Posted on 03/09/2005 5:57:22 PM PST by KevinDavis
Today the American Astronomical Society, the major professional organization for professional astronomy and space science researchers in the United States, released a policy statement on the servicing of the Hubble Space Telescope. The text of the statement is included below.
In releasing the statement, President Robert Kirshner stated, "I am personally very disappointed with NASA's current plan not to service HST. You can be sure we will work with them to help realize the goals of astronomers as carefully worked out through our decade plan. We know that NASA is committed to doing the world's best astronomy and servicing Hubble with the Shuttle is part of the best program."
(Excerpt) Read more at spaceref.com ...
Here's my question. What, exactly, do they propose to service Hubble with? The shuttles are going to be on very restricted duty until they get replaced.
Oh, that's right, they're going to service it with the programs that they didn't endorse that died (Rotary Rocket, etc, etc).
They prefer that Robots service the hubble space telescope.
That's great. How, exactly, do they propose to do that? The Russians are booked solid, nobody in their right mind is going to use an Ariane to lift that sort of cargo to orbit, and the US concerns are booked solid as well.
Pipe dream IMHO.
We should send a shuttle flight to service Hubble.
I read somewhere that the cost is between 1 and 2 billion and it has a 10% chance of success.
I heard pretty much the same thing, and that it would be far cheaper to build a new telescope and launch it.
I think it's incredible what the Hubble has accomplished. And I love the images it has sent back. (I have four of them hanging on my bedroom wall.) But the people calling for its continued maintenance are being more sentimental than sensible.
25 years ago America revolutionized space exploration with the space shuttle.
Today, we haven't set foot on *any* other planet or moon. We aren't even flying the shuttle anymore. And now we can't even fix a space telescope.
Does anyone see a pattern here?
Once Hubble goes down, there is *no* replacement telescope set to launch. NASA does plan to launch the Webb telescope within a decade or so, but it works at infrared, not visible, wavelengths.
This country is sadly becoming a joke.
Or, we could offer Burt Rutan 50% of the cost of a Shuttle servicing mission to HST and tell him he gets to keep whatever $ he doesn't use on expenses as profit.
There's no guarantee he'll succede, but with his track record, it's worth a shot.
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