Comments | hubbletelescope: I've been thinking...

hubbletelescope

I've been thinking...

Mar 12, 2004 08:39

There's a scientist in Russia who has patented a way to put billboards in space. I'm sure most of you have seen the story. It's gotten me thinking, however. I wonder if I could stay up here longer if I managed to land some commercial endorsements. You know, The Hubble Telescope, Presented by Citibank. Or hell, go for the naming rights and ( Read more... )

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wcg March 12 2004, 06:08:48 UTC

You're dreaming big fella. I happen to know you can't focus on anything as close as the Earth. And what's this "lens" business? You have a 94 inch primary mirror. The only lenses in you are tiny ones in the Fine Guidance Sensors.

The swoosh thing might work. It's clean and simple. But you don't want to go sticking labels all over your reflective blanketing. That'd make cooling a lot more complicated. Remember back when you had the GHRS, and it'd get up to 50 Celsius in there when the high voltage was on for a long time? Yeah, it could be like that again.

hubbletelescope March 12 2004, 06:20:41 UTC

I happen to know you can't focus on anything as close as the Earth.

You know that, and I know that, but the people that are watching the commercial won't necessarily know that.

But yeah, I do remember that I was seriously sweating those days. Maybe...maybe some kind of special reflective stickers. I dunno. Like I said, I'm just throwing out ideas, it'd be up to actual humans to make them work.

wcg March 12 2004, 06:48:41 UTC

As one of the actual humans who's managed some pretty impressive modifications on you in the past, I'll allow as how we could do it again, if we're allowed to. The big problem is that you were designed to be closely involved with the shuttles, and now they're not flying. (Come to think of it, did anybody tell you about Columbia? The Penguin burned up when one of her wings came off, back a little over a year ago. I know she never visited you. But still...)

Anyhow, it's great talking to you. This LJ thing beats the heck out of the PSTOL interface.

hubbletelescope March 12 2004, 07:26:16 UTC

Yeah, I heard about the old girl. I'd have wept had I tear ducts, both for her passengers and for the queen of the fleet herself. She was a grande dame, and I'm not sure I was entirely worthy to share the same orbital space as her. I've been trying to keep up on what all happened, and it didn't seem like a potential design flaw in the fleet, but then I know almost nothing about how reentry works, as I'm not designed to actually survive my trip back through the atmosphere. I watched MiR as it went down, and decided I'm not really looking forward to that.

I had noticed that it was only shuttles that I got to visit with. They were always so good to me, I'm going to miss them if the next mission to me really does get canned in spite of Sen. Mikulski's best efforts. Sure they could design another craft to come and visit me, but I know I'll have gone retrograde before any next gen shuttle could get designed, built, tested, and launched.

I *don't* know that loosechanj March 12 2004, 06:48:44 UTC

Seeing as how you're a near clone of some spysats. :-P

wcg March 12 2004, 06:50:13 UTC

Very different focal ratio. Hubble has f/24 optics, while the KH-12's are more like f/4.

loosechanj March 12 2004, 06:57:08 UTC

My understanding is that the whole "it's too bright" for the Earth and moon is bull, and that it's just really hard to track things so close.

wcg March 12 2004, 07:05:01 UTC

It is mostly bull. The Earth gets imaged all the time for flat field images. They're just completely out of focus, but that's what a flat is all about. The Moon is a bit trickier, since it's a bright moving target that would be in focus. I reviewed a proposal one year that had "guide craters" included. It would probably have worked, though there was a risk of damage to one of the more sensitive instruments if its high voltage somehow got left on before slewing to the Moon.

The big reaon you won't see a Moon proposal being executed is that HST is just way too oversubscribed. Every year there are six to eight times as many proposals received as there's time to execute. So the TAC has to winnow things down to only the very, very best.

sarameg March 12 2004, 08:55:47 UTC

Hubble did actually image the moon a few years back, with STIS:

http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/newsdesk/archive/releases/1999/14/

wcg March 12 2004, 11:49:58 UTC

Thanks! I should have been paying closer attention. That's a gorgeous image of Copernicus crater.

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