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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.
You know, almost all of those astronomical images are artificially colored and enhanced to maximize their ascetic appeal. Have a look at some of the various images of the cat's eye nebula to see. A quick Google turns up 5 different colorings:
http://www.daviddarling.info/images/Cats_Eye_Nebula.jpg
http://www.uni-sw.gwdg.de/~panders/Images/AstroImages/03_CatEyeNebula.jpg
http://www.spacetoday.org/images/Hubble/HubbleBeauty/CatsEyeNebulaNASA.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5a/NGC6543.jpg
http://www.daviddarling.info/images/Cats_Eye_Nebula_2.jpg
The interpretation of the horsehead nebula is at least consistent (most of the time), but there is still plenty of artistic license being taken.
http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/52238main_MM_image_feature_89_jw4.jpg
http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/45506main_MM_Image_Feature_73_rs4.jpg
http://www.geocities.com/scott_metz/alternity/graphics/horsehead_nebula.jpg
http://www.sidewalk-astronomy-club.com/img/horsehead-nebula.jpg
http://www.fourthdimensionastroimaging.com/sitebuilder/images/horsehead-712x571.jpg
I was sort of disappointed when I found that out...
Wikipedia says the cumulative cost of the Hubble program has been 6.5 billion dollars. The population of the United States is approximately 300 million people. That means that the Hubble over its entire lifespan cost every man, woman and child in the United States $21.67 each. So no, all the monies spent on it would not have changed lots of American lives in a big positive way. Considering that all that money was paid over the course of the last 18 years, that means each person paid the equivalent of a little over a dollar per year for the wonderful pictures and discoveries it made. So, are the secrets of the universe, or even just pretty pictures worth a third of a cent per day? I think so. 6.5 billion dollars in the hands of one person is a lot of money. 6.5 billion dollars spread across 300 million people over 20 years is practically nothing. If you want to consider real money, consider the > 450 billion dollars spent over the last 5 years on the Iraq war, or the 450 Billion dollar Defense budget spent every year which doesn't even include war operations.
The problem is that for the cost of a single shuttle maintenance mission to Hubble you could build and launch a new telescope.
For every expert, there is an equal and opposite expert. - Arthur C. Clarke
"The problem is that for the cost of a single shuttle maintenance mission to Hubble you could build and launch a new telescope."
That may be true but there also may be benefits in learning to repair what we have, that go beyond merely the "launch and trash" philosophy, i.e. when resources are limited. What kinds of new technologies will be spawned to learn how to repair existing stuff in space and what will be learned I think is just as valuable since sooner or later we will have to learn whether others want it or not.