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Space Science

The Hubble's Fate In Debate at NASA 30

Posted by michael from the eye-in-the-sky dept.
FortKnox writes: "Well, it looks like NASA is trying to determine what to do with the Hubble. 2004 is supposed to be the last transmission, but NASA might keep'er up till 2010. Also, they are considering maybe putting it in higher orbit. If they are going to retire it, I say we need a replacement. It has really shown the beauty of space, and given scientists closer looks into the cosmos. We can't just let that "die", we need to continue studying!"
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The Hubble's Fate In Debate at NASA More

The Hubble's Fate In Debate at NASA

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  • The comment about not having a replacement isn't accurate, here are a few of the NGST (Next Generation Space Telescopes), that NASA wants to loft:
    http://sim.jpl.nasa.gov/beyond/ [nasa.gov]
    http://tpf.jpl.nasa.gov/ [nasa.gov]
    http://lisa.jpl.nasa.gov [nasa.gov]
    • Of course, NONE of these is actually a replacement for Hubble. Each one of these satellites is built to study one problem. The TPF is suppose to look for planets around other stars by monitoring a thousand or so nearby stars. SIM is suppose to measure the positions of stars very accurately using an intereferometer. By measuring the position of a star as the earth moves around the sun, you figure out how far away the star is using simple trig. And LISA is a gravity wave experiment. None of these will ever take picture like Hubble does.

      So, to reiterate the artcle, unless the Next Generation Space Telescope flies, there will be no optical telescope in space taking pictures. As a huge amount of good science has come out having an optical/ultra-violet/near infrared imager in space, I hope NASA either keeps Hubble flying, or, better yet, flies NGST.

      IAPA (I Am a Paid Astronomer)

  • Sell parts of Hubble on eBay. I bet they could recover a substantial amount of the cost. Ok, maybe 10%.
  • They will have to keep Hubble going till at least 2010 though, cause most of the aforementioned missions aren't till 2004-2007 (at the earliest).
  • Ok. It costs money to operate. Ok. It had initial problems. But why must we bring it down or discontinue it's use as long as it is functioning properly without consuming tooo many resources? I love astronomy, and I would love to see any of a variety of next generations telescopes floating around up there, but if ain't broke why fix it? Didn't we fix it already anyway?
    • I think that the rationale is that we could use the money being expended now to help launch a newer, better telescope. Hubble has flaws and it is dated technology (it is mostly 1970's era). I'm not saying I, personally, agree that this means that it is time to end HST, but it's an argument to be considered in this.
  • All the cool pictures in Time and Newsweek from the HST while in highschool. Though those where sehr cool photos of distant galaxies. After they first discovered the glitch in the optics, I was very surprised they managed to correct that. Was also very glad as an amatuer astromner that NASA fixed it. If they can increase the lifespan then bring it down to the Air & Space Muesum, that would be really cool, and I would wanna see that exhibit. (Yea, I have a few spelling errors, but I'm tired & need sleep ;)
  • Virtually every "largest ever built" "state of the art" telescope has been superceded, and virtually all of them are still in use, despite light polution from encroaching civilization. The Yerkes Observatory [uchicago.edu], for example, is over 100 years old and still in use. Astronomers at Palomar [caltech.edu], home of the 200 inch Hale [caltech.edu] telescope, complain about light polution [caltech.edu], but they're still in business. Why should Hubble be any different? At least it won't suffer from the light polution problem (well, not until the U.S. Air Force deploys their space-based lasers)

  • ...send a probe out to the focal point of the Sun's gravitational lensing effect (about 550 AU from the Sun) and use the Sun as a *gigantic* gravitational lens to observe distant parts of the universe at super hi res.
  • Retireing the Hubble before sending up a replacement, just seams, well, like people really arnt all that interested in learning about space anymore.

    There is so much sky that if the observers spent from now untill they die without stopping, they still would not cover more then a fraction.

    When I was a kid the only thing I thought would be more exciting then living in the past to watch discoveries be made, was to live in the future after many more had been made. I wanted to learn to my brain exploded.

    Everyone I knew was like that. There was a time when the people of america all were behind the space projects. Now we all hear about the money being spent as though investing in the human race isn't cost effective.

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