NASA Engineers Dispute Hubble Safety Claim

Zeinfeld writes "According to the administration, the Hubble space telescope is going to be allowed to die in the next three years because the shuttle mission required to save it would be too risky. Meanwhile the public plans say shuttle missions to the space station will resume. Papers leaked to the New York Times say hogwash. The article (free subscription required) reports claims that money and politics, not safety are the reason. The public NASA story is clearly nonsense, and if the science from Hubble does not justify a shuttle mission, then it's time to pull the plug on the space station. I suspect that is exactly what will happen after the November election."

Comments

Really, did anyone expect anything else?

[terraformer]

Lets face it, the tax cuts served two purposes for the Bush administration, buy off support of the richest in America and to run the finances of the nation into the ground so far that we would have to cut spending. This Mars crap is just that, a canard to distract the populace and make Bush look like a visionary. Given it was unfunded I would imagine he does not have any serious desire to see the US travel to Mars, although I would imagine he would like Terry McCauliffe get sent there...