Brian Roberts

[Jared Isaacman @rookisaacman]

I also did not love how they pulled my quotes from podcasts. What the article does not capture is the official position of the joint study and hopefully that comes out. On surface it looks like "billionaire wants to touch Hubble and NASA said hell no", but that is not what happened. There are three positions here, but only one that truly matters:
- My personal opinion about the source of delays, which I have never been shy about stating.
- The personal opinion of those who chimed in late in the process, which I think the article captures well.
- But what really matters is the joint study - Polaris + SpaceX + NASA. The team that performed the technical analysis for ~6 months and arrived at a formal recommendation.

It is unfortunate there is so much discourse over the subject. It is like new space vs. old space, or people who love SpaceX vs. hate SpaceX, incompetent tourist vs. real astronaut. It should really have only been about the mission, because if a mission was planned it would have had resources across all the organizations that participated in the study to ensure success. It is not like anyone was going to wing it, especially after a joint study was assembled to determine generally how a successful mission could be achieved.

I know a lot of people have memories of the heroic shuttle missions to save Hubble...the long EVA's, Canadarm and the giant gyros. The astronauts did an incredible job keeping Hubble going, but that was then and this is now. You can pack a lot of capabilities in to something the size of an iPhone these days. This was not lost on any of the scientists and engineers that worked on the joint study.

Would it be worth the risk to save Hubble? Many of the telescope systems have failed and most redundancy has been lost. This is why it continues to go offline. Hubble's orbit has decayed significantly and will continue to do so through solar max. It will be coming home earlier than what was represented in the article. Once it reaches a certain altitude, the prospects of a mission are all but lost. When it does, it will either be uncontrolled or come at a cost to tax payers to launch something robotic to manage it.

Had a mission been flown, and I was happy to fund it, I believe it would have resulted in the development of capabilities beneficial to the future of commercial space and along the way given Hubble a new lease on life.

I acknowledge this is not my telescope to touch and a lot of time has passed from the study till now. Government priorities change, budgets become tight, regardless of who is funding the mission, it does require contributions of resources from a lot of parties to ensure success. Regardless of what happens from here, I am glad we all, inclusive of NASA, invested the time to see if this could work. Hubble deserved that effort.

[Jared Isaacman @rookisaacman]

@NASAHubble Put us in coach

[Jared Isaacman @rookisaacman]

We were aiming for badass with this video.

[Lisa Gilroy @TheLisaGilroy]

My acting teacher told us to perform a dramatic monologue from any movie and I did mine from Austin Powers and no one noticed.

[NASA Goddard @NASAGoddard]

Don’t Arte-MISS @NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine on this week’s Pass the Torque! We’re returning to the Moon — this time to stay. Join @NASA_SatServ in this special episode about Artemis: landing the first woman and next man on the Moon by 2024. https://t.co/BAklIrYc0J

[Jeff Foust @jeff_foust]

Musk says he’s “pretty interested” to talk with astronomy community on ways to launch or even build a large space telescope, “maybe a planet imager or something like this.”

[Classic Dad Moves @classicdad]

In The Air Tonight drum solo: Quarantine edition

[Andrew Cotter @MrAndrewCotter]

I was bored.

[2023 angy @uheeuhaha]

Corey Perry long walk except it’s clown shoes squeaking

[Kristen Facciol @kfacciol]

Today, @chris_m_francis and I tested out some new scripts and commands. Not only do we support operations from our control centre at @csa_asc, but we can support sims & prove operational readiness of new items as well! (We also had a fun view of the crew in the background!) 🚀🤖

[Brian Roberts @brianjroberts]

@MaxwellJenkins8 @MaxwellJenkins8 If you're interested in a summer internship, you can apply at https://t.co/ZHKTe5gYhw Our positions are "Robotic Satellite Servicing Intern," "Robotic Satellite Servicing Design Intern," or "Robotic Satellite Servicing Software Intern."

[Brian Roberts @brianjroberts]

@MaxwellJenkins8 Thanks for coming by Goddard and learning about satellite servicing. And thanks for the insightful questions. Hope you can intern with us some day.

[Brian Roberts @brianjroberts]

@Nachoserricchio @NASAGoddard Thanka for coming by to learn about satellite servicing!

[Brian Roberts @brianjroberts]

@MinaSundwall @NASAGoddard Thank you for coming by to learn about satellite servicing!

[NASA Goddard @NASAGoddard]

"Lost In Space," found at Goddard! Thank you, @lostinspacetv for visiting yesterday. Robots are near and dear to us, too, so we hope you enjoyed a peek at our satellite servicing robots in the @NASA_SatServ center and our spacecraft testing facility.

[MaxwellJenkins8 @MaxwellJenkins8]

@brianjroberts

[Brian Roberts @brianjroberts]

@MaxwellJenkins8 Thank you!!

[Brian Roberts @brianjroberts]

@MaxwellJenkins8 @MaxwellJenkins8, I’ll send you the name of the internship position. BTW, do you have a copy of the photo we took in front of the satellite mockup that you can share ([email protected])?

[Brian Roberts @brianjroberts]

@LLesliee Thanks for taking photos at Goddard today. Do you have any from the satellite servicing tour that you can share?

[Brian Roberts @brianjroberts]

@TobyStephensInV @tobysnews Thanks for coming by to learn about satellite servicing!