[RonHolzwarth]

re: "Hubble is almost already passe. I saw a bit about an observatory in, I think, New Mexico that has a large setup with something called "adaptive optics". They shoot a laser in the sky, measure the distortion, and adjust the mirrors on the main scope. The pictures they showed of Saturn were many orders of magnitude better than normal ground based systems."

Problem is, that for anything out of our solar system, we would have to wait AT LEAST years, and up to THOUSANDS OF YEARS for the laser light to come back! That process will only work within our own solar system.

I do wish the Hubble would be at least boosted up in orbit, I thought it was a terrible waste when the US space station was allowed to fall, in 1978 or so, that was when the shuttle would do everything for us,,, seems to me that the Hubble is certainly worth the cost to keep it aloft for a while!

[djf]

No, no, it measures the thermal distortions in our atmosphere, and corrects for them.

[bedolido]

thanks for the input.