🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1990Jan30.191717.9035@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>I'm not sure anything currently in inventory could put HST in Clarke orbit,
>actually, although it might be possible if you were willing to wait a
>couple of years for a Titan IV.  Regardless of booster, of course, doing
>so means forgoing any plans to replace the instruments with second-generation
>ones (which are already under development) and likewise forgoing any hope of
>maintenance in the event of trouble.  These limitations would be less
>troublesome if there were any plans for a successor to HST.

They would also be less troublesome if there were a real Orbital Transfer
Vehicle (OTV) in development.  With an OTV you can de-orbit what you orbit,
so putting an observatory into a higher orbit wouldn't preclude manned
maintenance or upgrades, or even recovery.  Some kind of OTV is a must
if we're going to get better use out of near earth space in the coming
decades.

However I must agree with the previous poster that geostationary altitudes
are NOT too friendly a place for delicate instrumentation.  The detectors
would be bathed in exo-Van Allen levels of radiation.

Of course it would be nice to station an observatory directly above one
ground facility wouldn't it.

Let's hope that when a successor IS designed, we'll have the luxury of
deploying it either geostationary or on the Moon.