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Comment by dwheeler | Hacker News Reader

I expect NASA to do the calculations, but I would expect boosting the orbit of an existing working telescope would be much cheaper than building a new one AND ALSO putting it in orbit. There are relatively few telescopes outside Earth's atmosphere; keeping Hubble running seems like a good idea.

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It's not just orbital boosting.

It's also doing things like swapping out reaction wheels and dying hardware of various kinds.

And as soon as you're doing that, you're probably using humans. And then because the cost is already so big, you might as well replace some instruments, too...

A boost module can semipermanently attach itself and take over all the maneuvering functions with its own hardware suite.

Ha, found the practical engineer! I didn't think of that. Brilliant!

On the last Hubble service mission, they added a soft capture mechanism. They could attach a boost module to that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Space_Telescope#/media/...

Or Kerbal Space Program player lmao.

I definitely did that once or twice, just send a small craft with some RCS thrusters and reaction wheels then attach it to spacecraft via The Claw

Yes, humans are needed until they’re not.

Once they’re no longer needed the cost of repair drops by 100x.

Musk’s android seems like a bit of a gimmick but hopefully he stirs up enough imagination in people that we get a few breakthroughs in robotics.

Then we can explore the entire solar system…build bases on Mars and the moons of Jupiter, etc without sending humans

we can't even get a robot to fix a dishwasher or to sort trash. Let alone am orbital telescope

To be fair, making a robot to fix a specific kind of dishwasher whose internal layout is known and where fixes involve replacing parts already meant to be replaceable is probably a lot easier than one that can fix any dishwasher. Same with sorting trash.

The big point here is that this boosting and potentially servicing mission isn't being pitched by NASA. It's a SpaceX proposal connected to their entirely private program to develop EVA capability for Dragon and to eventually test Starship's ability to support crews in space. Thus for NASA it would likely be cheaper than if they were asking for it.

So the reason we likely won't see a robotic servicing of Hubble (from this) is that it doesn't have as much relevance to SpaceX's goals with Polaris Dawn as just docking, orbit raising and maybe crewed servicing does.

Agreed, technologically you can make a robot that can fix a dishwasher that would be specially designed to be repairable.

But if you can't get dishwasher manufacturers to produce repairable dishwashers, then it's all for naught - we have failed as am industry.

Amd if you can get manufacturers to produce repairable dishwashers, then probably those dishwashers can be repaired by random joe opening a repairshop.

And its not clear why we need a robot.

Thats why our industry is a joke, we were promised robots will deliver our food, but instead robots micromanage indentured servants.

My city removed all plastic recycling bins several years ago in favor of using trash sorting robots after collecting mixed waste.

The robots could pick sort 70% effectively while the population of humans after years of training was stuck at 50%. I imagine the efficiency of the robots may even have increased a bit since then.

You missed crucisl detail- humans were sorting for free, owner of robots is paid.

Another crucial detail: producers of platic packaging engage is deliberate fraud to conflate recycleable and non recycleable plastic. Plastics that say 'commonly recycled' may be unrecycleable anywhere except a leading technology lab.

Another detail: massive fraud in recycling industry:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/18/uk-recyc...

Most european countries stil do separate recycling, and have much higher recycling rates than UK or US, which have mixed recycling.

Interesting! Which city, and is there a writeup with more details?

I can't even get my dishwasher to clean my dishes. This is not the future I was promised.

The trick is let your dog lick them clean.

biological automation is always superior

>Where can you find another non-linear servo-mechanism weighing only 150 pounds and having great adaptability, that can be produced so cheaply by completely unskilled labor?

—Scott Crossfield, US test pilot <https://quoteinvestigator.com/tag/albert-scott-crossfield/>

Yeah, many people think it’s impossible until someone else does it.

The game of Go wasn’t close to being won by a computer until DeepMind came along.

https://www.theverge.com/2016/3/9/11185030/google-deepmind-a...

Do they plan to do more manned missions to Hubble?

Hubble re-enters in 2037, and is useless because of orbital mechanics a few years before that.

I think it's unlikely the current reaction wheel system lasts to that ~2032 timeframe, let alone significantly beyond.

Of 6 wheels, 2 are working well, 1 is dodgy, and 3 have failed. 3 are required to keep orientation.

I thought they could now control it with only 2 reaction wheels [1]

[1] https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/10543974.pdf

This proposal (by being part of Polaris) is implied to be manned as far as I can tell.

It's also proposed to be funded by Isaacman. Reading between the lines, he's probably planning to go to space personally and fix the Hubble. Which is kinda a vanity project at that point, but hey, I'll take it.

Both he and SpaceX seem committed to expanding the capabilities of private spaceflight and private astronauts. If they are into it, why not?

The original Hubble servicing mission where apparently more expensive than building and launching 3 replacements. Those missions where less about cost than actually testing repair capabilities and some publicity.

Which may or may not still be relevant.

ALL shuttle missions were more expensive than launching 3 separate expendable missions. (on top of the launch costs themselves, the payload had to be 'upgraded' to human safety requirements. So things like deployment squibs had to be made triple redundant (instead of double) and had to be completely disconnected from a power source until released from the shuttle bay. (and of course, that power connection system had to be triple redundant... the complexity fed on itself) and that's before you get to the paperwork and the safety reviews... And you had to staff up three launch teams, instead of two... you needed a full team at Johnson in addition to the Cape and your own site. And the launch teams needed to be onsite for the full shuttle mission and rehearsals, and jerked around by the incessant shuttle schedule slips. The costs just kept piling up. )

As other's have commented, NASA has "free" telescopes donated to them by the NRO.

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