NASA Debates How And When To Kill Hubble Telescope

Amy's Robot writes "The Washington Post reports that after 13 years of wear and tear, the Hubble telescope may be on the way out. NASA and some outside scientists have become involved in a heated debate about how and when to end the Hubble telescope program. Keeping Hubble in service until 2020 would require an extra maintenance visit by astronauts at a cost of at least $600 million. Some even worry the batteries could fail by 2010, since the next maintenance visit has been delayed by the Columbia accident and space station priorities. Is it worth maintaining our old friend Hubble, or should NASA let him go out in a blaze of glory?"

Comments

$600 Million

[Professeur Shadoko]

seems fairly cheap to me, compared to what it would cost to build and launch a new one

Re:Could they bring it back down?

[Dawn Keyhotie]

Actually, that was the initial plan. Including hanging it from the ceiling in the Smithsonian. But now with the Columbia accident, no one wants to put astronauts' lives on the line just to retreive a museum piece.

I think it would be stupid^H^H^H^H^H^Hoverly optimistic to de-orbit Hubble until the new Webb space telescope is launched and fully tested. After all, how dumb would NASA look if it destroyed a perfectly good piece of equipment, and then its replacement fubared because of a mismatched washer or something.

And right now, the plan is to do just that, to bring down Hubble before Webb is even launched, to save a few (million) bucks in Hubble operational costs. And the big debate is that everyone with any sense, and any sense of history, is telling them (NASA penny pinchers) that they're crazy.

"A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush." Something NASA should consider before taking penny-wise, pound-foolish steps.

Cheers!

relative DOD costs

[Anonymous Coward]

One B-2 Stealth Bomber --> $2.2 Billion USD
15+ more years of Hubble --> $600 Million USD

which would contribute more?

Heard this nonsense before:

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember Skylab?

Yes, Skylab! It was the first manned space station, and it was american! well, anyway, instead of worrying about TODAY and keeping it operational with TODAY's technology, the pie-in-the-sky nasa engineers decided to wait until tomorrow's technology could save them from poor planning.

Do I see history repeating itself?

MARK MY WORDS: If they allow Hubble to de-orbit, in order to free up cash to build a new replacement, THERE WILL BE NO REPLACEMENT FOR A VERY LONG TIME. Remember, this is Congress, isn't it? And this is a country filled with half-ignoramus who get all their news from Rupert Murdoch.

Cue "Dueling Banjos" - "How come we spend all this money on space monkeys when we don't have no jobs down here?"

Of course, you try to inform these people that NASA has a very small budget - pratically non-existant next to the defense department's big money handout, and that many of the NASA programs are actually at the behest of the Department of Defense, so that their "real budget" for science is very very small.

Cue "Dueling Banjos", again: "But we don't need no science, we need jobs"

Of course, this man is retarded - but he actually represents the majority sentiment.

Now, of course, to you and me, we see the hallmark of a productive society as scientific research. And we are smart enough to know that science for science's sake often has a fantastic impact on everyday lives, etc...

But, this hayseed has a congressman, who also wants to know why you crazy science people want $600 million just to look at the sky.

So, keep in mind - if Hubble fails, their will be no timely replacement.