orbit than the space station, the shuttle won't be able to dock with the space station if there is trouble. Due to the new NASA rules, if the shuttle can't dock at a safe port, a second shuttle has to be ready to launch to go rescue the crew. It costs millions just to ready a shuttle for launch, which is why they have decided to let Hubble die.
If the money saved from letting hubble die can be put back into exploring closer to home, using manned space flight, I'm all for doing that then. Hubble has done a lot for us, shown us a lot of things far away, but now I think it is time to start looking up close again. There is a whole universe to explore right here in our own solar system and we've spent less time exploring that then looking at stuff 10 million light years away or more.
Hubble will last another 3 and a half years or so, and they might be able to stretch it another year of limited use if they are clever. Most likely by 2008 hubble will be dead. The space shuttle will retire in 2010 and be replaced by a new craft which has yet to be designed or built. Hubble will be deorbited that year and plunged into the ocean, which would have been its fate even with the servicing mission. It will just spend it's last 2-3 years useless instead of doing anything. That's bad but if it means a return to manned exploration in that time , I'm willing to see that trade off.
But fear not, for no matter what happens, in 2011 the James Webb Space Telescope will be launched, and it will be bigger and far more powerful and advanced than Hubble is. It will then pick up where Hubble left off and show us even more wonders.
But that all hinges on Bush's sudden plan to expand manned space flight to actually come to fruitation. But I think it's just a ploy to try to boost his re-election chances and that the programs he talked about may never materialize or be canceled once he has his second term (God forbid that). But hopefully the public will hold him or his successor to the plan and not let the new manned exploration inititive be shut down. But if it is going to be shut down, then I say we should fix Hubble and at least keep one of the better tools we have for exploration of space running. It's hard to tell what will happen.
Fun shuttle facts
When I worked at my last job, we did some work for NASA and I got to talk to a shuttle engineer! That was awesome!
He told me some really interesting things about the shuttle's engines.
Many people think that the three big engines on the back of the shuttle are used to tool around in orbit. But that isn't true. Believe it or not, they are the main engines used to get the shuttle to orbit, and nothing more.
There are two other smaller ones, which are used as orbital thrusters.
You can see a picture of the engines during launch Here.. Notice that the two little engines on the back of the shuttle are not running. Those are the orbital thrusters.
When the shuttle launches, it is attached to the huge orange tank and two big white "boosters". When the engines fire, main engines come on one at a time about 6 seconds before blast off. Then the solid boosters ignight and the shuttle leaves the ground. The solid boosters are needed to get the whole thing inititally off the ground and through most of the atmosphere. Once they run out, the shuttle is about 28 miles up and past most of the atmosphere. The boosters then detach and parachute back to Earth. Now that the shuttle is past mot air resistance and minus the weight of the solid boosters and some of the liquid fuel in the main tank, the three engines on the back of the shuttle are all that are needed to reach orbit from there.
Once that big tank is out of fuel, it detatches and falls back to Earth. But now the three big engines have no more fuel. If they want to get to a higher orbit, they can use the orbital thrusters, but they only have enough fuel to go so far. Once they get to where Hubble is, there isn't enough to go back down. They have just enough to push the shuttle back towards Earth. The shuttle just isn't capable of carrying enough fuel for those to change orbits, which takes a lot more thrusting about than just de-orbiting. That is why a second shuttle would have to rescue them if they were damaged and in a high orbit, they could not reach the international space station safely to dock there for repairs.
He also told me more interesting stuff too. For one thing, if you unhooked the main shuttle hydrogen turbopump, aimed it up and turned it in to 100%, it would shoot a stream of liquid hydrogen 20+ miles straight up.
When they launch, they run them at 105%-110% of their rated power.
The amout of fuel burned is enormous, it would drain a good sized swimming pool in just seconds.
Check out the HowStuffWorks.com site's Shuttle section for more cool facts and animations of a lot of the stuff I mentioned.
I love that site so much, it's so cool *grins* I used to own a lot of their books as a kid. I'm really impressed they would put this stuff up free on the web now.
Anyway, hope that was interesting reading *grins*
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