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No Money For Hubble Service Mission

Posted by michael on from the sacrifices-have-to-be-made dept.

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?"

9 of 401 comments (clear)

  1. Hubble on eBay by stecoop · · Score: 5, Interesting

    So if there isn't money for Hubble than auction it off as surplus - let free market pick it up if they want to.

    1. Re:Hubble on eBay by connah0047 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Yeah, put it on EBay for an auction. Mark it as "Will not ship, must pick up."

    2. Re:Hubble on eBay by Martin+Blank · · Score: 5, Informative

      As soon as it gets to the point where it becomes a re-entry risk (which happens when only one gyro remains functional), NASA will drop it into the Pacific. They don't want to risk an unplanned, uncontrolled descent that may put it in the middle of a population area.

      --
      You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
    3. Re:Hubble on eBay by GammaRay+Rob · · Score: 5, Interesting

      As soon as it gets to the point where it becomes a re-entry risk (which happens when only one gyro remains functional), NASA will drop it into the Pacific. They don't want to risk an unplanned, uncontrolled descent that may put it in the middle of a population area.

      Except, of course, it currently has no de-orbit capability, hence the plan to go there and add it. But, if you already have to go there...

      --
      This line no sig
  2. Re:Death for Hubble? by shanen · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Private funding? This is the same level of thinking that caused the problem that killed Hubble, and one of the main reasons America is so quickly falling behind in so many fields of scientific research. There are some things that private enterprise and free markets are very good at, but long-term scientific research is NOT one of them. (The other reason is religious fanaticism directed against science because of the unpleasant truths it persists in revealing.)

    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.
  3. Re:Just replace the Hubble by rsmith-mac · · Score: 5, Informative
    The problem arises from the fact that Hubble will die without servicing before then.

    Not to mention Hubble and JWST don't see all the same frequencies on the radiation spectrum, so even once JWST goes up, we won't be able to see everything Hubble could.

  4. Re:Just replace the Hubble by Martin+Blank · · Score: 5, Informative

    The JWST was meant to complement the Hubble, not replace it. It functions almost entirely in the infrared range, whereas Hubble covers a very wide range of wavelengths. The JWST was intended to fill in one of the HST's weak points.

    --
    You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
  5. Re:aaaah Political doublespeak... by Rolan · · Score: 5, Informative

    Yes, a newer and better one is on the horizon. The James Webb Space Telescope is scheduled to launch in 2011.

    More like a new and different one. If you actually compare the two you'd notice that the JWST doesn't see everything the HST can, not even close to the same wide range of spectrum. It sees primarily in IR.

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    - AMW
  6. Re:Death for Hubble? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative
    Since nobody else here seemed to RTFA...

    NASA has not yet informed key congressional committees with jurisdiction over the space agency. But congressional sources told Space News they had been hearing since late last week that significant changes were afoot for Hubble.

    These same sources, however, said they had not ruled out that the White House and NASA might be canceling the Hubble servicing mission as the opening gambit in the annual struggle that goes on every budget year, fully expecting that Congress will add money to the agency's budget over the course of the year to pay for a mission that has strong public support.
    In other words, this could just be a gambit to drum up support and funding from congress.