The Hubble telescope has provided us with sights that weren’t dreamt of , and yet the Bush administration has cut funding. Its future is in serious doubt.
I wish there was a save the Hubble site similar to Spread Firefox. Who knows what could be done? I’d start it myself if I had the time.
Don’t worry about Hubble. There are some serious shakeups happening over at NASA. Congress told them months back that they wanted Hubble serviced. The talk was that a robot would be launched to make the repairs because they didn’t feel risking astronauts on a shuttle mission was worth the chance.
NASA looked into this “Robot,” option and consulted with Canadian firms for feasability.
Then NASA backed up and said they’d shrub Hubble. Then congress said, “Oh no you won’t.”
What’s at issue are 2 gyroscopes and batteries that have given up the ghost. NASA is slated to launch a new telescope in the next 3 years, so they thought they could just bring Hubble safely down over the ocean. The thing is that they’d have to spent over 100 million just to retrofit Hubble to bring it out of orbit and into a free fall to its destruction.
When NASA launches Discovery next month, and people see our space program working again, the focus will come back to Hubble and he’ll be saved.
In the meantime, Hubble is still functional; it just can’t focus on certain far away area’s as good as it used to.
Speak of the devil.
NASA nominee pledges fresh look at Hubble
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7477739/