That will be a hard sell on her part once we discover the planet of "Hot Orion Slave Girls In Heat".
KIRK:"Spock, how?!?..."
SPOCK:"Captain, it's a well known fact that this environmental suit is the only known protection to the 'Orion Clap' ".
Posted on 01/19/2004 5:09:25 AM PST by The Other Harry
January 18, 2004
UCSC scientist jarred by Hubble’s demise
By SHANNA MCCORD
Sentinel Staff Writer
SANTA CRUZ — UC Santa Cruz astronomy professor Sandra Faber spent the sunny Saturday afternoon in her university office making a mad dash against time.
After hearing Friday that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration would no longer be servicing the Hubble Space Telescope, Faber felt the need to make her latest proposal for using the telescope as compelling as possible. This will most likely be her last chance to apply to do research through the revolutionary spacecraft.
Without additional repairs to the Hubble, scientists expect the floating telescope to be useless by 2007 or 2008.
Faber — renowned in the world of science for her vast knowledge of all things related to space, galaxies, stars and black holes — was a member of the instrument team that discovered a focusing flaw in the Hubble telescope soon after its launch in 1990.
Since then, corrections and repairs through periodic service missions have given the telescope an ability to beam photos of previously unseen galaxies back to Earth in near perfection, she said.
"It’s a very powerful tool to studying the history of history," Faber said.
Now competing with about 1,000 scientists for the remaining research time on the Hubble, she considers the opportunity to be "the most precious time in the astronomical world."
The deadline for submitting proposals is Friday.
John Grunsfeld, NASA’s chief scientist, said NASA administrator Sean O’Keefe made the decision to cancel the fifth space shuttle service mission to the Hubble when it became evident there was not enough time for additional repairs before the shuttle is retired.
The decision, said Grunsfeld, was influenced by President Bush’s latest space initiative, which calls for NASA to develop the shuttle and equipment for voyages to the moon and eventually to Mars.
Most of the shuttle’s remaining flights are to be used to complete construction of the International Space Station, something Faber calls "complete and utter misuse of space."
She also deplores the idea of human space travel and said it’s "utterly worthless."
For now, Faber’s focus is grabbing the attention of the panel of scientists judging the Hubble proposals. Once that’s complete, she’ll move toward making a pitch to Congress about the importance of the telescope and why it should be saved.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
Contact Shanna McCord at smccord@santacruzsentinel.com.
Why is it that most career academics are so unimaginative?
She also deplores the idea of human space travel and said it’s "utterly worthless."
Some facts missing from the article:
1. What is the design life of the Hubble?
2. Are there replacements in the the pipeline?
3. What is the cost for servicing a the Hubble (especially past it's design life)?
4. Is UC Santa Cruz astronomy professor Sandra Faber an idiot?
That will be a hard sell on her part once we discover the planet of "Hot Orion Slave Girls In Heat".
KIRK:"Spock, how?!?..."
SPOCK:"Captain, it's a well known fact that this environmental suit is the only known protection to the 'Orion Clap' ".
Well at least around the faculty lounge. I am not sure that Santa Cruz ever had imaginative Science. We used to call is "Surfer U." The James Webb Space Telescope is were it is at. If she has such a hot project she should apply for time at Keck.
Comment, anyone?
She probably has it. IIRC, Keck is operated jointly by UCSC and Univ. of Hawaii. For all its shortcomings, UCSC does have a serious astronomy deptarment.
We need a refueling station on Mars to save us from the Borg. And on Babylon 5 the Mars colony saved us from a despotic regime back on Earth trying to enslave the Galaxy.
We could wind up with a smaller space program than Japan's. God knows that, as you say, enough people are after the money -- some of them live on Park Avenue, too. Where everyone has a direct line to Karl Rove.
I agree. Space travel is a romantic idea, but is practically worthless.
NASA's lost it's nerve. At least the bureaucrats have.
The workers, engineers, scientists and astronauts are willing to fly but the honchos are afraid of another accident "on their watch". (bad for careers)
IMHO, there's no reason to fly the shuttles at all if they're not doing "Hubble type" missions. That's the reason the darn things were built.
Fix the foam and fly!
That's the best explaination I have heard so far.
Modern astronomy facilities come in four varieties: survey instruments (usually land based), Large land based instruments that more closely examine results of surveys; Space Based Telescopes and radio telescopes. All of these are used together.
The current foundations for the US are the Gemini Telescopes (two 8 or 8.5 Telescopes in both Hemispheres) for survey work, The HST for visual wavelengths and the Spritzer for IR, Keck for large land based scopes that are both visual range and IR, and the VLA and Arecebo for RF. Over the next decade or so they will transfer to using a variety of land based scopes for survey work, The James Webb Space Telescope (an 8 meter infrared space based telescope the most amazing telescope in history if all goes well) for space, the CELT for Earth based refined exploration and the ALMA project (a joint US ESO/EU project that is the largest RF array in history.) Besides that there are other spaced based instruments in other spectra to replace ones like Chandra.
I suggest that before you make smug little comments like
It figures - it's the only one (orbital telescope) we have, so they'll let it die without replacing it with anything.
that you do your homework. It is just an insult to some very serious people doing some very serious planning and some of the most brilliant work in the history of the field.
Not only is Bush's plan quite good, but this cancellation has little to do with it. It is about new safety measure mandated by congress.
To somehow imply that something so far reaching, expensive and as important as Astronomy is somehow being handled in a shortsighted or amateurish way is to evince an ignorance of current national science policies or frameworks, and a contempt for the people that have planned, built and daily use the greatest intellectual and physical science infrastructure the world has ever seen.
I agree too. In terms of valuable information about the comos, all the manned missions combined don't hold a candle to what Hubble has yielded.
Well, Clinton mined NASA's budget for $$$ for his headline-oriented mini-initiatives, and Dubya is stripping it out for Homeland Security missions, redirecting shuttle resources and missions to Tom Ridge. There was a press release last April or so, after the new 2004 budget came out, in which there was a carve-out from the shuttle program funds for Homeland Security, missions to be run by IIRC the Air Force.
So everyone is carving NASA's budget for money to do other things, because a) there's a security need and beyond that, b) fresh money is the kind from which all political vig flows. And Bush plays the game, too -- except I think he wants to as much of it as possible in the form of tax cuts to his real constituency, They Who Must Be Obeyed, in the financial community.
There's two problems here. One is that JWST isn't scheduled for launch until 2011. The other is that the fourth servicing mission that was cancelled is what was planned to keep HST alive until 2010 at the latest, otherwise, the probable death date of the current crop of important electronics will be 2006-2008. The other problem is that there has already been about $20 million of development of current electronics for SM4 that will go for naught now.
So there will be a 3-5 year gap with no spaceborne optical platform, and no platform with near ultraviolet observational capabilities.
Now, the good thing is that from what I've read is that the money that would have gone to SM4 will be dedicated to getting JWST out the door on time, instead of to the Mars Project, nor does the current NASA administration plan on cutting the SMEX and MIDEX programs to pay for a Moon or Mars mission. That is a good thing. I don't think we should eviscerate our space research program for this.
There are a lot of people on this site being very critical of Bush's plan, NASA and the Hubble decision that do not seem to know much about any of it.
Let hand science and technology over the the Democrats - boy they sure did a good job the last time around.
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