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No Money For Hubble Service Mission
starexplorer writes "SPACE.com is reporting that the White House has eliminated funding for servicing the Hubble Space Telescope from its 2006 budget request. After many options 1, 2 were explored, is this the death knell for Hubble?"
All this discussion of saving the Hubble seems to ignore an obvious solution. Just launch a completely new, improved orbiting observatory. Hubble is nearing the end of its lifespan even if it is serviced. A replacement might not cost a lot more than a servicing mission and would involve zero risk.
The important thing is that we are going to spend Billions building up oil-rich Iraq, so that the people there have things that tax paying American citizens don't even have (and, of course, they will still hate us). Bush can hardly afford to spend a little money on a proven and viable space technology when just this week at his coronation he declared himself in charge of making every country fit his image of what is right and wrong.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
He was right on the spot.
The current RNC admin spends $150+ billions on a crusade to conduct a democracy-for-oil campaign and caused the death of 1500 young soldiers, but can't spend $10 million on HST?
Come On !!! You, Mr.Moderator, are a f*ckin' Rep.
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
Significant research is very risky and rarely profitable--and never reliably profitable in the way that normal business investments are. Yes, there are enormous long-term benefits, but the current CEO will have cashed out all of his stock dividends a long time before major research produces any results. There is a fundamental mismatch between the long-term perspective of pure research and the short-term perspective of a business that will have to show its profit numbers to the SEC at the next quarter--at which time the investors will sell their shares if that company is "wasting too much money" on research.
America is becoming the land of the ignorant. Proud, boastful, even aggressive ignorance.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Turn it around and say that the President decided to spend one billion on some program that you don't personally have any interest in, and all of a sudden it would be "Why spend a billion on that when there is a war going on in Iraq?"
Stop using both sides of the same arguement to bitch about the war. You don't support the war -- We get it. This is about the Hubble, not foriegn policy.
I guess the US can spend its money as it sees fit.
Sure, like I can go out, buy a gun and ammunition, track you down and kill you. Then if anyone objects I can say "I guess I can spend my money as I see fit". How could anyone argue with that?
Do you really think that the saved money is going to go to tsunami relief or ending world hunger? If it goes anywhere, odds are it will go into the Iraq war. Or maybe the upcoming Iranian war, even.
It's not a zero-sum game between humanitarian aid and science. Any language that supposes that it is leads you into trouble.
Erm, who cares about the 1500 soldiers who willfully invade another country? The 150.000 killed Iraqis (pretty much an accepted estimation) - that's the big issue.
Or, alternatively, count on Congress.
The President only requests money. Congress allocates is. They've overriden this president many times regarding NASA's budget. (The White House has tried to kill the New Horizons mission to Pluto on at least one occasion. Congress put the money back.)
This isn't the end of HST. That doesn't really depend on Bush, that depends on Congress.
a calculated ploy to get more money from Congress? If this popular item was included, other items would have been cut when Congress reduces again the NASA budget. This way this item will be added and perhaps fewer items will be cut. It increases the value of the items in the budget. In the end NASA could end up with more money than if it would have been included.
I've got to bite on this one.
(The other reason is religious fanaticism directed against science because of the unpleasant truths it persists in revealing.)
I have two problems with this statement.
1. Science does not reveal truth, it searches for fact and tries to creat models for predicting facts. (Didn't Harrison Ford give a lecture on this?)
2. It is equally incorrect, and very unfair, to suggest that any religious fanatic is opposed to what science may generate.
America is becoming the land of the ignorant. Proud, boastful, even aggressive ignorance.
This is another bad generalization. America, assuming you mean the United States, is not an idealogical or even cultural monolith. The United States are a collection of individual states, each with a unique cultural, legal, and educational system.
It is not that your comments do not bring to mind some serious problems, but your energy is far better directed at those specific kinds of religious zealot or ignorant culture, rather than at the Union or Religion as a whole.
Trying to use sarcasm in text-based forums does not work.
Don't get me wrong. I think space exploration is fascinating, but there are enough problems on this planet that money spent finding literal nothingness could be used to help solve. (e.g. tsunami relief, world hunger, etc)
Honestly, I'm glad the white house made this decision. Unfortunately, I'm worried where the money's going to go and be used for because it's hard not to wonder in an age with a government so ignorant such as the US's. Just my 2c.
OK, I know I'm responding to a troll. I know this is stupid but my .02c is this: "Fuck the poor". Fuck 'em. I'm tired of hearing about how we can't do space exploration until every fucking poor person on the planet is fed. Want to help poor people? Sterilize them so they can't breed more poor children and perpetuate their problems. "Can't feed 'em? Don't breed 'em!" should be our new motto. Admittedly this is not PC, but fuck that too. Oh, and for all of the people who are so fucking concerned about the poor, why don't you stop surfing /., turn off your PCs, get off of your fucking asses and actually go help the poor? Work in a soup kitchen or something, sell your kidneys and donate the money you receive to tsunami relief. Think of all the problems on this planet that you could solve if you weren't selfishly sitting on your fat ass and surfing /..
cheap labor conservatives - they want to keep you hungry enough to be thankful for minimum wage.
No.
In the end, the bugetary decisions are up to Congress. They have the power to restore the Hubble funding to the budget.
The Bush administration is trying to kill science and turn the US into a theocracy. Religion keeps people opiated; science teaches them to ask questions, and is therefore incompatible with their autocratic goals.
It's not just newer and better. It's different. It measures different parts of the spectrum. So it's not a replacement.
But this isn't about entitlement programs for pointy headed scientists, it's about the security in the free world. Bush has only 4 years to get us embroiled in a war with Iran*, and he's already feeling a budget pinch.
It should go with out saying (but this is left wing hippy slashdot, so I'll say it anyway) that we can't afford puffery like "basic science" or "free education" or even "saving Social Security" when there are still rogue nations that threaten us with another 9-11. Just be glad that NASA isn't going to be dismantled from within, like they're planning on doing to Social Security. In fact, if scientist weren't helping build more weapons, I'd say to ship you all to gitmo for some re-education. Y'all are getting above yourselves. The President knows what he's doing.
* A Short Play by Bill Ohreally
Commie/hippie/traitor: Invading Iraq was a mistake! They weren't involved in 9-11. Iran is the one that has the history of sponsoring terrorist groups!
Our glorious and wise President: Iran you say? Hold on a second.
--The chief exectutive of the most free and powerful nation on Earth picks up his phone.
Our glorious and wise President: Hello, Dick? Get Condi and come here. I want to know how soon we can invade Iran. What? You two were already working on it? Great! OK, see you in five.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
>>America is becoming the land of the ignorant. Proud, boastful, even aggressive ignorance.
>This is another bad generalization. America, assuming you mean the United States, is not an idealogical or even cultural monolith. The United States are a collection of individual states, each with a unique cultural, legal, and educational system.
Judging by your statement, I am quite sure you do not live in the United States. A collection of individual states with unique legal and education systems -- and unique cultures?
The truth is, religion spans wide across state borders. So does ignorance. When I drive from Pennsylvania into Maryland and Washington, D.C., I do not feel as though I am passing some geographical flux of cultures.
Similarly, the public schools in Florida work just like those found in Maine (although in Maine they work better). And if I wind up in court in Missouri, I have the same fundamental rights as I would in California.
You're absolutely wrong. The conservative culture of this country runs deep throughout. Right-wing ideology is sweeping the minds of Americans because it is packaged with better marketing than anything else.
It's the same kind of thinking that says Democrats don't go to church because they are Democrats. These sick perversions of ideology transcend at least a third of the country and the numbers are growing. In Chicago, you can go to a church on Sunday that only admits Republicans - or Democrats who are willing to consider changing parties.
Right-wing politics is in the roots of America now. It's not just another opinion. It's a religion in itself and it is indeed sweeping the United States, which is not so much a collection of states these days as it one giant creature that is currently trying to decide which side of the fork to walk down.
"Aggressive ignorance" is exactly what it is. It's the same thinking that makes it "unpatriotic" to disagree with the war in Iraq. That is aggressive ignorance.
Today in much of America, ignorance is just proof that you can stick to your guns. Being wrong is frowned upon - but STAYING wrong is a virtue somehow. And it is certainly proud and boastful - that's how it sells, because so many people don't think for themselves. They right the coattails of whoever seems to know where they're headed. It's how they win. It's how a blowjob is worth more national debate than the invasion of a sovereign nation. It's how finding no WMDs can be a footnote to the fact that John Kerry once enjoyed windsailing.
And it's why I feel so sad to be an American -- and even sadder that I just said that -- because I do love what this country can be, if not what it always is.
The next comment I write will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
"Why would a private firm pay a large sum of money to look at galaxies?"
A private company might take over Hubble to sell telescope time to scientists who DO want to look at galaxies. The question is can it be done profitably? If we use the estimates from the article it might cost $1B to repair the Hubble which would extend its life by six years. Ignoring the time value of money, this works out to $19000/hour for just the repair mission. I'm not familiar with the finance side of astronomy, so maybe someone else could fill me in on this. How do astronomers pay for telescope time? Is there an hourly rate that's paid out of the research grant? I know most telescopes aren't run by for-profit companies.
Bush wants the US to push towards mars (or at least that's what he claims to want).
But in the process, lets scrap perhaps the most successful space venture in human history.
Hubble has been the greatest achievement in NASA's history. Far from the high profile Moon Landing. but it's the better achievement:
1. Has made millions interested in space, and sciences through it's absolutely breathtaking images.
2. One of the greatest feats of engineering servicing that thing.
3. It's been reliable and usable for YEARS
IMHO it more than earned a repair, and an upgrade.
It's been NASA's true achievement. The mars rovers have been great, they did a lot. But nothing has outperformed like Hubble.
Too late, however. Karl Rove (using Dubya) has already harnessed too much hate power for America to survive.
Not too late. The pendulum swings back and forth. The US was stuck in the same if not worse conservative ignorant situation in the late 50's - early 60's. Then the pendulum swung back with a vengeance. I think the same will happen again when people realize where the policies of the current administration are taking this country.
"Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everybody agrees that it is old enough to know better." - Unknown
Science does indeed create models, but the science part is the procedure for creating/justify/verify/refute the models along with the theory This does not imply that the models are the "truth" (by definition, they are at best an approximation of the "object" they model). As usual, this is the part that Creationist always fail.
2. It is equally incorrect, and very unfair, to suggest that any religious fanatic is opposed to what science may generate.
Yes, it's unfair, but understandable, to make this assumption. Not so many are aware of the contribution, that, say, Jesuit priests has made to science. Not to mention muslims that before Christian oppression was far more advanced in science than Christians at that time.
With the very strong influence religious extremists has on the current administration, and in some states, it's easy to take a very dim view on USA's scientific future. The graduates filling up US universities are not US born citizens, and tenure tracks goes to extremely qualified immigrants. When you have Creations deciding curriculum, this is no surprise.
The other reason is religious fanaticism directed against science because of the unpleasant truths it persists in revealing.
I think it's worse than that. From my perspective (I'm in catholic Italy) there was really no need for the church to go back to challenge scientific discoveries. In fact the Pope is fighting for what is seen as unethical research on human cloning and so on, but doesn't challenge Darwinism, for example. On the other hand, IIRC, one minister tried to remove Darwin from teaching programs, but the model for this behaviour stays in US, not in the Vatican (I don't want to try and excuse the Roman Catholics, which should speak out louder against this, as I do)
So, why politicians of us and italian right fight science more than the official Church? I have one dystopic explanation. Science as it existed before big money came in (that is: peer review, published results, quest for personal glory of the scientist...) is no longer desirable for the society we are transforming into. Scientific discovery must be directed by the market, in controlled environments and regulated by patents so that the big players exert their superiority.
Among other strategies, the enemies of science are using religion as a mere weapon of disinformation. They want people to blindly obey faith and negate scientific evidence and couldn't care less for the message itself. Else they would be evangelizing in a totally different way...
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
My goodness, what is wrong with all of you? This is a simple question of economics... for the $175 million that NASA wanted to spend on keeping the Hubble up we instead could:
* Pay for 4 F-117 Fighters to kill people with without them being able to kill us (40k each)
* Two tomahawk missiles (750k each) and a few six packs. To bomb people without needing to get up out our lazy boys.
* Four inaugaral balls at 40 mill each.
Its just a matter of priorities.
If Bush wanted Iraqs oil on the American market, why not just rattle the saber, get inspectors in Iraq for a bit, doing some intensive inspections (which they did, for a bit), and then declare Iraq a repaired nation, no WMDs, and ask the UN to lift sanctions? That would release all of Iraq's production into the market and depress prices. The whole thing would take, ohh, maybe six months. Bush and the US would look like the good guys.
First because Saddam was unwilling to play that game. Towards the end it was even apparent to people halfway around the globe that the US "inspectors" were doing nothing more than collect military intelligence to facilitate an invasion. Saddam pretty much accused tem of that.
Second because Iraq would have remained a member of OPEC. OPEC was doing a reasonably good job of ensuring the member countries were getting good prices for and a fair share of oil which was not in keeping with the US objective of unfettered access. Keep in mind that when Iraq invaded Kuwait, they did so because Kuwait was supplying more oil than they were entitled to.
I also agree that Bush personally didn't like Hussein or Iraq. That goes without saying. If you were to take any mentally challenged individual, befriend him and control all the information he gets I assure can you that he will believe whatever you want him to believe.
...the American people should file a HUGE lawsuit against our own government for negligent destruction of a national treasure.
just because you want to or how it makes you feel is not just dandy.
believe should follow evidence, period.
I'm tired of pretending it's OK to believe everything.
O'Reilly was going on about Intelligent Design yesterday... it's a theory, just like evolution. Right, and just like the theory that the moon is made of cheese... to bad the facts are not on it's side.
we should not coddle the believe-whatever-we-like crowd. Reality is relative, that doesn't mean you can't compare things, it means you HAVE TO.
-pyrrho
De-orbiting the Hubble is part of the religious right's attack on science. Learning where we came from is not in their interest. News about science and knowledge is not in the best interest of furthering their agenda.
Hidden in Syria? Perhaps the US need to carry out a pointless barbaric campaign there too? Or perhaps they're in France?
Seriously, you're the gullible "loony" if you still believe that there's a hidden arsenal out there.
Exactly! The "Save Hubble!" cry is originating largely from a population that just loves those cool-looking pictures that they can use as desktop backgrounds or screen savers.
If you rationally look for the best way to spend a billion dollars to aid astronomical research, HOP is a much better bet - you get a slighly newer and more capable satellite made mostly with proven techology and which has a longer expected life-span than the aging Hubble. And you don't risk human lives by launching a space shuttle to an orbit from which "abort to ISS" is an impossibility.
Or save the billion dollars and just deorbit Hubble whenever it actually fails (could last 4 more years, could last 15 more years, we don't really know.) Between Chandra and James Webb we're already spending billions on new astronomical satellites, and investigating new IR and radio wavelengths is scientifically more valuable than just collecting more visible pictures like those from Hubble.
"To be absolutely certain about something, one must know everything or nothing about it." -- Olin Miller
"If memory serves, the previous administration spend more than that on their own"
Your memory does not serve. This was the most expensive inauguration ever.
"40 million bucks goes to things like limo drivers, cooks, clean up crew"
No. It buys access for the corporations who wish to bend the ear and favor of those who write the laws.
2. Name one so called "unpleasant truth" that Hubble has revealed. Heck name one "truth" that the Hubble project has persisted in revealing
Every single time Hubble images an object more than 5000 light years away, it PROVES that God did not create the universe 5000 years ago. There are arguments to support this, of course, but none of them form any basis in scripture. The most logical argument, of course, presented pretty much unanimously by Biblical Scholars, is that the absolute accuracy in the depiction of time-periods as documented in the Bible, has been lost to translation or antiquity (take your pick - since ancient Hebrew is, effectively a dead language, though it bears a striking resemblence to modern Hebrew - ancient Hebrew, particularly when dealing with numerical concepts that didn't exist in that time-period, is open for interpretation).
Thus proving Scriptural Inerrency false, Humanity benefits by eliminating the Fundamentalist Religious Forces that have held our race back with ignorance, bigotry, and endless conflict.
And the great thing is - we can all, as individuals, still Love God. If we want to. We just won't be compelled by scripture to hate and war with eachother anymore.
1. Name one discovery that Hubble has made that has benefited humanity or has the potential to in the next 300 hundred years.
By imaging worlds around other planets, Humanity may one day be compelled to try visiting one. Could this be beneficial? I dunno, ask the dead spirit of Christopher Columbus.
By gathering the data used to demonstrate universal expansion, we may one day solve the puzzle of so-called "dark matter" and it's relationship to gravity and expansion of the universe, which might lead to the technical mastery of the Gravitational Force itself. Mastery of the Gravitational Force would have astounding implications for all areas of transportation. To say the least.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.