Hubble gets a life line

Being the fan of space that I am, I was pretty pleased to read that nasa has made the decision to save the Hubble Space Telescope by sending a shuttle servicing mission in 2008.

The Hubble has produced some of the most amazing space views ever captured, and has unlocked realms of cosmology by snapping pictures that are generally impossible to get through the atmosphere (although the ground based scopes are getting better)

The James Web Space Telescope is supposed to be the replacement for Hubble, however its not an optical telescope, its infared, so while it will be a nice piece of equipment, its not really a replacement, as it's looking at parts of the spectrum.

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Somebody else who is fascinated by the cosmos?

Ya learn something new every day!

Wooo, yay!

Hubble - Bubbah!


That's what I say. :wave:

JWST is scheduled for 2013 ,wondering if Hubble would be up and running till then.Its already a decade old by now.

Hubble is about 16 Years old, and they think the servicing mission will keep it going until at least 2013

Big fan of space here also - that's why my company is called Antares Computing Systems...

I grew up across the street from a man that worked at Perkin-Elmer (here in Connecticut) doing the optics for Hubble. They supported the main mirror during grinding with hundreds of little adjustable fingers - to mimic how they thought the glass would behave outside of the influlence of gravity.

What an incredible piece of equipment - even with it's oops in engineering, it's all worked out incredibly.

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Originally Posted by szlamany

Big fan of space here also - that's why my company is called Antares Computing Systems...

I grew up across the street from a man that worked at Perkin-Elmer (here in Connecticut) doing the optics for Hubble. They supported the main mirror during grinding with hundreds of little adjustable fingers - to mimic how they thought the glass would behave outside of the influlence of gravity.

What an incredible piece of equipment - even with it's oops in engineering, it's all worked out incredibly.

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So he was the guy who botched the mirror job huh???

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Originally Posted by timeshifter

Somebody else who is fascinated by the cosmos?

Ya learn something new every day!

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Well duh. :)

I'd be more surprised to find someone here who isn't interested in the cosmos. I would also look upon them with slight contempt.

Just look at probably 290 million members of the American society...

Pat yourself on the back for being part of the top 5% of the human population in terms of intellect (and the bottom 5% of the socially gifted population)

Space is a tough sell for some people because lots of things that we find in space or discover during our space endevours tend to disprove various religious beliefs...

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Originally Posted by mendhak

Pat yourself on the back for being part of the top 5% of the human population in terms of intellect (and the bottom 5% of the socially gifted population)

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I'm not sure about the socially gifted part... i have plenty of good friends that aren't nerds... and i play guitar...

but i appreciate the intellect portion...

That doesn't prevent them from creating Intelligent Design. :D

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Originally Posted by timeshifter

I'm not sure about the socially gifted part... i have plenty of good friends that aren't nerds... and i play guitar...

but i appreciate the intellect portion...

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I play guitar too... what kind do you have?

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Originally Posted by timeshifter

I'm not sure about the socially gifted part... i have plenty of good friends that aren't nerds... and i play guitar...

but i appreciate the intellect portion...

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Try talking to them about your thoughts on simple things like alternate dimensions, quantum foam and the postulations regarding the changing laws of the universe.

My speed guitar is a little DeArmond M-65 with some parts upgraded and the action lowered, and my beast is an old Ibanez Kramer... Silver-to-gold two-tone paint, 24 frets, 2 single coil and a humbucker... gorgeous instrument...

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Originally Posted by mendhak

That doesn't prevent them from creating Intelligent Design. :D

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If humans were intelligently designed (instead of billions of years of evolutional trial and error in nature) then the person who designed us did a rather poor job.

Anyone that came into creating humans with blue prints in hand, would never had made us as screwed up as we are. ;)

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Originally Posted by mendhak

Try talking to them about your thoughts on simple things like alternate dimensions, quantum foam and the postulations regarding the changing laws of the universe.

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I have determined that quantum foam belongs on top of quantum beer... but all of the above are very enjoyable topics... for instance, my program that maps out the relative forces in effect as two black holes collide...

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Originally Posted by kleinma

If humans were intelligently designed (instead of billions of years of evolutional trial and error in nature) then the person who designed us did a rather poor job.

Anyone that came into creating humans with blue prints in hand, would never had made us as screwed up as we are. ;)

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Intelligent design, by definition, eschews the existence of our species.

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Originally Posted by timeshifter

I have determined that quantum foam belongs on top of quantum beer... but all of the above are very enjoyable topics... for instance, my program that maps out the relative forces in effect as two black holes collide...

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Yes, can you talk to them about it on a regular basis?

Most of them don't know what any of that is... which is why i rely on other topics to keep me out of the bottom 5% in social interactinos...

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Originally Posted by timeshifter

My speed guitar is a little DeArmond M-65 with some parts upgraded and the action lowered, and my beast is an old Ibanez Kramer... Silver-to-gold two-tone paint, 24 frets, 2 single coil and a humbucker... gorgeous instrument...

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Nice. I have a US made fender strat (had the bridge flattened and took off the wammie bar, action is really low and sweet), which is my only electric at the moment. I really want a les paul, but they are just so damn expensive.

I also have a 12 string washburn acoustic, and my fathers martin D-35 from the 70s (back when they gave out lifetime warranites)

I can still bring the guitar to martin and they will clean it up and refurbish it like new for the life of the guitar.

it doesn't take much space information to leave people scratching their heads.

Most of the logic that makes up space and time confuses me too. I mean I can understand it, even when these scientists use horrible analogies to try to explain them in laymans terms... however the underlying math and logic is really perplexing...

Nice. My acoustic is actually hand-built by my dad.. the woods are totally customized to produce a balanced sound unlike anything i've ever heard, and it's got a nice body, built for house entertainment. It's value is probably four or five grand... I love that instrument..

My DeArmond's action is, i believe, .08" at 12th fret... I have yet to see a guitar that can beat that...

doesn't your low E buzz at the first fret?

sorry that this thread is kinda going in multiple directions.. good to see that a lot of you share similar interests though.

Suprisingly, I can play in Drop D without buzzing.. at .05, if I recall correctly.. impressive, isn't it?

I can play Winamp.

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Originally Posted by kleinma

Space is a tough sell for some people because lots of things that we find in space or discover during our space endevours tend to disprove various religious beliefs...

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Quoted for the f'n truth!

For the cost of a repair mission via space shuttle, they could have built a new telescope and sent it up via rocket.

Outer space is nought but the Devil's vile temptation.

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Originally Posted by mendhak

Well duh. :)

I'd be more surprised to find someone here who isn't interested in the cosmos. I would also look upon them with slight contempt.

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I went to Space Camp. :thumb:

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Originally Posted by moeur

For the cost of a repair mission via space shuttle, they could have built a new telescope and sent it up via rocket.

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That's not really true.

They already have 100% built upgrade components that were supposed to be installed by now. Those in addition to the gyroscope replacements, and the deorbit booster they are going to put on to eventually bring hubble down to earth.

In addition to that, its a good experience mission for astronauts to fix something via spacewalk... They don't get a ton of chances to do things like that.

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Originally Posted by kleinma

So he was the guy who botched the mirror job huh???

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He said it was the guy in the cubicle next to him - getting some bad info from some programming forum :p

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That's not really true.

They already have 100% built upgrade components that were supposed to be installed by now. Those in addition to the gyroscope replacements, and the deorbit booster they are going to put on to eventually bring hubble down to earth.

In addition to that, its a good experience mission for astronauts to fix something via spacewalk... They don't get a ton of chances to do things like that

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It is true. The cost of sending persons into orbits dwarfs the cost of any other hardware considerations.

Why do we need to send people into space?

It's all PR. If we didn't send people into space the public would not be so interested and thus the funding for NASA would be smaller. I've worked on two NASA microgravity projects and we had to calculate the cost for doing the experiments both ways. Unmanned flights are a lot cheeper and can do anything you can do with manned flights.

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Originally Posted by moeur

It is true. The cost of sending persons into orbits dwarfs the cost of any other hardware considerations.

Why do we need to send people into space?

It's all PR. If we didn't send people into space the public would not be so interested and thus the funding for NASA would be smaller. I've worked on two NASA microgravity projects and we had to calculate the cost for doing the experiments both ways. Unmanned flights are a lot cheeper and can do anything you can do with manned flights.

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PR? When there is a shuttle launch its on the news for all of 10 minutes now before they go back to talking politics and wars. Them launching a shuttle is not really a big deal in the general public's eye. They only take notice when one blows up. Once something amazing has been done once, people tend to lose interest.

So just think how much funding they will get if they cancel all manned flights. Public interest is high now compared to what it would be.