On Thu, 28 Aug 2003 15:02:41 -0700 (PDT), Bill Clawson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>..and what about the mission to the Hubble Space >Telescope? My rather rusty memory seems to recall >that ISS & Hubble are in completely different orbital >planes. <sigh> I was hoping no one would catch that little flaw in my evil plan... The Columbia accident has made the case for maintaining Hubble quite a bit harder. Pulling some numbers out of my own rusty memory, HST is in a 28 degree orbit at 600 km, and ISS is in a 51 degree orbit at 400 km. No way a Shuttle is going from one to the other except via Edwards and Canaveral. There aren't any good options. Any STS mission that doesn't go to ISS risks another TPS failure. OTOH, if HST doesn't get some attention soon, it's going to die, and it is arguably the most successful scientific satellite ever launched. Someone was musing about using a Soyuz mission or two to do the refurb missions. They'd have to make an adapter. OK. They'd lave to launch from the Cape...OK. Suits me. I think, given the price of Soyuzes, every non-ISS Shuttle mission ought to be reassigned. Titan, Atlas, Soyuz, Sea Launch...there's a fair bit of excess launcher capacity. Let's replace Nixon's White Elephant and retire it as soon as we finish ISS. (Not that I care about ISS, but try to kill Shuttle *and* Station - you might just as well stay home, because it ain't gonna happen.) -R -- Son: Dad, I have a question about women. Suppose I Dagwood: Apologize anyway. Son: Yeah, that's about what I figured Dagwood: It saves time _______________________________________________ ERPS-list mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.erps.org/mailman/listinfo/erps-list
