NASA Engineers Dispute Hubble Safety Claim 412
Zeinfeld writes "According to the administration, the Hubble space telescope is going to be allowed to die in the next three years because the shuttle mission required to save it would be too risky. Meanwhile the public plans say shuttle missions to the space station will resume. Papers leaked to the New York Times say hogwash. The article (free subscription required) reports claims that money and politics, not safety are the reason. The public NASA story is clearly nonsense, and if the science from Hubble does not justify a shuttle mission, then it's time to pull the plug on the space station. I suspect that is exactly what will happen after the November election."
Hubble, space station, which is it? (Score:1, Interesting)
Oh yeah, I second the "no more NYT" opinion.
Political reasons... (Score:2, Interesting)
I'll vote for the first president who promises to fund research in Lofstrom Loops [homoexcelsior.com] or the like...
Re:She was good while she lasted (Score:3, Interesting)
Any good space-station science? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: USA starting to hate george bush ? (Score:3, Interesting)
Furthermore, we're really fooling ourselves badly to think that NASA is going to do any real advances in the near future. Unless old George goes against the edict of the people and dumps cash into the space program NASA is going to continue to spend it's budget sending out failure after failure instead of working with what we have in our hands and what's on our doorstep. And since NASA really doesn't answer to anyone there will be no recourse for the blatent waste of taxpayer cash.
I've said it before ad I'll say it again, there will be no serious movement into space without the large backing of private enterprise. Give corporations a reason to get to the moon/mars and it'll be done in a third of the time of NASA's best estimates.
As for Hubble? If NASA is saying no than guess what... you're SOL and frankly I doubt this decision was based on anything that George Bush does or says.
Re:safety issues (Score:3, Interesting)
NASA is a pork program (Score:5, Interesting)
Ames should be cut back to a wind tunnel operation. Slidell (now "the Stennis Space Center", a "multi-agency center for 30 resident agencies"), should be sold off to a private developer. The "Independent Verification and Validation Facility" in West Virginia should be consolidated with some NASA facility that needs its services. Goddard needs some major cutbacks. (Goddard just awarded a $34 million contract for "conference support, duplicating, computer graphics, publication, and documentation" on a cost plus award fee basis. Then they issued a press release about it.)
NASA's non-flight research should be funded through the National Science Foundation. Environmental resarch should be moved to the EPA. In fact, even space science should go through NSF. NASA's job should be limited to flight hardware and support systems.
If NASA got rid of about half its organization, and insisted that the remaining half build stuff that flies, they might get somewhere.
We have heard form everyone but... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:safety issues (Score:3, Interesting)
Don't be so sure that this isn't some kind of ploy to kill the Space Station with a minimum of political fallout.
Think about it: They've proposed scuttling what is perhaps Nasa's most popular program, HST. ISS is a white elephant and everybody knows it, but we're tied to the damn thing by all sorts of binding legal things. So why not propose to kill HST, generate a huge outrage against not only that, but also the money-sucking ISS, and then sit back and "let the people speak" and wash our hands of the whole sordid affair. Europe, Japan, Canada, and everybody else in on the ISS boondoggle get to go suck eggs, while the Americans save themselves a boatload of money, kill off a particularly useless program, and wind up looking like heros for doing it.
Far fetched? Maybe. Maybe not.
didn't people realize this with Bush's new plan (Score:3, Interesting)
Here is an editorial [wsws.org] on the recently announced space plan by Bush. Conservatives might want to stay away since its from a socialist web site but if you are open, check it out.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Re:NASA is a pork program (Score:2, Interesting)
...
NASA's job should be limited to flight hardware and support systems.
If NASA got rid of about half its organization, and insisted that the remaining half build stuff that flies, they might get somewhere.
If Stennis were sold off NASA would have serious problems testing it's flight hardware and support systems. The test stands at Stennis are capable of testing heavy flight hardware like the shuttle main engine and the main stage for the Delta IV rocket. (The test stand where the Delta IV engines are certified were once used to flight certify the Saturn V first stage). Developmental engine components are also tested at Stennis. This is important for any new spacecraft that come out of Bush's initiative. If it's built, it has to be tested, before it flies. That's where SSC comes in.
Disclaimer: I've worked at Stennis as a NASA Co-Op in propulsion testing. I'm speaking for myself, and no, I don't know everything about the organization and why most of the decisions debated here on /. are made. I'm just saying what I know. (If anyone's curious and would like to form their own opinion, Stennis's web site is here. [nasa.gov])
Re:Did anyone expect... (Score:3, Interesting)
Power isn't limited to politics either. It extends to the legal system too. Wealthy people can more easily get off after committing crime, or get lesser sentences. I will probably get a longer sentence for breaking into your house and stealing your tv (when you are not home) than if I defrauded you of $100,000. How many years do you think the Enron fraudsters are going to serve in jail? It is taking so long that it wouldn't surprise me if only 2 or 3 people were jailed for 15 years total (combined) (as a side note, one guy is already going ot jail for 10 years).
I have only talked about people so far. But how about non-biological entities like corporations. The same thing there. Corporations are gaining immense power that they will be more powerful than countries (this is already the case for smaller countries. There have been cases where large corporations can basically write laws and have their way in small countries).
Most redistribution schemes is an attempt to block a minority from accumulating huge amounts of power. This is what progressive tax systems (eg. income tax) attempts to do. You are most likely an elitist so you don't care about a few hoarding huge amounts of power. But many others do. Even centrists (who are neither capitalists nor socialists) support curbing of power accumulation. That should say something...
Also this has nothing to do with idiocy. IT is about conflicts between ideals. If we become corporate slaves is that ok? Some would say yes; some would say no.
Sivaram Velauthapillai