My date with Hubble

[tmoney2007]

A month or so ago I got the chance to do some work with hardware that was in orbit on the Hubble Space Telescope for nearly 16 years.

We were looking at the radiator of the Wide Field/Planetary Camera 2 which was exposed to space for its entire time in orbit. A chance to study the orbital debris impacts on a surface that has been in space this long is extremely rare and will tell us huge amounts about the debris environment up there.

This is our workspace

The rest of the album is here. I figure some of the nerds/space nerds might appreciate some of the stuff in there.

http://s802.photobucket.com/albums/yy303/thedman07/Hubble/

Enjoy, and I'll answer any questions you might have to the best of my ability.

 

[DePasta]

Do you work at JSC? My Brother does too...

 

[JHolmes763]

Very cool pics. Thanks for sharing!

 

[LarryH]

Thanks for the photos. I'm going to send the link to the images to my brother. He is a huge stargazer/space-junkie.

I'd love to see some of the close-ups of the craters if that's possible. :thumbs:

 

[4cbln3]

Way cool pics! Thanks for letting us see your work.

BTW, when someone makes you angry, do you turn GREEN?
j/k :sign:

 

[LouieD]

Outstanding pics, tmoney. I love this stuff. Sure wish they wouldn't terminate the shuttle program.

I saw the GIG'EM AGGIES in pic 19. Are you a Former Student?

 

[DesertRat]

Way too cool!

But I don't see any armed guards in that room. Isn't this where the alien spore that impacted the surface begins to morph into some ugly, multi-fanged, indestructible behemoth and begin it's violent reign of terror on earth?

Here is a little advice for you to take as a precaution: Find some really nice guy in your company who is either about to retire or get married and make sure he is in the room with you at all times. Those guys always get eaten first and that might give you time to escape to Montana.


Just trying to be helpful

 

[BlindedByScience]

Great pictures. As an electrical engineer, this sort of stuff just fascinates me.....

 

[Nimrod]

How close to Calvin do the cameras operate?

Thanks for sharing

 

[Q_The_Cop]

Wow just Wow!!! You've made the geek in me piddle a little bit! Thanks!

 

[tmoney2007]

Do you work at JSC? My Brother does too...

Yup, my building is out in the boonies on site, so I don't get much interaction with other people, haha.

Thanks for the photos. I'm going to send the link to the images to my brother. He is a huge stargazer/space-junkie.

I'd love to see some of the close-ups of the craters if that's possible. :thumbs:

I'll pull a few off of our microscope. I can also take some pictures of some of the stuff that we shot in our testing.

Outstanding pics, tmoney. I love this stuff. Sure wish they wouldn't terminate the shuttle program.

I saw the GIG'EM AGGIES in pic 19. Are you a Former Student?

Yup, class of 2007.

Way too cool!

But I don't see any armed guards in that room. Isn't this where the alien spore that impacted the surface begins to morph into some ugly, multi-fanged, indestructible behemoth and begin it's violent reign of terror on earth?

Here is a little advice for you to take as a precaution: Find some really nice guy in your company who is either about to retire or get married and make sure he is in the room with you at all times. Those guys always get eaten first and that might give you time to escape to Montana.


Just trying to be helpful

The organism had already been carted off to be shot with xrays (that's when the real fun begins).

I kept an asian PhD with me, would that help?

 

[TheVitaleMob]

That was fun to watch. Oddly, I like reading the labels to see what kind of interesting shizz is on there, like the labels on the COSTAR.

 

[tmoney2007]

That was fun to watch. Oddly, I like reading the labels to see what kind of interesting shizz is on there, like the labels on the COSTAR.

Yeah, sometimes it was hard not to get distracted.

At some point wfpc2 will be going to the Air and Space museum, I'd kinda like to see it when it is there, but it is a long trip to DC and I've had my time with it, haha.

 

[Nimrod]

I sent the picture album to my brother who is an EE.
This is what he said

"Hey Pete,

Is that really you with the Hubble Camera ?
Did you know that our company built the sensor for that camera ?
Wide Field Camera (WFC) is one of our 2 cameras on the Hubble.
On the recent repair mission, we had 3 of our systems successfully
installed. We also made 100% of the sensors for the next generation
camera, the James Webb Space Telescope, which will replace Hubble
in a few years."

Obviously it was not me in the pictures, but my brother was impressed.

Thanks for the show.

 

[Gunpowder]

Nerdy Vice president of a local astronomical society here... Friend of mine was contracted as a programmer at the Space Telescope Science Institute. Makes sure the Hubble is working every day. He gets to see the images most of which are never seen by the public.

 

[NullSmurf]

I went from college to Martin Marietta to work on a classified NASA project. I had an Air Force guy under each armpit, and I hated every minute. I hope this is your cup of tea.

 

[Humidor Minister]

Wow, very cool. I have theories about dark matter and gravity that I would some day like to discuss with someone that has a mind for it. What a cool job you have. Congrats. :thumbs:

 

[tmoney2007]

I went from college to Martin Marietta to work on a classified NASA project. I had an Air Force guy under each armpit, and I hated every minute. I hope this is your cup of tea.

Meh, Hubble isn't classified. The highest level I deal with is "sensitive but unclassified."

This was kind of extracurricular, my regular job is slightly more mundane. I'm doing some testing for orion window glass candidates this week.

 

[JHolmes763]

I have theories about dark matter and gravity that I would some day like to discuss with someone that has a mind for it.

If it has to do with "dark" anything is a farce and that electricity, not gravity, rules the cosmos, I'm game.

-John

 

[StatHaldol]

Cool! Thanks for the pics!!