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NASA Revives Main Hubble Telescope Camera
antikarma writes "NASA engineers successfully activated the Advanced Camera for Surveys at 9:12 a.m. EDT Friday aboard the agency's Hubble Space Telescope. Checkout was completed at 10:20 a.m. EDT with science observations scheduled to resume Sunday, July 2. 'This is the best possible news,' said Ed Ruitberg, deputy associate director for the Astrophysics Division at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. 'We were confident we could work through the camera issue, and now we can get back to doing more incredible science with the camera.'"
Due to Iraq and George Bush , most people in Western Europe have a little distain for the American Government. In fact, where I live, people often break in to an American accent when they do something stupid. I imagine this is because everyone sees Channel 4 news where we see the "Answers from Genesis museum" and thinks: "Only the stupid could indulge such nonsense."
With that necessary rant taken well and truly aside, I want to thank American for doing what no-one else can afford to do: put real science equipment in to space. It's your taxes that pay for the Hubble Space Telescope. This is a project that has furthered science in a very unique way. It is project that Galileo would have dreamed of. It is a marvel, a temple ,even, to science.....
With all the gratitude in my heart, I still feel America confuses me. To paraphrase the film Contact: "It is capable of such beautiful dreams and such horrible nightmares." It is a land of contradiction; of promise and of despair. It is of science,and religion, of the smart and the idiot. It's is so huge that it contradicts and astounds. It is the country where opposites can be equally true.
As a British man, I love America and I hope the feeling is mutual. I raise this glass to the future of Science and hope you will raise your glass too! To Science!
Simon.
Because all they could see without that telescope camera was this:
Nothing for you to see here. Please move along.
You can't handle the truth.
Let me be among the first to exclaim "Yay!" Like, totally forsooth and verily!
I was just in the biggest funk about this and not just because the DVD on the new Sky and Telescope reminded me of what we'd be missing. I know there's all sorts of swell and really keen new stuff on the way, but I've just got so used to going to bed at night, snug and secure in the knowledge that the big guy was still up there looking for spiffy cosmic phenomena.
I for one rewelcome our HST overlord.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Whenever I think of the galaxies, outer space or human observation to these I cannot help the feeling of awe and admiration. I checked out the pictures on the web-site and I felt like I was watching Kubrick`s Oddysey. I imagine and see ( thanks to 10 times more powerful Hubble`s objectives ) the vast galaxies, millions of stars and the light reflected from them and converted to miliwatts of electrical energy in the human brain. I see the real physics out there, intersecting its ways with philosphy. That is really something different from what they do in solid state, or applied physics.
Hubble and its even more powerful descendants will enlighten the secrets of universe,
There's plenty of room at the bottom! Richard P. Feynmann
It's not all American.
So Mike didn't break the Hubble after all!
Napalm is nature's toothpaste
"Today at 10:20 the Hubble main telescope found a planet of supermodels who want to give us a clean power source and worship us like gods."
That's the best possible news.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Looking back what would have been cheaper? To launch a new better one that don't need costly repairs? Or to keep repairing one that was out of date before it actually worked? Hmm, Where's the math whizz when you need him?
Always late to a war! :)
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As a fellow Brit to the original poster, I'm never going to forget this post (I have it bookmarked), I too was watching a big screen when 9/11 happened:
http://politics.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1551
Slightly wrong about the BBC whipping up a band - it was the band of the Royal Household Cavalry (I think), ordered by no less than her Maj.
Look at the vast geography and the disparity between different groups of people here. You're more likely to understand the USA if you don't consider it in the same light as a single European country -- most of which are the size of one of our states.
In a day, I can travel by car across most of western Europe, through vastly different populations and beliefs. Here, it can take me that long to traverse Texas. Driving 24 hours on, 8 hours off, it took me 3 and half days to drive from Phoenix to Boston. Where would that take you in Europe?
Where I live in Maine, I find great similarities to the Bavarian countryside. You surely couldn't say that about the desert southwest in the USA.
A certain Austrian, having been elected leader of Germany some years back assumed that our differences would prevent us ever even agreeing with each other enough to be a serious player on the world scene -- let alone threaten his plans for world domination. That was as big a mistake as his election in the first place.
Our states and our divergent people are like a big Italian family. There are always some who don't speak to others, big traumatic fights, and long held grudges -- but when faced with a threat from outside, nearly instant, unified, reactionary, over response is close at hand to deal with that threat.
--31
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
[Tune: Amazing Grace]
Eye in space, soon to be gone,
We can't just let it be.
It once was off but now is on
Was blind, but now can see.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
What you say rings true. However, my own interpretation of American history suggests that things will get worse before they get better. The concerned among us are still far too small a percentage of the population to draw the attention of the complacent masses. I mean, look at the issues that incumbents are banking on to get re-elected: Terrorism, Gay Marriage, and Flag Burning. Real issues, such as climate change, health care, and corruption go undiscussed because powerful interests pay an awful lot of money to keep it that way.
No, things will have to get pretty bad before we realize that Jesus isn't coming to fix it for us.
Should have been from the "can-you-see-me-now dept"
So that's what we're calling it these days. In reality, they flew someone up there to whack the thingamaflotchit on the side a few times, twist the rabbit-ears to a different position, and if all else failed, a swift kick to the side of the cabinet. All of the above were accompanied by a steady stream of verbal abuse and profanity, followed by pleas of "pretty please, damn you, you piece of..." If there is another way that anything has ever gotten fixed, I am unaware of it. But I guess NASA is facing a budget crisis like everyone else (except Haliburton, natch) so they have to tell us that they "activated" it, via high-tech, very smart methodology and stuff. Thanks for the info, rocket guys. Gotcha. What a bunch of dweebs.
The Hubble's ACS is not repaired; they made the decision that it would not harm the rest of the instrument by activating the backup electronic controller (Side 2).
Historically speaking this marks the half-life time of the mission. It has operated for four years; I expect it to work 3 to 5 more years now.
I don't know if the controllers (Sides 1 and 2) are identical; it wasn't for the STIS and they need to run a series of re-calibration before resuming its science operations. I hope that isn't the case here. I'm supposed to use that camera this month and next.