NASA's Two New Space Telescopes: Gifts or Headaches?
NASA’s Stubby Hubbles and Fumbled PR
“Moore said that the hardware had been “declassified” so that NASA could use it. So, I asked, since it was “declassified”, what the names of these telescopes were and if we could have photos of the hardware. Moore declined to provide the names of the telescopes – or of anything NRO was providing, said that we could not have photos (because things were classified), and that we should go talk to the NRO’s public relations office. For starters, telling someone to talk to the NRO public affairs office is like suggesting that I find the nearest brick wall to talk to. What had me a bit baffled was why NASA could not provide photos of declassified hardware – suggesting that it was not really declassified at all. So which is it – declassified or not?”
Keith’s note: But wait. This image was posted on MSNBC captioned “A redacted photo shows one of the telescopes transferred from the National Reconnaissance Office to NASA.” and the source is “A. Dressler via National Academies”. NASA refuses to issue images to the media but they give the same imagery to the NAS and they release it to the media? But NASA can’t?
Keith’s update: J.D. Harrington at NASA PAO tells me “I’m told that this is an old picture of the Hubble Space Telescope in its ground handling fixture being moved in the clean room during integrated testing and is not related toany classified hardware. It was included by the author of the CAA presentation yesterday to provide some levity to his somewhat dry science discussion.” Dressler was on the media telecon yesterday when NASA refused to provide photos. So…. a senior representative of the National Academies of Science (Dressler) is issuing photos that they either claim are authentic and/or know are not authentic – and do so after hearing that NASA cannot/will not release them.
NASA is holding a semi-stealth media telecon – but only for selected media – and I got 13 minutes advanced notice. Alas, NASA claims that they are not holding “media telecons” about the NRO telescopes and they tell this to media during a “media telecon”. Goofy.
There is a heavily redacted photo of one of the stubbies setting in storage. About half of the photo is blacked out.
http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn….
Huh? Read the caption, it is HST.
That is not what it said yesterday … it was changed after I outed it as a hoax.
Confirmed. There are no pictures of the NRO birds.
Wow, MSNBC has taken the “redacted photo” off their website. Thankfully I made a copy of it before it was taken off. It does look like a stubby version of the Hubble but there’s no way to be sure.
I say there’s about a 50/50 percent chance it’s a stubby Hubble.
The NRO wants you, the citizens of the Republic to have and enjoy the telescopes. Then they will have to kill you. Grin.
They aren’t declassified.
Yea no kidding — yet NASA PAO and SMD personnel repeatedly state that the hardware has been “declassified”. That is the word they use.
They can’t be, for various reasons. One can transfer them, they can be “remanufactured” in ways that can result in a unclassified spacecraft. This must be what is meant.
Here’s what you can do, turn these over to Space X, refurbish them for use and launch them to the Lagrange point using the falcon Heavy. I’d make a bet that if that’s done,it’ll beat the launch of the James Web telescope by a year to two and prove to be more useful.
🙂
Launch them on a falcon heavy. Delta is about to be cost obsolete.
Joe taxpayer
What makes you think that SpaceX would have any idea of what to do with these? They’re telescopes (optics and structure) only, not complete observatories, so they still need to be attached to a spacecraft bus. Because of tighter pointing requirements, the sensors and actuators used on a space telescope are totally different from what you’d use on a crewed vehicle like Dragon. Also, it’d be a whole new ballgame for SpaceX trying to manage and integrate all the academia and/or NASA teams that would be coming on to the team to supply science instruments.
“Also, it’d be a whole new ballgame for SpaceX trying to manage and integrate all the academia and/or NASA teams that would be coming on to the team to supply science instruments.“
ASFalcon13,
Agreed. This is a management task that even experienced program managers find a tough challenge. (I have it from an “authority” on another thread that universities don’t supply science instruments to NASA programs, so be careful not to catch his attention by including the word academia too loudly.)
Having said that, there are still the structures, fairings, positioning thrusters, solar panels (presumably), TPS, telemetry, and so on to consider, so SpaceX (and/or other “new space” companies) might have a place on the team as a subcontractor or partner (depending on how the contract is written). A consortium of smaller contractors and some universities (with a single “prime” to do program management) might be worth considering for a program like this. It might turn out to be a whole lot cheaper and even faster than handing the whole program off to Boeing or LM and their armies of subcontractors. I think it’s an idea worth exploring anyhow, even if just theoretically if these mirror sets don’t get used. Better to “experiment” with different program structures on a program like this than a multi-billion-dollar job. Besides, dark energy research (the proposed use for these mirror sets) is a fairly new idea, so maybe we should approach it with new methods. Jut thinking out loud.Steve
I also meant to add: The consortium method would give us useful cost and schedule data to contrast against the usual science programs done by JPL and the arsenal contractors.
Steve
More disinformation from Whit-,
a. Aside from JPL, there are no “arsenal” contractors.
b. There is no guarantee that the consortium method would provide useful cost and schedule data and actual would be worse due to all the players involved.
c. Also, consortium method would actually be more costly due to the extra overhead and the inexperienced players.
d. Spacex is not the “end all” aerospace contractor. They are still limited in what they can do.
e. most of the Boeing and LM subcontractors would be the same that the consortium would use.
Editor: Insult deleted. Second warning.
Whit-,
Quit spreading disinformation. Never said that universities don’t supply instruments, I stated that managing the whole project of turning the mirrors into spacecraft would be too much for them
Charlie you need to calm down. Virtually every post includes an insult of another contributor. First warning.
The only point of a SpaceX (or Orbital) here is as a systems integrator for using COTS craft as changing out instruments, which means you get the benefit of a Shuttle refit without the Shuttle.
These items are extremely special purpose, but can be made to do interesting things by certain firms. Its really hard to coordinate this for appropriate effect – Hubbles systems are very … um … “cranky” to work with. These are even worse. For a science product, you really have to be very close to the spacecraft and its community to make this work, so its not a technology problem but a institutional coordination problem.
They’re declassified, but still ITAR sensitive. It’s going to be a while before many technical details get posted on the web openly. Let’s hope that ITAR reform actually makes it through Congress sometime soon…
This would be the perfect opportunity for the Obama administration to take some heat off of the James Webb Space Telescope project. Allocate a billion dollars or so for modifying these things for scientific use, and launch both of them into orbit. Then, these would be the intermediate Hubble successors instead of JWST. That would allow JWST to be pushed back a bit without hurting science.
Ha! Now they’ve put the “redacted photo” back on the msnbc website with a correction that states: “As a joke, astronomer Alan Dressler included what he called a “heavily redacted” picture,
It’s actually a heavily doctored picture of the Hubble Space Telescope from before its launch.”
Some joke, this might get somebody fired.
Wouldn’t these two telescopes make JWST null & void? And free up lots of funds/resources for other gestating projects here at GSFC.
Reminds me about drawbacks on grants from Federal govt. i.e. municipal agency needs to replace aging two-way radios in police, fire, public works vehicles while city budgets very tight. A grant from US govt can help until strings attached saying city has to be completely replaced existing system (i.e. conventional UHF) with a 700 MHz APCO-25 trunking system. This can result in city having to spend even more money to replace entire infrastructure (repeater sites and towers) and have pour tons of money into software upgrades that don’t seem to ever be completed. Some federal grants are best not to be taken.
Any chance the picture Is of a real bird and they are saying it’s old Hubble picture to cover their mistake?????