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.

Comments

The next mission

[arotenbe]

Let me guess: the next mission after this one will upgrade the telescope to be able to see up to 300 million years before the Big Bang! Even better, it has the same chance of succeeding on budget and schedule as the mission the article describes!

Re:Was Hubble worth it?

[Chris Tucker]

"That means that the Hubble over its entire lifespan cost every man, woman and child in the United States $21.67 each."

So, that works out to what? 4 Big Macs, give or take?

Yeah. you know what? The beauty of the Hubble images, seeing the glories of the Universe, revelling in the knowledge revealed.

Beats the goddamn HELL out of having a paper bag with 4 hamburgers in it. I can eat those burgers, and a day later, I'm hungry again.

The Hubble images will satisfy my soul for decades to come.

Hell, I'll happily send NASA another US$20 or so, to help pay for the servicing mission.

And to the original parent commenter, if you can't understand what Hubble has meant to the people of the US and of the Earth, you'll never understand.

"We're all of us in the gutter, but some of us look at the stars."

Enjoy your grubbing about in your gutter, I have better things to do than reply to you further.

I have stars to look at.