[Huck]

Bummer.

[jpsb]

The incredibly stupid decisions of this administration continue to amaze me. I never thought I would seen a Republican administration show such an inability to think. I never thought I would see NASA display such fear at the thought of sending a man into space. NASA needs to get out of the space business, NASA doesn't have the neccessary guts to go into space.

[KellyAdmirer]

Regarding a possible shuttle mission to Hubble, Readdy said schedule pressures and logistics would be formidable

Well, if it's difficult, might as well not try to do it at all! Somewhere along the line, the "right stuff" became the "timid stuff."

[Robe]

which would repair failing gyroscopes and upgrade detectors, the telescope will eventually stop functioning and will need to be nudged out of orbit toward Earth in a controlled descent

Why deorbit?... why not give it a bump into a higher orbit, do an orderly shut down and put it in "deep freeze" til we have a way to fix it?

Unless of course Hubble is a little on the obsolete side...and better technology is coming on line soon.... then it's just a matter of some scientists wanting to keep their jobs at the peril of others (Just Idle Thoughts....JIT)

[Core_Conservative]

Maybe the Administration and NASA ought to try to sell the Hubble to the highest bidder. Then it is out of their hands, and some money in the pocket to boot. I also think that NASA should be put on the market and turned into a private industry.

[boris]

The thing is obsolete; better pictures are available from giant ground scopes with adaptive optics. The shuttle itself is obsolete and should remain grounded. If we lose another one, I guarantee the last two will never fly.

There's a better replacement for Hubble on the way (Webb); be patient.

--Boris

[Timm]

Good thing we spent all that money on a manned shuttle program. After all, would we want to forego all of the benefits of sending people into space, as opposed to less expensive robots? Humans can make repairs on existing satellites, and can solve problems that machines can't.

Oh wait, they can't. It turns out that a hundred billion dollars later it's too dangerous to send men to fix satellites. Oh well.

[hchutch]

Dumb does not begin to describe this one...

Until the replacement is up and running, kleep the Hubble going. If they have to, re-rig Enterprise to go up to fix Hubble. But this is just mind-boggling.

[Arkinsaw]

They just can't win for losing. They get slammed for non-safety and then get slammed for concentrating on safety. They are responding to what the public wants, which is what agencies should do, and the public wants safety at this time.

[Quix]

sooooooooooo

LET BILL GATES FUND robotic refurbishing and orbit heightening effort. . . . or some such.

[Cold Heat]

Hubble is old and outdated.

It is a risk assessment that must be made.

New tech might be cheaper in the long run. In other words, it has seen what it can see and perhaps a new platform would be much better and less risky to launch and maintain.

In view of everything else involved, it may be a good decision.

A sad one however.

[MikeD]

The question no one is asking is why was it safe to launch 6 Mercury missions, 10 Gemini missions, 12 Apollo missions, and untold Shuttle missions (including all of the HST missions) before February of last year? Suddenly, because of an accident, it's no longer safe to service HST? Huh?

Space travel is a risky business. I know that's easy to say since I'm on the ground, but I don't think any of the astronauts would disagree. I don't want people to needlessly die, but there's risk in everything. Personally, I'd rather risk a trip to keep HST alive than risk a trip for yet another crew rotation on ISS. Maybe that's just me.