In the midst of all of the celebration of the successful repair mission, I’m going to dash a little cold water here. While I criticized the O’Keefe decision to not do the Hubble repair, it wasn’t a criticism of the decision itself, but rather of the rationale for it. I’ve never supported the mission, because I think that there were much better uses for the money, even for astronomy. But cancelling it because of risk to the crew was a dumb reason to do so (particularly because it made it easy for Griffin to reverse it when he came in). As always in these cases, it’s the money, stupid. And while I’m sure that we’ll get spectacular results from the fix, I remain convinced that there were better uses for the money.
Anyway, Rocketman agrees. Though I would note that the cost of a Shuttle flight isn’t a billion dollars for the purpose of determining the cost of this mission. What’s important for this analysis is the marginal cost of the flight, which, ignoring the cost of the telescope upgrade hardware, was less than a couple hundred million, including crew training. But it was still a lousy deal.
Though I would note that the cost of a Shuttle flight isn’t a billion dollars for the purpose of determining the cost of this mission. What’s important for this analysis is the marginal cost of the flight, which, ignoring the cost of the telescope upgrade hardware, was less than a couple hundred million, including crew training.
Long ago, in the context of an ongoing shuttle program, I would have agreed. Now that the program has a known and finite number of flights remaining, not sure I agree any more. Adding a flight doesn’t just add the marginal cost for the flight any more; it adds the cost of extending the program a bit, at ~$250 million per month. So effectively “marginal cost” goes away and each flight incurs the average annual program cost.
If the shuttle program can’t finish the manifest by the end of FY10 (which seems likely), the additions of 125 and 134 to the manifest will be the biggest reasons, especially given the impacts of the extended 125 slip (and the logistical difficulties of dual stacking for the LON rescue flight).
That’s assuming that it actually does result in an extension of the program. It’s not at all clear that it will really affect the schedule (say) a year from now, because other unforeseen things may cause slippage.
If shuttle extension leads to cancellation of Constellation by depriving it of sufficient resources to make meaningful progress within a reasonable timeframe, then it might actually be thought of as an investment. You’d not be buying a repair mission, you’d be buying a Constellation termination device. I think we need more Hubble servicing missions. 🙂
You’re looking at the cost of the mission from the point of view of the American taxpayer. While this is logical, it’s not how it works in Washington. The Science Mission Directorate at NASA doesn’t pay for the launch expenses, so the balance from the science benefit point of view for the community is only the costs of the new instruments, replacement hardware and the HST marching army. Under that calculus, I consider the servicing mission an excellent value for NASA: two new instruments, two repaired instruments, and at least 5 more years on the best telescope in the business for about the cost of a mid-level explorer. As the project scientist for one of the new instruments, I am of course completely unbiased in my assessment.
What Astra said–it’s SMD money from HST’s pot.
Also, remember that this mission also put on an adaptor for whatever EOL solution will be developed for Hubble. The previous robotic solutions for this were ruinously expensive.
The EOL solution will be to let the thing reenter in a mostly uncontrolled manner. The expected cost from property damage and loss of life is far smaller than the cost of anything that could be done to prevent it.
I think this is the closest you’re likely to get to an official NASA reply.