[NormsRevenge]

On the Net:

Space.com Hubble mailbag:

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/mailbag_hubble_030804-1.html

Save the Hubble: www.savethehubble.com

[Centurion2000]

We paid for the damn thing and smoe NASA admin wants it to die 5 years ahead of schedule because that jerk is too cheap to change the oil ?

[Joe Boucher]

A lot of us out here think that the govt., N.A.S.A included can't accomplish too much. This damn thing is at least working. With a little of maintenance it will continue to work.
Idiot govt types just spending my money.

[onedoug]

I wonder how KT Sullivan and Storey Musgrave feel about this.

[lelio]

Fixed the Save the Hubble link.

[longtermmemmory]

I have an idea. Lets set aside 1/3 of what it would have cost and put it up for bid for private contractors.

[PhilDragoo]

Why don't they phase out that fuel tank insulation instead?

Oh, bureaucrats' rules: if it's not broke, break it; if it's broke, ignore it.

[jpsb]

This is great News, I hope Hubble is saved, it is doing great science and is one of NASA greatest achievements. O'Keif is looking more and more like a damn fine administrator. It takes a lot of guts to allowed a second opinion on your area of expertise and admit you might have made a bad call.

Save Hubble!

[hopespringseternal]

It's a half billion dollar shuttle launch to service it, plus the cost of keeping up with the thing.

It would be great to keep it, and it is probably popular enough that they will do the servicing mission. But it is a huge chunk of change out of NASA's budget, so I am not surprised that they want to dump it at crunch time.

One very good idea would be to hand it off to NSF. Let them eat the cost of the servicing mission and mission control. After all, NSF probably should be handling all these robotic missions anyway, just like the weather service should be in charge of weather satellites.