Astronauts, Robots to Save Hubble

BungoMan85 writes "Astronauts who serviced the Hubble Space Telescope, among others, feel that NASA's administrator Sean O'Keefe shouldn't be too quick to abandon the now 14 year old space telescope because of safety concerns arising from the Columbia disaster." And an anonymous reader writes "At the insistance of congress, NASA is looking for a way to save the Hubble. "It's the most unpopular decision I could have made," Sean O'Keefe said of his decision to cancel the shuttle mission planned to fix Hubble. He has authorized his engineers to pursue the possiblity of a robotic rescue mission. This could be a great opportunity for private industry contractors."

Comments

Screw it

[mphase]

I'm sure they could find a couple dudes who would be willing to take the risk, they should just suck it up and go.

Re:Risk factors?...

[Anonymous Coward]

But which way has the public's view changed? I think that some percentage of us are more informed of the risks involved, which in itself should be considered a good thing.

On the surface doesn't it appear that Sean O'Keefe is more concerned about avoiding another catastrophe rather than focusing on real safety? That type of thinking leads to unwilligness to take risks which is showing up in the form of bad decisions such as the one that pertains to not servicing the Hubble telescope.

Re:I would have to agree...

[mbrother]

Yeah, well don't post an ignorant opinion if you don't know what you're talking about. Insightful not! Other posters have pointed out that the servicing mission is to install more modern technology on the telescope -- EXACTLY WHAT YOU WANT! And for image quality (spatial resolution, which is what Hubble does best) 100 times that of Hubble, you'd need a 250 meter telescope in space, which we probably can't do this CENTURY unless we spent the entire GDP. We have a better telescope planned right now (the James Webb Telescope budgeted at yes, about 3 times the repair mission cost), for probably 2012, which is better, but not 100 times better, and won't work in the ultraviolet AT ALL. I'm an astronomer who uses Hubble, and I bust my ass working on proposals to use the thing because I have science to do that I can only do with Hubble, not for sentimental reasons. With new instruments, there is more unique science to come that can be done no other way. Sorry for YELLING, ErichTheWebGuy, but I've had a few glasses of wine and my tolerance for ignorant spouting off tonight isn't too high. There are pros and cons to the Hubble servicing issue, you sound like an idiot telling astronomers like me that the telescope is obsolete.

Re:Wrongheaded policy

[theCoder]

I'm really hoping the decision to not save Hubble was really a brilliant diversionary tatic to get more money for NASA. If NASA had originally committed to servicing Hubble, then they probably would have had to cut somewhere else, where probably very few people would have cared. But if they decide to scrap it, and everyone (including Congress, with all the money) rallies to save it, then NASA gets to keep the other projects and Hubble.

The other possibility is that they just decided to dump it and didn't think people would react like this. I guess it depends on whether O'Keefe is really smart or really stupid.

Only if there is money

[JThaddeus]

This could be a great opportunity for private industry contractors.

No one is gonna do this work for free and who says NASA has the money. IMHO,the moon and Mars mission stuff is a shellgame with Hubble a victim. The administration says it wants to do something big but it will cost a lot of money. So, to "save" money, it will do some preliminary research. To fund this research, they cancel other programs. These other programs cost more than the research so they save money now (to pay for Iraq? tax cuts?). And since the research never comes to anything, they save money in the long run.

Remember, this is the administration that cancelled much of NASA's earth observing work and then turns around and says, "Gee, we can't find any signs of global warming."