Posted on 03/11/2005 8:17:20 AM PST by wingblade
Senator Calls on NASA to Service Hubble
By Brian Berger Space News Staff Writer posted: 10 March 2005 12:10 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON – In a sternly worded letter to acting NASA Administrator Frederick D. Gregory, Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) said she expects the U.S. space agency to heed the will of the Congress and keep preparations for a Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission on track.
Congress, in passing an omnibus spending bill late last year, directed NASA to set aside $291 million of its 2005 budget to spend planning and preparing for a servicing mission to Hubble by 2008. When NASA informed Congress just weeks later that it intended to spend only $175 million of that amount on the Hubble repair effort, some saw the move as an indication that the agency was preparing to abandon plans to service Hubble robotically and rely instead on a space shuttle crew to fix the telescope.
Many Hubble backers, including Mikulski, were shocked and angered when NASA announced in early February that it would not make any effort to service the telescope beyond attaching a propulsion module that can be used to drop Hubble into the ocean once it goes dark.
Mikulski, an influential member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, told Gregory in her March 2 letter that Congress will consider this year including money in NASA’s 2006 budget for a Hubble servicing mission. In the meantime, she said, she expects NASA to spend every penny of the $291 million included in the 2005 budget for Hubble servicing.
“I expect NASA to carry out Congress’ intent and spend the entire amount appropriated this year so there will be no interruption in the planning, preparation and engineering work that will be necessary for a servicing mission to Hubble,” she wrote. “The funding that I included in the Omnibus Appropriations Act is to ensure that the workforce at Goddard, the Space Telescope Science Institute and their associated contractors remain fully engaged in all aspects of a servicing mission. Any attempt to cancel, terminate or suspend servicing activity would be a violation of the law unless it has the approval of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees.”
Government agencies are required to seek permission from congressional appropriators before using money for purposes other than which it was originally approved. Although the Omnibus Appropriations Act of 2005 gives NASA “unrestrained transfer authority” to move money between accounts, it also says that the authority should be used primarily to help the agency complete its transition to full-cost accounting.
NASA has not canceled contracts it awarded to Lockheed Martin and Canada’s MDA Robotics last year to help engineers at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., design a robotic servicing mission. NASA officials have said the agency intends to let that work continue at least until a preliminary design review planned this month.
Not sure. Most of my NASA work was in the interplanatary side of things.
Looks like our future in space is in the hands of politicians right up and down the line.
Always has been. Where do you think NASA gets the money?
What's it going to take to make a bold space effort a reality again???
I haven't a clue. I am just as in the dark as you are now.
I guess you're right about that, R/A. But once upon a time, there were politicians who passionately cared about space exploration. JFK comes to mind.
Translation: NASA-Greenbelt stands to benefit. Sen. Mikulski wouldn't give a d@mn if there weren't $$$'s in it for Maryland.
Well, speaking as someone who is working on the robot mission; we just passed PDR and theres a lot of packaging and science related challenges, but I think this thing is doable. But maybe not on schedule ('06). My guess is its 50-50 the gyros will hold out to '07/'08, but Im not sure the funding will go past October.
As far as the shuttle mission goes, that makes the most sense. You could dreg up the old carriers and most of the original eng. workforce is still in place.. But unfortunately you know how the politics go...No risk, no risk.
All the more reason to keep both telescopes alive, then.
The only problem may arise with long exposures combined with a closer earth orbit.
As for vibrations, I would guess that we can do things to minimize it. Both electronically and mechanically.
I think this is better than scrapping it. It does provide some interesting pics, but it is my opinion that it has done all it is going to do as far as advancement of science.
A new scope is going to be launched soon that takes infrared images. We learn more from these and the loss of the Hubble is not going to slow us down.IMO The Hubble has lasted well beyond it's design.
I just did not want the spare parts to go to waste. I also understand that there is another prototype housing someplace. It would be good for charting space and asteroids.
That's the point. Have all the Hubble images been analyzed, is there nothing more to learn from the images we have in hand? What percent have been analyzed even for one factor such as galactic optical lensing? 0.01%? My guess is there is enough data just from Hubble to keep all the professional astronomers busy for a century, and there is enough to provide the info for 1000s of PhD theses. Data is coming in every day many times faster than it can be analyzed even not counting Hubble, and even though much data is thrown onto the Internet for anybody and everybody to take a crack at.
Are you sure you want to be on the same side of this issue as Sen. Barbara Mikulski? :)
Yes, both are absolute wastes of money that aren't the business of the national government. Course don't expect that to stop any Republicans from voting a couple hundred million here or there to throw money away
You bet. Our space program is a waste of money and never should have been started. Lets add to that some other "big science" projects such as optical and radio telescopes, linear colliders, heavy lifting vehicles, hypersonic vehicles, nuclear power, etc. /sarcasm off>
100 hundred percent. At the expense of taxpayers I fully support that statement, without the sarcasm. Of course 'conservatives' no longer support limited government and instead support their pet projects. Thank God the Wright brothers didn't rely on government funding, else planes would probably not have been invented until 20 years ago.
You don't get it. IMHO, the vitality and future of our nation absolutely without question rides on both big and little science. Much that is Gov funded BTW. You don't think that the Gov had a role in aircraft developement?
As we sit on our arses and let the rest of the world pass us by. Our grandkids would curse us and rightfully so.
You seriously do not believe every major invention since 1789 was government funded do you? This is what the conservative movement has devolved to. Those that not only support government in our lives but call for more of it in aspects that suppress true inventive capabilities
Some things yes. However, much of private industry started up after the initial outlay by Gov research. Do you honestly think a private company could have developed large scale lifting vehicles without Gov funding?
You seriously do not believe every major invention since 1789 was government funded do you? This is what the conservative movement has devolved to. Those that not only support government in our lives but call for more of it in aspects that suppress true inventive capabilities
Companies are obligated to their stockholders to MAKE MONEY. Pure research for knowledge sake often requires Gov funding. And that is in the interest of our national defense.
Interesting. I would like to check the historical data but for some reason I don't remember initial outlay by the government for the light bulb, the automobile, the airplane, the telephone, etc. Surely any further advances in any of these lines (which BTW would cover transportation, telecommunications, defense uses, etc) could be traced back to the original invention, all of which did not start by 'initial outlay' by the national government. So why did they do it? Could it have been to make money? Why that's capitalism. And we all know planned economies work so much better than a capitalistic venture. Some call it a version of socialism
Companies are obligated to their stockholders to MAKE MONEY. Pure research for knowledge sake often requires Gov funding. And that is in the interest of our national defense.
Wow, imagine that. Companies obligated to stockholders and to make money. Of course they wouldn't see a market to produce weapons without government funding. Heck, the government cuts them off there may never be a further advancement in gun technology, rocket technology, or even space exploration. Wait a minute, you need to go tell Branson and his cohorts that they can't claim the X Prize. They shouldn't have been able to get there without government help. What next? Future space exploration without government help?!? Can't be done. No company could see a profit in it. < /sarcasm>
Now government apparently is in the business of 'research for knowledge sake'. Build a multi-billion dollar telescope to look at the stars. Heaven knows what some star does and does not do must somehow be defensive. Maybe it's our early stages of 'spreading democracy' throughout the galaxy. If the national government does have a role one of its few purposes is for defense. Got to protect us from space aliens I guess. And yet somehow at one time, inventors still developed defensive and offensive weapons without government funding. And I thought conservatives believed government that governs least governs best. Silly me, that's an actual conservative position instead of a Republican one as evidenced by Bush's almost gleeful spending of my money
After a short re-reading of most of the Framers' papers, I'm sure you'll find even that most worthless Hamilton would be sickened at how much the citizens of the respective states look to the government for their pet projects
My goodness you think about it what would be next?!? Pharmaceutical companies may stop making cures for diseases!! Without government funding why else would they do it? Heck, so what all their possible future customers die off? They wouldn't be getting government money so there would be no use for 'research for knowledge sake'. Except of course to keep possible future customers alive. Naahhh, no way that would ever happen. Companies making sure they have customers later on to make money off of?
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