[extropy-chat] Soyuz Hubble Repair Mission

[Technotranscendence]

On Wednesday, January 26, 2005 2:50 PM Mike Lorrey mlorrey at yahoo.com
wrote:
> My recommendation is instead is for the USAF
> to orbit the Orbital Transfer Vehicle they
> developed several years ago at Phillips Lab
> and never launched, hook that up to Hubble,
> and use it to move Hubble to the ISS for
> servicing. It could then be used to put Hubble
> into a much higher orbit as well and enable it
> to return to ISS in the future for servicing,
> refuelling, etc.

Not a bad idea, but...  What orbit is the Hubble on in relation to the
ISS?  How easy would be to change orbital planes -- assuming they're not
on the orbit?  How far along was the OTV in development?  (My
Soyuz-Progress suggestion has the benefit that both vehicles are well
tested and routinely used, so there's no much new development needed.)

BTW, it'd be nice to see the ISS used for something -- other than just a
place to put people to barely maintain the ISS.

> The Phillips OTV uses passive solar thermal
> power to run a plasma engine.

Has it been tested in space?

Finally, my actual recommend is that NO repair or replacement mission is
funded and that interested parties start looking to other alternatives,
especially private space telescopes.  This might increase interest in
something like the SpaceDev ILO project and shift more focus to private
space development.

Cheers!

Dan
    See "Ust Contra Tebye" at:
http://uweb1.superlink.net/~neptune/Tebye1.html