jojo

Why are they removing the shuttle?

kent betts

NASA is never going to launch a robotic vehicle to de-orbit HST. These cats are
pulling our leg.

EIther a rocket is attached during a service mission or it is just going to come
down unguided. It is not economical to launch any sort of de-orbit mission. It
will come down in the ocean or knock down some rubber tree, and NASA will say
"That's nice. We would have been happy to spend the billion dollars for a
controlled return, but blah blah."

Come to think of it, if NASA *does* try to do a de-orbit mission, there should
be a congressional investigation.

explorer8939

The most likely scenario is that Servicing Mission 5 will carry some
sort of attitude control unit that also incorporates an end-of-life
de-orbit capability, so that Hubble can be used beyond its nominal
lifetime, but still have a controlled de-orbit capability.

What I am wondering is how Congress/CAIB will allow Shuttle to fly to
Hubble, given that a major malfunction, such as what happened with
STS-107, would prove fatal to the Shuttle crew (unlike ISS missions,
there is no place to stay at Hubble. I would imagine that this would
lead to a requirement to have a 2nd Shuttle on short term standby at
the Cape, ready to launch if there is a tile/leading edge panel
problem with the 1st shuttle, but this seems like something out of
Armageddon.

jorge r. frank

The very existence of STS-107 was just such an example. Congress mandated
that NASA perform a non-ISS science mission in order to keep the science
community busy while ISS is still being assembled.

Another example is Transhab: Congress passed a budget amendment that
stated, in effect, that NASA could build its own hab module for ISS as long
as it was made of aluminum, but if it was inflatable, NASA would have to
procure it commercially.

If you want to broaden the net to the Executive branch, there's Triana.

--
JRF

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