Slashdot Mirror
Senator Calls on NASA to Service Hubble
Avantare writes "Senator Calls on NASA to Service Hubble
In a sternly worded letter to acting NASA Administrator Frederick D. Gregory, Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) said she expects the U.S. space agency to heed the will of the Congress and keep preparations for a Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission on track.
Congress, in passing an omnibus spending bill late last year, directed NASA to set aside $291 million of its 2005 budget to spend planning and preparing for a servicing mission to Hubble by 2008. When NASA informed Congress just weeks later that it intended to spend only $175 million of that amount on the Hubble repair effort, some saw the move as an indication that the agency was preparing to abandon plans to service Hubble robotically and rely instead on a space shuttle crew to fix the telescope."
From an article in Discover Magazine
Also see the John Hopkins Newsletter.
It's worth remembering the Mikulski's motives aren't driven by pure science. Goddard and other Hubble-related facilities are in Maryland. This is a pork barrel and jobs issue for her.
And for those who argue that repairing Hubble now is no riskier than in the past, you're missing the point. Every Shuttle flight is risky and Hubble repair missions are even riskier because rendevousing with Hubble means no chance of taking reguge at the ISS and slim to zero chance of rescue by a second Shuttle.
Loss of a Shuttle during a Hubble repair mission would have political repercussions that woujld likely kill the Shuttle program and, possibly, kill any further crewed spaceflight of any kind. The Hubble is a nice tool, but the purpose of space travel is to put people there, not to do science. Fixing it isn't worth the risk.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Or join one already started and make a contribution.
There's one in the works, but there will be a few years between Hubbble going dark and the new guy going up. The cost of delaying all work in an entire field for a few years is higher than servicing the Hubble.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
It's costing the U.S. taxpayers $175 million for NASA to determine it won't do anything to save the Hubble? Why does it take so much money to decide go/nogo? (Don't answer that. I already know: It's the government bureaucracy, stoopid.)
If they've already decided, what were they planning on spending that $175m on?
Deorbiting means going up there and attaching stuff to it.
Repairing means going up there and attaching stuff to it.
We already have repairs mapped out and upgrades built. if we're going to go up there and attach stuff to it, we might as well not be entirely destructive about it...
Someone set us up the bomb, so shine we are!
And if we can't get them home, they carry 150mg doses of KCn to make things easier in the end. No doubt, astronauts fully understand what they are getting into: a personal sacrifice in the name of science.
Join Tor today!
It's the pencil pushers at NASA who largely not in favor of a manned mission. It's the same guys who want to kill the Voyager programs, despite the fact that these extraordinary vessels are hurtling towards interstellar space, a place nothing else we have has done, or will do in the forseeable future. I don't really call these guys experts in the matter, but rather part of the problem.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
They already have the robots built to do the mission. They have tested them and CNN has filmed them. To cancel everything would be a huge waste of money. They are proceding with testing like the mission will actually happen. If it's truly canned - a lot of people will at least have work through this year. I'm torn in my feelings though. If they know the mission will be cancelled, it seems a waste to continue burning through the tax dollars allocated for FY05. Keeping people employed on the other hand is a good thing. Mikulski has been an avid supporter of the HST for years. She's on committees directly related to projects such as this.
An interesting question becomes, "How to get NASA out of the cargo industry?". Already, the craft are developed by private industry - Boeing, Lockheed, Orbital Sciences, etc, are the ones who really do the development work. NASA provides the R&D money. But NASA also runs the craft after they're built, on a no-profit model. We could leave the craft to their builders to operate (or sell), but that wouldn't work on a standalone basis: they wouldn't be cost-competitive in the world if they want to extract any profit from launches, as other space agencies are launching with a no-profit model (the only real exception that I can think of is SeaLaunch). NASA could, however, provide a fixed per-kilogram launch subsidy to make them competitive again (not just to companies that they give craft-development funds to, but to any US rocket company).
:) Most Libertarians want that so that NASA's funding can be slashed or even eventually eliminated; most Dems, Greens, and some Republicans want to see that so that NASA's funding can go to more science/exploration/research projects.
I think that would be a nice incentive system. If the same company doing the building is the one who is going to be operating the craft, they have a strong motivation to, during the design phase, keep later operating costs down instead of just "building to the spec" and "trying to make it look nice on paper".
The lower the operating costs, the bigger the demand, and consequently the more likely that private companies will start spending their *own* money on rocketry. Which is what we all want to see here
Pinkypants -- my favorite!
A four year delay does not seem that bad but its effect is culminative. Where we are now in terms of understanding what is out there and what we are doing out there is further pushed back. The 60's seemed to be the decade of exploration and learning. We should be on the moon or mars by now, issues such as political games and money have already delayed our advancement. This delay would only add more to the pile of 30 years already accrewed.
However this delay is never seen nor tangible... thus pushed aside for later to our detriment.
Jonathanjk.com
Actually, I missed something important in your original message--the part where you said "[. . .]what percentage of your taxes go to which area[. . . ]" At first I thought you meant taxes in general.
Being a Libertarian, I believe that we should eliminate income taxes all together. And since most of the government's money comes from other means (taxing corporations and such) anyway, they'll still have plenty left to fund cool things like wars and science (In order to make better weapons for wars).
If you want to give the government money to spend on non-military things, I don't see a problem with that other than how only a small fraction of what you originally give will likely reach the people it was intended for. I'd prefer to write a check to a local charity or the EFF myself, personally.
And if we can't get them home, they carry 150mg doses of KCn to make things easier in the end.
I wasn't aware of this, and wanted to read more about it but couldn't find anything. Do you have any references?
Agreed. KCN might be used by a covert agent where having an extremely deadly but stable poison in a very small package would be useful, but the astronauts have none of those worries. I couldn't pull up any references on suicide methods they send up with them, but I would be sure it wouldn't be any cyanide, arsenic, azide or any other metabolic poison like that. A nerve agent would be far less painful and just as deadly.