Oh no, not again.
I just remembered to ask my wife for details, only to discover that Dr. Head did not say that. Our discussion touched on conversations she had both with Dr. Head and a Greenpeace person she spoke to at the airport – IIRC (now in doubt), we were discussing the Gulf oil leak, the use of remote sensing in determining the extent and composition of the leak, and Dr. Head’s involvement in that research, which then spun into other environmental topics. Notably, whaling and its (possible) uses; she didn’t have any other details.
Coming from the Greenpeace guy rather than a NASA scientist certainly takes away credibility from the claim, and I had to correct my previous post.
Nye Lubricants, started in my hometown by William F. Nye in 1844 and still located here today, is known as the “last American whale oil company.”
It used to supply NASA with whale oil, most likely from the blackfish, which the company was still buying until the Marine Mammals Protection Act in 1972. Nye then continued to sell from its stock of whale oil into the 1980s.
It only sells synthetic oils now.
Whale oil was useful for lubricating fine machinery such as watches because it stayed liquid at lower temperatures than other natural oils that were available before petroleum products.
NASA could very well have a supply of the old stuff on hand.
My understanding is that oils are generally not used as lubricants in a vacuum. The reason is that the lighter fractions of the oil tend to evaporate leaving the heavier fractions which harden and become sort of an anti-lubricant. For this reason, graphite-based lubricants were developed for use in vacuum.
Now there may be some oils which are usable in a vacuum and for all I know, some kind of whale oil may be one of them. But if NASA had used some in the early days, I’d be surprised if they haven’t developed a substitute.
Whale oil was a commonly used and highly regarded lubricant until surprisingly recently – as Vern and ghardstermention. One place I worked at still had a container of it, and I was able to ask for a sample. Nowadays, of course, you really can’t get it, and AFAIK no one uses it. I’d be extremely surprised if it was used in any space system, because it would probably outgas like mad in vacuum. I’ve built space-qualified systems for use in vacuum, and they’re extremely strict about what they’ll allow in such systems. I don’t know for a fat that whale oil isn’t allowed – I’d just be extremely surprised if it was permitted.as has been mentioned, dry lubricants are more commonly used.
It doesn’t freeze in sub-zero temperatures? ANY sub-zero temperatures? Holy cow, it violates the laws of physics?
Chrysler uses an additive for trak-loc or posi rear ends that was originally made of sperm whale oil. About 10 years ago they changed to a sythetic replacement for it, but reviewing the msds sheet on it but it doesn’t list a freezing piont. The flash point is 351 f if that is a help. I suspect as far as space goes it’s going to be from one extreme to another so the freezing point would be a significant factor.
And you think randomly appearing high altitude whales don’t violate the laws of physics? 
Obviously it is total BS, because there’s no way it doesn’t become a solid at the low temperatures reached in space.
Well, people should become solid at the low temperatures reached in space, but they don’t, do they. . .
:dubious:
I think the point is that objects in Earth orbit do not necesarily become cold. They constantly radiate heat away into space, which all things being equal would carry on till they were only a few degrees above absolute zero. But they also receive energy from the Sun for at least half the time and quite possibly more, depending on their orbits.
True enough, but, although I didn’t find the information on the Hubble offhand, I did find the information on it’s replacement;
"Webb’s operating temperature is less than 50 degrees above absolute zero: 50 Kelvin, (-225 Celcius, or -370 deg F). "
This is just below Liquid Oxygen (50.5 kelvin), or Liquid Nitrogen (77 k), so it seems rather unlikely that whale oil is anything but a solid at these temperatures.
They aren’t using ‘whale oil’, they’re using wail oil: The grease obtained from especially slick jazz horn solos.
And what a lot of people in this thread are missing is that Hubble simply does not get cold enough to make whale oil a necessity anyway…
The OP asked if whale oil is or was used in space. It could very well have been, since Nye Lubricants today advertises in its literature that its synthetic oils are/were used on the Space Shuttle, and, as I mentioned earlier, Nye was still distributing whale oil to lubricate fine machinery into the 1980s.
Whether or not it was BS, Nye always touted its whale oil as superior for clocks and watches, because the oil did not gum up at lower tempertures. In the early 1900s Joseph K. Nye set up at refinery in St. Albans, VT, to “cold refine” porpoise jaw oil.
There are also other uses for oils besides fuel and lubrication. Some of Nye’s synthetic oils are used in the lenses of traffic lights to help transmit light somehow.
What the OP heard may have been a slight misinterpretation based on a nugget of truth. It’s very likely that at least until recently, if not at the present time, whale oil has been used in space vehicles and/or satelites.
So long, and thanks for all the fish! [ba da bump] 
That’s the “operating temperature” of it’s infrared optical sensor, not the telescope itself. It’s environment will be considerably higher, and so the sensor has to be cooled to that temp. You were seeing info on the temp the sensor needs to be cooled to. It’s irrelevant to the “whale oil” question.
I am old enough to have been one of the first employees at the Hubble Space Telescope Science Institute. Wait! I was!
I also had the pleasure of working on several other satellite programs of that era out of Goddard Space Flight Center, focusing on the mechanics and physics of the systems that maintained flight attitude (e.g. pitch roll yaw). I also did some time in the lab of a future astronaut (“mission specialist” IIRC is the title).
While I was not involved in actually building or testing the hardware, I am a software guy - too bad big mirror guys! - this thread is the absolute first time I ever heard such a claim about whale oil.
Missed edit window, but…
… the post with the quote from the Hubble Scientist reads about right to my eyes and strikes me as pretty much the way conversation went there on a routine basis.
Its the way conversation at a facility rather similar to GSFC goes too!