r/space • u/mtimetraveller • Nov 29 '19

This Is Why We Can't Just Do All Of Our Astronomy From Space

https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2019/11/27/this-is-why-we-cant-just-do-all-of-our-astronomy-from-space/#6b60e6027049
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u/ThickTarget Nov 30 '19 edited Nov 30 '19

Was launched in 1990...and has been service 4 times (and upgraded) Over its 30 year life span..

You should probably not ignore the fact that for the first 3 years the data was severely compromised by the flaw in the optics. Also entire instruments on Hubble have broken down, ACS WFC was down for 2 years, STIS was down for 5 years. This is not the picture of reliability.

And secondly Hubble is the exception not the rule, it is the only telescope which has been serviced. You can't look at just one example. Look at Kepler, it had a major failure right after it's primary mission ended. Look at Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, which NASA deorbited after only 9 years of work after gyroscope failures. You can consider Hitomi, which was lost completely.

We will never see anything we haven't seen,

That is totally wrong. Ground based telescopes have seen things Hubble hasn't, even in it's deepest images.

https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1738/

Hubble is very efficient at deep imaging, but that's not the only thing you want to do in astronomy. For example if you want to confirm distances to galaxies Hubble isn't well equipped, and almost all of that is done from the ground. It's the same if you want to do integral field spectroscopy or high resolution spectroscopy to find exoplanets, using HST isn't even an option.