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Upgraded Hubble To Be 90 Times As Powerful
The feed brings us a New Scientist review of the repairs and new instruments that astronauts will bring to the Hubble Space Telescope next August (unless the launch is delayed). The resulting instrument will be 90 times as powerful as Hubble was designed to be when launched, and 60% more capable than it was after its flawed optics were repaired in 1993. If the astronauts pull it off — and the mission is no slam-dunk — the space telescope should be able to image galaxies back to 400 million years after the Big Bang.
The fundamental problem with your statement is that you assume that the $$$ would otherwise have been used to change lives in a big positive way.
Put very simply, through science, we gain an understanding of the world, and universe around us, how it operates and how we can interact more effectively with it.
Barbara Felden claims prior art on the flip phone, sues Motorola, Nokia.
The images have to be artificially colored because more often than not the images are put together from images outside the visible wavelength. None of those images would be interesting to humans in the original wavelengths.
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It's not bloody pictures! It's seeing proof that we have our maths right.
The coloration of such images is thought of as being as much the artistic expression of the astronomer in question as it is clarification of the image.
The thing is, without coloration, we wouldn't be able to see the various structures. Astronomers probably would, being trained, but not us normal folk. Besides, who wants to look at dull greyscale when you can spice it up with some color? The aim of making the image easier to interpret is achieved, and it looks pretty too.
And if that money had been spent in the private sector, mamograms would be patented by Pfizer, and cost 5 times as much as the old method.
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You could argue the same thing about all fundamental research... But how much of todays practical applications would have been discovered if we hadn't sponsored research in quantum physics?
Now of course the direct link between Hubble telescope and daily applications is less obvious, but it did determine the Hubble constant (well a more accurate estimate) and determined that the expansion of the universe was accelerating... Now you can challenge the usefulness of these discoveries all you can, but I somehow believe that in the long run, understanding the physics that rule this universe will generate vastly more practical applications (and revenues) then the current (and already beaten) missile defense system...
In the long run we're all dead, but that doesn't mean we should focus solely on short term objectives (and I'm very very glad our ancestors didn't)/
My favorite part of all of this is that your argument basically consists of an unsupported claim that hubble accomplishes nothing more than taking pretty pictures, followed by what is essentially an exploration of the opportunity cost of funding hubble's repairs. Exactly what kind of argument is that? Of course $350 million could be well spent on other areas of research, that's not an argument against the repairs, that's the inherent nature of the decision. By choosing A, you necessarily lose out on options B, C, D, etc. ...and?
What you have not done, at all, in either of your posts here is offer a single reason that hubble is undeserving of these funds. Clearly, you think hubble is a wast of money. Clearly its a lot of money and other areas of research could benefit from getting it instead.
Come read my stupid blagablog. Rants and Giggles
I'm sure Max Planck would be quite amazed at what we've gotten done using the concept of quantum, even though it seemed to be little more than a mathematical trick when he first thought of it.
Even if you look at NASA as a pork barrel tool that feed the aerospace industry, it's a lot better to feed them thru NASA than it is to feed them through the military.
In the end, less people get hurt, less people get really pissed of and we end up with better pictures.
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About $4.5 Billion. It's much cheaper to repair and upgrade than to replace.
You don't make the poor richer by making the rich poorer. - Winston Churchill
Yeah, totally. Oh wait, the DOD funded the development of the Internet, advanced wireless communications, GPS, tons of medical advances, and numerous other projects that you probably benefit from. It's not all death and destruction you know. Personally, I'm happier to see the advancements in medical treatment than I am the pretty pictures.