NASA has been in the news this week with their record setting repair/rejuvenation of the Hubble telescope. Compared to brain surgery, our astronauts broke all the space walking records in fitting the aging Hubble with a bunch of new equipment. (That's my aerospace engineering degree using some tech-speak.) NASA loves manned missions because of the publicity. It is great theater and they pine for the opportunity to go back to the moon and then on to Mars.
The truth be known, far more science is achieved for a small fraction of the cost with the unmanned space missions like the Mars rover, Hubble and spy satellites. I know you're thinking that he just bragged about the "manned" repair of the Hubble. Yes, once again great theater but we could have put a new and improved telescope into space for a fraction of the cost. In fact, the Europeans launched two new telescopes this week from a single Ariane rocket. Herschel with its 3.5 meter mirror will study the formation of the galaxies in the early universe. Plank will focus on the darkest, coldest and oldest parts of the universe to study dark matter. .. and they are new, using the latest technology.
Now you are thinking "but what about space junk if we just let the old Hubble die?" True Grasshopper but once again a small fraction of the junk we will have once we abandon the international space station as planned in the next few years. Manned space exploration is all about marketing and keeping the budgets a lot higher than they need to be while achieving a fraction of the real science possible with the unmanned.
No comments:
Post a Comment