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11-18-2003, 04:01 PM
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#1 of 15 
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Before the STS-107 tragedy, NASA's plans called for two more servicing missions to extend the HST's useful life out to the year 2020. After its distinguished career in space was finished, the historic instrument would be loaded into the payload bay of an Orbiter and brought back to Earth for eventual exhibition in the Smithsonian.
No longer, in the wake of STS-107.
The debate over the HST's fate is becoming quite spirited. Read about here: Whither the Hubble?
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11-18-2003, 04:27 PM
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#2 of 15
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CJ
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does anyone know the size of the hst?
CJ
And then when I feel so stuffed I can't eat anymore, I just use the restroom! And then I CAN eat more!
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11-18-2003, 04:30 PM
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#3 of 15
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Wow, I had not realized the debate has got so heated so quickly.
One problem I see with the James Webb, is although it will do good science, being designed to peer deep into the IR, and hence look far into the Universe's past, it will not have as much dramatic impact as Hubble's color/visible light images do (IMHO). NASA has to remember that good looking AND good science are better overall then just good science. That is, the long term science is boosted with the short term wow factor that Hubble keeps churning out.
I fear that Hubble will never be recovered, but it seems a great shame to write it off after the service it has done. Although I am a big supporter of permanent Manned Space outposts, ISS has been a big boondoggle. NASA should have sunk more funds into craft such as Hubble, or pushed outward (back) to Luna. That way we could have had mutiple Hubble class craft running.
\"Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump, on the back of his head, behind Christopher Robin. It is, as far as he knows, the only way of coming downstairs, but sometimes he feels that there really is another way, if only he could stop bumping for a moment and think of it.\"
-- A.A. Milne \"Winnie-the-Pooh\"
Lance Nichols
The Nichols Collection, now showing.
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11-18-2003, 04:35 PM
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#4 of 15
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If there's a new one being made, I don't exactly see what the problem is, given that there was a time when we didn't have Hubble to begin with.
I think those scientists can do without their telescope for two or three years. Besides, the news story makes it out to be that maintenance is pretty costly. Given if that were true, wouldn't it make more sense to put something newer up there? One that wasn't so worn out from the ages?
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11-18-2003, 09:46 PM
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#5 of 15
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Quote:
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does anyone know the size of the hst?
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It's about the size of a railroad car.
As scientific tools go, I can't think of anything that comes anywhere close to the HST in its contribution to scientific knowledge. Whatever is in second place is still magnitudes away from HST's remarkable record. As such, I think I tend to have an emotional attachment to it, as if it were my first car.
But it is just a tool, albeit one that has unmercifully created in us a dependency on its constant stream of knowledge. We, the addicts, simply cannot fathom a world without the HST and the daily fixes it provides. Two years, you say? The withdrawal will be unspeakably painful. |
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11-18-2003, 11:47 PM
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#7 of 15
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Its a shame that it is no longer feasible to return the HST to Earth and hang it in the Air and space Museum. It is as significant as any of the other amazing artifacts in that museum.
We truly do live in a Golden Age of astronomy thanks to the HST and the other orbital scopes. For me seeing pictures of proto-planetary discs captured by the HST is just mind blowing. We are able to see entire solar systems forming, and that is just one of numerous wondrous sights revealed by Hubble.
Isn't there a "Next Generation" (visible light) space telescope in the works? They should at least try and keep the HST in service until the new observatory is operational.
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11-19-2003, 02:36 AM
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#8 of 15
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If some want the Hubble so bad why not sell it off to a private company. And for any future service the Hubble might need the private company would pay NASA for the maintenance/labor.
Or is this totally unfeasable?
\"A human being is part of the whole called by us the Universe. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest --a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures, and the whole of nature in its beauty.\" - Albert Einstein
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11-19-2003, 10:59 AM
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#9 of 15
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To the tune of at least hundreds of millions of dollars, something private enterprise would be loathe to do when it comes to bottom-line benefits. This country has never been fond of spending much money on research.
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11-19-2003, 12:02 PM
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#10 of 15
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Member
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Quote:
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Or is this totally unfeasable?
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Almost all companies spend their research money on applied research—something that has a chance of a payback for the stockholders. Very few companies have spent money on basic research, which is what the Hubble provides. Those few that did spend their money this way, tended to not have to worry about money: in the old days Bell Labs did do a fair amount of basic research (for example).
Today most basic research is carried out by universities or under the auspices of some other governmental funding.
ˇTime is not my master!
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