Hubble, Hubble, Toil and Trouble

[darthgently]

16 hours ago, Ricktoberfest said:

How many of the original repair astronauts had previously done repair work while on EVA?  Although it might be difficult, there’s no reason civilians can’t be trained in the same way NASA astronauts are trained to do this. They just don’t want to admit that you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to be an astronaut. Astronauts (nasa) have this reputation of being near geniuses. If your local plumber could do a repair in space, then why do we over-train astronauts and pay them for decades for 1 or 2 missions?  It used to make sense when they actually had to pilot a spacecraft. Now it’s just silly. 

<sarc>Why don't we send any welder to go do those underwater welding jobs on oil rigs?  What's all this hype about scuba training and certification to be a "genius" underwater welder when scuba isn't much more complicated than taking a shower?  Right?</sarc>

I do fully support Isaacman et al helping to service Hubble, but I imagined a Hubble trained technician/astronaut from NASA being with them and running point on the actual repair.  If it were just boosting Hubble and not servicing I'd be open to private crew only as I gather Hubble has the standard docking adapter, as does Dragon, and it's worth a shot given NASA is unlikely to find the budget, resources, and time to do anything before it meteors

Edited June 5 by darthgently

[Terwin]

6 hours ago, darthgently said:

If it were just boosting Hubble and not servicing I'd be open to private crew only as I gather Hubble has the standard docking adapter, as does Dragon, and it's worth a shot given NASA is unlikely to find the budget, resources, and time to do anything before it meteors

As far as I am aware, Hubble is intended to be grasped by the Canada arm, not a standard docking adapter.

I remember seeing a proposal to install a standard adapter as part of repairs by a dragon launched team, but I do not believe this has happened as of yet.

[darthgently]

1 hour ago, Terwin said:

As far as I am aware, Hubble is intended to be grasped by the Canada arm, not a standard docking adapter.

I remember seeing a proposal to install a standard adapter as part of repairs by a dragon launched team, but I do not believe this has happened as of yet.

Ok, I had read "standard adapter" somewhere and leapt to that being a standard docking adapter.  Thanks for the correction, much appreciated

[magnemoe]

9 hours ago, darthgently said:

<sarc>Why don't we send any welder to go do those underwater welding jobs on oil rigs?  What's all this hype about scuba training and certification to be a "genius" underwater welder when scuba isn't much more complicated than taking a shower?  Right?</sarc>

I do fully support Isaacman et al helping to service Hubble, but I imagined a Hubble trained technician/astronaut from NASA being with them and running point on the actual repair.  If it were just boosting Hubble and not servicing I'd be open to private crew only as I gather Hubble has the standard docking adapter, as does Dragon, and it's worth a shot given NASA is unlikely to find the budget, resources, and time to do anything before it meteors

I agree, now using dragon to boost Hubble makes more sense, I assume they would use an custom docking adapter in the trunk  like the Canada arm one,  it'ss extended before docking. Dragon capsules main rcs in in the nose under the aerodynamic cover. 
No servicing of Hubble but the he docking adapter might contain some system they leave on Hubble, my guess would be signal boosting or perhaps backup reaction wheels but this is unlikely. 

[Ricktoberfest]

20 hours ago, PakledHostage said:

So what are you suggesting? Send up some gum chewing, cap on backwards guys named Chad because the computer can fly now? Sure, some tourists have gone to orbit, but they only did so after extensive training and (to my knowledge) none of them has done an EVA, let alone done on orbit repair work. This sounds like a Dunning-Kruger effect case study in the making.

I don’t el know why but I responded earlier to this and it never posted

 

no, I do not suggest what your strawman argument says. I suggest sending either a properly trained civilian astronaut - or - for NASA to send one of their properly trained astronauts on the dragon EVA mission. I doubt any current astronaut has actually worked on Hubble though so I’m sure whoever would end up going would need training. That’s my point- if you’re going to end up training someone, why insist that they be a NASA astronaut?  A civilian who has undergone the training is just as qualified as a NASA astronaut who’s never been on an EVA.  Either NASA doesn’t want Hubble to remain in orbit, or they think only NASA should be allowed to interact with it.  Gone are the days when you needed 6 degrees in astrophysics to be able to operate a power tool in space. It made sense when missions were crazy expensive and rare. Now with access to (relatively) cheap launches, we can afford to send people who aren’t 1 in a billion to space. That’s what the inspiration mission was inter to show. Regular people can do the same work as the rocket scientist astronauts with the appropriate training. It’s all computers running every aspect of the spacecraft. Even so called manual modes and abort modes are run by computers. There is no direct command to the RCS that allow maneuvering without a computer any more- hence no need for the highly trained pilot to manually land the capsule. If the computers all  fail while in orbit, the mission is already lost. Unless you think “the Martian” was correct and blowing a hole in your spacecraft or space suit to vent atmosphere to deorbit would actually work (never mind how to survive re-entry)

[PakledHostage]

1 hour ago, Ricktoberfest said:

no, I do not suggest what your strawman argument says. 

It wasn't a straw man, it was hyperbole. You  asked:

If your local plumber could do a repair in space, then why do we over-train astronauts and pay them for decades for 1 or 2 missions

I was trying to point out that there's more to it than that. Inspiration took some civilians to orbit and let them float around for a couple of days. It's a big leap from there to doing on-orbit repairs while on EVA. To suggest otherwise is to overestimate competencies or underestimate difficulties (i.e. Dunning-Kruger effect).

[Exploro]

On 6/3/2024 at 11:40 PM, mikegarrison said:

So ... the Hubble might be non-functional due to a gyroscope problem. Or maybe they can remotely work around that and keep it functional, but for no more than about 10 years.

The decision is to resort to single gyro operating mode for pointing the telescope. This will pose have some limitation on the type of science Hubble can do, but should still allows for the kind of science the spacecraft has been doing for nearly three decades. The article also mentions that the NASA has ~10 years to decide on sending a propulsion unit to the telescope for orbit modification or for controlled re-entry.

[StrandedonEarth]

Well, given the speed of NASA, if they have tn years to do something, they need to decide on what they're doing right now...

[Cuky]

On 6/5/2024 at 9:55 PM, PakledHostage said:

I was trying to point out that there's more to it than that. Inspiration took some civilians to orbit and let them float around for a couple of days. It's a big leap from there to doing on-orbit repairs while on EVA. To suggest otherwise is to overestimate competencies or underestimate difficulties (i.e. Dunning-Kruger effect).

So far I haven't seen them taking just any willing person from the street to the program. All of them are highly educated and some have engineering experience.  Before 1st manned Skylab mission 2 of 3 crew members were never in space before and no one of them 3 did any repair work on space station. But engineers worked out the plan for how to fix the problems with station, wrote down the procedures and designed parts and tools and then got the crew into training to practice for what they have to do.

I really don't see any reason why civilian crew couldn't be trained in 1-3 months to perform repair work on a satellite in orbit. Or do people really think that hey would just hop on board Dragon and yolo it without any training?

[StrandedonEarth]

4 hours ago, Cuky said:

wrote down the procedures and designed parts and tools and then got the crew into training to practice for what they have to do.

And in training (which was conducted in enormous neutral buoyancy tanks to simulate spacewalking) they discovered which parts of the procedures and tools needed to be changed. Especially in the early days.

The most common request from early spacewalkers was "More hand and footholds!"