[livius]

That's a start.

Bumping this up - we have some knowledgeable "Science Freepers" here who could probably make some positive input.

Of course, many of them may already actually be working in the space program...one never knows about Freepers.

[Explorer89]

One never knows....

But answer this: how can we swallow the risk of going to the moon and to Mars if we cannot swallow the risk of sending the shuttle to service the Hubble. I read it on CNN yesterday that only missions that go to the Space Station orbit are allowed in case of a problem like Columbia's. If we can't stand the risk of getting to the Hubble, we're never going anywhere.