NASA Urged to Reconsider Shuttle Mission to HST

LMCBoy writes "Space.com reports today that the National Academies of Science has released its recommendation to NASA on the future of the Hubble Space Telescope. They conclude that 'NASA should take no actions that would preclude a space shuttle servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope.' They also say that none of the safety requirements of the CAIB report preclude a manned servicing mission to HST." Read on for more.

"The NAS recommendation would reverse NASA's previous position that a shuttle repair mission is ruled out for safety reasons. In the wake of strong criticisms of this decision, NASA has also been considering a robotic repair mission. The robotic mission would not risk human lives, but it relies on a number of bleeding-edge technologies that would have to be deployed on a very short timescale. HST's remaining gyroscopes are not expected to last beyond 2007."

Comments

I love how this system works

[WeekendLazyness]

Hubble is a great telescope, no doubt about it. Unfortunately, ground based telescopes now are able to get around the distortion of the atmosphere to obtain even better images of the stars than Hubble ever could. I'd hate to see Hubble go, but as long as NASA keeps supporting doomed projects such as the ISS, I think we are going to be saying goodbye soon.

Within five minutes after I posted that, it was given a -1, despite the fact there was a spam two posts below it that was completely off-topic. Isn't the mod system great?

Re:Some actual costs from NASA ...

[evilviper]

I believe that is in 1996 dollars.

OOOOOHHHHH... A whole 8 years of inflation... That could be 1/100th of 1% more in todays dollars...