Post by sts60 on Apr 18, 2006 21:06:23 GMT -4
MM, assuming you're really serious about the question and not just pulling our legs...
It costs a heckuva lot to lift stuff into low Earth orbit. It costs even more to lift things into high Earth orbit, especially a heavy object like the Hubble. So you need a truly compelling reason to spend the extra money - lots and lots of it - for the grunt work of getting higher.
The Hubble's advantage over Earthbound observatories arise mainly from the fact that it's above the atmosphere. It doesn't really matter whether it's 300 miles or 1000 miles or 10,000 miles or 100,000 miles up. It is already above the unsteady air, humidity, dust, pollution, and scattered light. That allows it to take clearer images than a comparable telescope, with less background interference, and allows it to see a wider range of wavelengths (e.g., certain UV wavelengths that can't be seen from the ground). So going higher isn't a compelling reason just for "seeing
The Hubble is designed for deep-space work; it's raison d'etre is to help answer the Big Questions about galactic motion, dark matter, and the early days of the Universe - looking waaay out past our solar system. Moving it out simply won't make a difference in such work, even if you moved out past Pluto. Bob B.'s New York - LA simile is dead on in this case. So there's no profit in moving it higher for that.
Even the Solar System work done by HST wouldn't derive much benefit from moving it higher. Moving it way up into geosynchronous orbit would make only a slight difference in its ability to resolve lunar features, and virtually no difference at all in its ability to resolve features on other planets. So that's no reason either.
So what justification is there for sending a Hubble-class imager further out? None, really, when you consider what else you could do in space with that kind of money. For a lot less, we've already put Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter into orbit around the Red Planet, where it will give us one-meter resolution. That's plenty good enough until we're ready to put "boots on the ground".
The other funny thing about your post, MoonMan, is that you're trying to rehash the old "can't get men above low Earth orbit because of radiation/meteors/aliens/whatever" argument, but you didn't even get that right. You're now saying that an unmanned vehicle* can't get above a few hundred miles, which is patently ridiculous. Large communications satellites are a multibillion-dollar business which enable many more billions of dollars a year in commerce.
So not only is your argument without merit in its conclusions, it's based on a botched rehash of another claim which is wrong to begin with, and in your formulation contradicts a reality obvious to anyone who watches satellite television or listens to XM or Sirius satellite radio!
Hat trick! Congratulations!
*edited to add- in this case, a robotic servicing mission
It costs a heckuva lot to lift stuff into low Earth orbit. It costs even more to lift things into high Earth orbit, especially a heavy object like the Hubble. So you need a truly compelling reason to spend the extra money - lots and lots of it - for the grunt work of getting higher.
The Hubble's advantage over Earthbound observatories arise mainly from the fact that it's above the atmosphere. It doesn't really matter whether it's 300 miles or 1000 miles or 10,000 miles or 100,000 miles up. It is already above the unsteady air, humidity, dust, pollution, and scattered light. That allows it to take clearer images than a comparable telescope, with less background interference, and allows it to see a wider range of wavelengths (e.g., certain UV wavelengths that can't be seen from the ground). So going higher isn't a compelling reason just for "seeing
The Hubble is designed for deep-space work; it's raison d'etre is to help answer the Big Questions about galactic motion, dark matter, and the early days of the Universe - looking waaay out past our solar system. Moving it out simply won't make a difference in such work, even if you moved out past Pluto. Bob B.'s New York - LA simile is dead on in this case. So there's no profit in moving it higher for that.
Even the Solar System work done by HST wouldn't derive much benefit from moving it higher. Moving it way up into geosynchronous orbit would make only a slight difference in its ability to resolve lunar features, and virtually no difference at all in its ability to resolve features on other planets. So that's no reason either.
So what justification is there for sending a Hubble-class imager further out? None, really, when you consider what else you could do in space with that kind of money. For a lot less, we've already put Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter into orbit around the Red Planet, where it will give us one-meter resolution. That's plenty good enough until we're ready to put "boots on the ground".
The other funny thing about your post, MoonMan, is that you're trying to rehash the old "can't get men above low Earth orbit because of radiation/meteors/aliens/whatever" argument, but you didn't even get that right. You're now saying that an unmanned vehicle* can't get above a few hundred miles, which is patently ridiculous. Large communications satellites are a multibillion-dollar business which enable many more billions of dollars a year in commerce.
So not only is your argument without merit in its conclusions, it's based on a botched rehash of another claim which is wrong to begin with, and in your formulation contradicts a reality obvious to anyone who watches satellite television or listens to XM or Sirius satellite radio!
Hat trick! Congratulations!
*edited to add- in this case, a robotic servicing mission