Still a little ticked off about how the Shuttle program put big delays in a lot of robot space science in the 1980s. Never put all your eggs in one basket.
It has nothing to do with space junk. The HST orbit's angle of inclination is a completely different angle from the ISS's orbit. That means that when they launch into the HST's orbit, there's no possible way that they could dock with the ISS. If something goes wrong during the launch, like foam critically damaging the Orbiter's tiles, they'll have no place to go and no way to get home. So they launch a rescue vehicle, but since they have no "safe haven" for the original crew to hang out at like the ISS, the rescue vehicle will need to be on the second pad, ready to go. Time will be of the essence. BTW, the last shuttle mission to NOT go to the ISS...Columbia.
@estapler: Well, yes, but there is a larger chance that they'll hit something in Hubble's orbit. I mean, they've gone up to that orbit before, without the ISS's existence to fall back on, and they've never prepped a second shuttle before.
wait...if theres a risk of one shuttle colliding with space junk...wouldnt the rescue shuttle have a larger risk of colliding with more space junk?....
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It feels like the shuttles are a decade overdue for retirement and Space is still being explored with something that seemed high-tech in 1979.
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MY SPACE PR0N SUPPLY MUST NOT BE COMPROMISED.
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just build a space elevator dammit
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Never has Hubble seemed seedier.
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