White House Cuts Hubble Servicing

[natrium]

See: http://www.space.com/news/hubble_budget_050121.html<br /><br />My take: HST belongs in a museum<br /><br />[BEGIN RANT]<br /><br />So it's OK for governments to spend money preserving historical paintings, famous buildings and other memorabilia. It's also OK for security guards to risk life protecting Picasso's worthless works and putting public to a tiny risk by transporting wide loads on trucks for exhibitions.<br /><br />But, it's not OK to spend some money and take a small risk to bring a trully historic piece of human achievment -- the Hubble Space Telescope -- down to a museum?<br /><br />In a few thousand of years, people will wonder how our generation did everything to preserve a few mummies of insignificant kings but failed to preserve the trully worthy HST.<br /><br />Finally, it shouldn't be NASA requesting a budget to bring HST down into a museum, but a Historic Preservation Agency. It's their job to preserve historic pieces, not NASAs. Other countries besides the USA should chip in. It's not only an american achievment: it's a human achievment.<br /><br />[END RANT]

 

[rogers_buck]

So it begins.<br /><br /> />> directed NASA to focus solely on de-orbiting the popular spacecraft <br /><br />I know where I wish they would drop the thing...<br />

 

[becarlson]

Please, write to your legislators regarding this. Feel free to use the letter I wrote, if you don't want to write your own. I used www.congress.org to email my legislators.<br /><br /><i>Dear [enter legislator here],<br />I urge you to lend your support in helping to save the Hubble Space Telescope. I have just learned that President Bush cut from the 2006 NASA budget a request for funding which would repair the Hubble Telescope. The cost for such a mission was estimated at approximately $1 Billion. Currently the US is spending $1 Billion each week in Iraq, surely we can afford to spend one week's worth of Iraq spending to repair a valuable national asset.<br /><br />Once the Hubble falls from it's orbit into the Pacific ocean, we will have lost an incredible scientific tool, unmatched by any current or proposed space telescopes.<br /><br />Please, help extend the life of this valuable national treasure by helping to procure funding for it's repair.</i>

 

[telfrow]

Done. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <strong><font color="#3366ff">Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will to strive, to seek, to find and not to yeild.</font> - <font color="#3366ff"><em>Tennyson</em></font></strong> </div>

 

[blacknebula]

If it has to die in order to save manned spaceflight, so be it. What's the point of science if we are never going to practically use it?

 

[becarlson]

I agree with you there. I think at the root of the problem NASA needs a lot more funding than it currently gets (in 2005 it will be getting $16.2 Billion). NASA does a lot of great things with that 16 billion, just think what they could do with more funding. NASA is a small portion of the federal budget. A few small cuts here and there and we could have a $50 Billion dollar NASA budget <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" />.

 

[wvbraun]

I think this is the right decision. Given the budget constraints some tough choices have to be made. A Hubble servicing mission would be extremely expensive ($1-2 billion for a robotic mission and about $1 billion for a Shuttle mission) and what we would get in return simply doesn't justify these expenditures (NASA could build a new space telescope with that kind of money). Getting the CEV off the ground is much more important to the future of NASA.<br />BTW: A new space telescope, the JWST, will be launched in 2011...

 

[wvbraun]

Are you sure? Before the Columbia accident a shuttle mission cost $600 million on average. With all the new security measures costs are expected to top $1 billion.

 

[yurkin]

Maybe we can have it come down over the outback. That way at least pieces may survive for museum collections.<br /><br />Given all the effort that’s already been put into a STS Hubble Servicing mission I don’t see why it isn’t being done. There is the added cost and risk, but sometimes that had to be taken. I’d write a letter but at this point it looks like the game is up.

 

[meteo]

I agree, it sure is sad to see hubble go but it's not worth the money to save it. The thing was launched 15 years ago!<br /><br />However, there is the old saying...one space telescope in orbit is worth two that are to be launced in 2011...or something like that. <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" />

 

[JonClarke]

We are used to the yanks dropping their space junk on us. There are large bits of skylab in the museums at Balladonia and Esperance. Hubble might grace the halls of Burke or Oodnadatta <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /><br /><br />Jon <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Whether we become a multi-planet species with unlimited horizons, or are forever confined to Earth will be decided in the twenty-first century amid the vast plains, rugged canyons and lofty mountains of Mars</em>  Arthur Clarke</p> </div>

 

[mattblack]

Yeah, I agree somewhat with natrium. The decision to not service Hubble one last time, though understandable, still disgusts me. For the price of a few fighter planes, we could keep our window on the Universe a few more years. I say just suck it up and find the money! **Don't be afraid to fly Shuttles**. Hubble had nothing to do with Columbia or any other manned space mishap, past or future.<br /><br />I'm all for cutting America's budget deficit, but I think the White House is now starting to panic a bit after causing most of the deficit in the first place.<br /><br />OR: I think the only way to placate people and keep the science going is to use the instruments that would have gone into Hubble plus other off-the-shelf equipment and mount them on another new Visible-light telescope. Perhaps a cheaper "expendable" telescope, not designed for servicing (probably smaller, too). It might last 4-to-5 years and perhaps be cost-capped at $500-600 million. Even if its mirror were smaller, with modern instruments it should have pretty good resolution. And as long as we accepted no more deep-field image capability, it could do very good science nonetheless. And if launched on an Atlas V, you wouldn't have to risk any Astronauts.<br /><br />I propose calling such a telescope "Horizon". <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p>One Percent of Federal Funding For Space: America <strong><em><u>CAN</u></em></strong> Afford it!!  LEO is a <strong><em>Prison</em></strong> -- It's time for a <em><strong>JAILBREAK</strong></em>!!</p> </div>

 

[grooble]

Hubble is useless. It did good, it showed us images of far away galaxies, but what good are more images? Images arn't enough, we need men out there, we don't need more images of distant stars. All money should be put into human and robotic exploration, everything else should be scrapped, except the planet hunter.<br /><br />Hubble has done its job successfully.

 

[becarlson]

grooble-<br />The Hubble is still working remarkably well, and the servicing mission will make it work even better. Why let something that's still working go to waste? When the Hubble is gone there will be no space telescopes that can image in the visible light spectrum.

 

[natrium]

<font color="yellow">Hubble is useless. It did good, it showed us images of far away galaxies, but what good are more images?</font><br /><br />If you think that all HST did was just collect a bunch of pretty pictures, you are wrong. You also fail to see the purpose of astronomy and dismiss the work of thousands of scientists who are trying to find out how the Universe evolved.<br /><br /><font color="yellow">Images arn't enough, we need men out there, we don't need more images of distant stars.</font><br /><br />Yes, I like to dream too <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /><br /><br /><font color="yellow">All money should be put into human and robotic exploration, everything else should be scrapped, except the planet hunter.</font><br /><br />Luckily, most people agree that science should not be narrowed down to one small area. You never know the area where the next breakthrough will occur and so you fight at all fronts.

 

[natrium]

Points for STS servicing mission:<br />1. Most of the replacement parts are ready to go<br />2. Servicing experience, procedures and tools already exist<br />3. Hubble workflow is well-known by astronomers<br />4. Specific Hubble functionality is not even planned to be available on upcoming observatories<br /><br />So I suggest one more servicing mission performed by STS and financed by NASA.<br /><br />At the end of HST life, I suggest that historic preservation agencies of USA and other countries (and <b>not</b> NASA) budget a retrival mission to bring HST back to Earth. After all, my taxes go to those agencies to make sure that important works of humanity are preserved.

 

[claywoman]

I agree with you natrium....<br /><br />The pictures Hubble send back are what keeps our kids interested in becoming astronauts, physicist, scientist, astronomers....Why? Because Hubble piques our curiousity and curiousity is what fuels the desire, dare I say need, to explore further and further out of our sphere. I know no one will walk on Mars while I'm alive, it just won't happen, but my kids and my grandkids are the future!<br /><br />Without more pictures, what will they focus on? Gameboy, Xbox? They need the breathtaking pictures to make them want to go further into space. Don't take that desire out of my legacy, let them dream the impossible dream, let my grandson walk on Mars and dream of beyond!!!<br /><br />When it does die, let it die with dignity and bring it back to earth and let its final resting place be in a museum so children and touch it, smell it, taste it and study its wonders!!!

 

[kdavis007]

Oh well the hubble is done for.. Space is for exploration not just science..

 

[kdavis007]

This admin seems to be going at it in a slow aproach than what happend in the 60's which I have no problem with that...

 

[yg1968]

I don't understand this hesitation to repair Hubble. If the billion dollar saved was put to building a true Hubble replacement, I would be in favour of it. But it is not, I imagine that the money saved will be put towards exploring Mars. <br /><br />An argument in favour of having a robotic mission is that any successor to a new Hubble (if they ever build one) would also likely need servicing (incidentally, I don't think of the James Webb telescope as being a true replacement of Hubble). <br />In any event, I still think sending astronauts is the better option. What I don't understand is that if we find that having astronauts repair Hubble is too dangerous for their safety, by the same logic, we should also cancel any plans to go to Mars since a mission to Mars is likely to be much more dangerous. <br /><br />I am in favour of sending humans to Mars. But if it means abandonning every other space exploration missions (repairing Hubble, building a new Hubble, new missions to Titan, Europa, Io, etc.) then I am against it. <br /><br />I am also a little concerned about the lack of directions of the space program in general (no Space Shuttle replacement, abandonning the X-plane). <br /><br />I am encouraged that Missions to Mercury, Venus (by the ESA), Pluto and possibly Europa are planed. But I just hope that going to Mars will not mean that everything else gets cancelled. <br /><br />Edited by yg1968 (01/25/05 09:55 AM)<br /><br />

 

[Leovinus]

Hubble does not have to die to preserve manned space flight. Why not send a manned flight up to save it? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[mattblack]

>>Why not send a manned flight up to save it?<<<br /><br />Well, that's what we've been talking about. I say just go do it. For the price of less than half a B2 Stealth bomber, a mission could be mounted to keep Hubble operational for AT LEAST 5 years beyond 2007.<br /><br />As someone else here said: If they can't go to Hubble, how are they going to go to the Moon?<br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p>One Percent of Federal Funding For Space: America <strong><em><u>CAN</u></em></strong> Afford it!!  LEO is a <strong><em>Prison</em></strong> -- It's time for a <em><strong>JAILBREAK</strong></em>!!</p> </div>

 

[blacknebula]

To spend money that could supply almost 2 shuttle flights to a robotic craft with a 50/50 shot is a a bad gamble. I say, either send humans to do the job, or let it die. Since it is going to die, that valuable money is going to valuable manned space exploration projects.<br /><br />It's too bad we have to decide between the two, but in the end, manned exploration is the one that needs the money.

 

[Leovinus]

I say "Fix Hubble." It has done more to further exploration of space than any other thing we've ever done, including walking on the moon. It should be allowed to continue. If Bush is strapped for cash, then he shouldn't be giving tax cuts to his rich buddies. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[shyningnight]

<If Bush is strapped for cash, then he shouldn't be giving tax cuts to his rich buddies.<br /><br />Spoken like someone who failed simple mathematics...<br /><br /><br />Paul F.