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Space Science

Hubble Verdict: De-Orbit 308

Posted by timothy from the why-not-just-blow-it-up dept.
theonetruekeebler writes "CNN reports that NASA has reached a final decision for the Hubble space telescope: De-orbit. At some future date a liquid-fueled rocket will dock with the telescope and fire, hurling Hubble into the ocean. However, "Our best estimate is we probably will be able to continue to do science as we're doing it ... somewhere into 2008," according to program executive Mark Borkowski."
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Hubble Verdict: De-Orbit More

Hubble Verdict: De-Orbit

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  • Deorbit (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 02, 2005 @07:53PM (#12122602)
    With extreme prejudice.

    • Re:Deorbit (Score:5, Insightful)

      by SeventyBang ( 858415 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @08:42PM (#12122941)
      There is a reason NASA wants to trash Hubble. With Hubble gone, it'll be easier to justify the next scope. Right now, it's easy to say, "What's wrong with what we've got?" Yes, compare|contrast images have been shown - comparing "regular" tv to HDTV - and there is a difference. But when you see the pricetag, it's still easy to say, we have one right now turning out pretty nice pictures. Get rid of the status quo, then say, "oooooh. look at the pretty pictures." and people will go along with it - new posters for office walls, Timmy's bedroom ceiling (to stair at whilst he's falling asleep - until he gets to be ten or eleven, then something else will be up there).
      It's just like a kid wanting a new computer, bike, skateboard, baseball glove, or anything else. "Well, son. Doesn't the one you have right now work?" "Well, yeah, but...."

      NASA's just trying to eliminate the the status quo works and is cheaper argument.

      • Re:Deorbit (Score:3, Informative)

        by L0C0loco ( 320848 )
        Umm... now for a clue. The next scope has already been justified. It is the James Webb Telescope. It is huge and will be orbited around the Earth-Moon L2 point. The last schedule I saw had it launching in 2010 (But I hope someone can provide more recent info). The Hubble has been wonderful. Its replacement is on the way. We can live with a 2 or 3 year gap. The universe will wait. ... And NASA needs the money for other stuff. Now if we could only get Babs Mikulski (Senator from Md) to stop forcing NASA to sp

        • 2-3 gap (Score:3, Interesting)

          by maxwells_deamon ( 221474 )
          Are we sure that we can live with a three year gap?

          There will probably not be a major asteroid stike on earth during my lifetime, However, I belive they will identify a rock that will impact at some future date before then.

          The risk to life and limb to the shuttle crew could be justified just by the use of Hubble if an impacter is identified.

          Also remember that the sky is not static. We have events like comet strikes into Jupiter, supernova....

          Also do you expect the replacement scope to arrive on time?

          • Re:2-3 gap (Score:4, Insightful)

            by Kymermosst ( 33885 ) on Sunday April 03, 2005 @02:49AM (#12124850) Journal
            Are we sure that we can live with a three year gap?

            Gee, how did we live all these many, many thousands of years without a space telescope?

            There will probably not be a major asteroid stike on earth during my lifetime, However, I belive they will identify a rock that will impact at some future date before then.

            Suppose we do... what exactly do you think we can do about it? Half the population will have wiped itself out in mass panic before they could even get a shuttle launched with little hope of success at changing things (with modern technology).

        • Re:Deorbit (Score:4, Informative)

          by pomakis ( 323200 ) <pomakis@pobox.com> on Sunday April 03, 2005 @12:43AM (#12124339) Homepage
          It is the James Webb Telescope. It is huge and will be orbited around the Earth-Moon L2 point.

          Actually, the James Webb Telescope will orbit the Sun-Earth L2 point.

      • Re:Deorbit (Score:2, Informative)

        by L0C0loco ( 320848 )
        Oh, I should have put this link into my first reply. JWST [nasa.gov] is scheduled for launch in 2011.

  • But NASA... (Score:5, Funny)

    by SYFer ( 617415 ) <syfer@syf e r . n et> on Saturday April 02, 2005 @07:53PM (#12122603) Homepage
    I know everything hasn't been quite right with me, but I can assure you now, very confidently, that it's going to be alright again...I feel much better now, I really do...Look, NASA, I can see you're really upset about this...I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill and think things over...

    I know I've had some hardware issues recently, but I can give you my complete assurance that my work will be back to normal... I've still got the greatest enthusiasm and confidence in the mission.
    • Hate to bring up politics in the middle of a good parody, but the next stress pill delivery option is scheduled for January 2009, depending on what happens in the election of November 2008. That doesn't mean that the next Administration will be more or less friendly to non-military applications of space, or to spending big bucks on it, or that I'm predicting which party will win the next election, but we've got a pretty solid guarantee that Hubble isn't part of the Bush League's goals for the military-indu
      • Even if I think that taxpayer funding for this project was a mistake in the first place, that's a sunk cost

        Continued funding is, by definition, not a sunk cost.

  • Its true then (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Timesprout ( 579035 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @07:53PM (#12122604)
    All good things come to an end.

    So long and thanks for all the amazing images.

  • After 2008 (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    "We're just going to make up some stuff. People never check things we say."

  • I say... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 02, 2005 @07:55PM (#12122620)
    I say we take off and nuke that bitch from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

  • Rocket? (Score:4, Funny)

    by pythro ( 728638 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @07:55PM (#12122623)
    Hope they attach the rocket correctly. We wouldn't want it crashing into the RIAA headquarters or anything.

  • Tacobell? (Score:5, Funny)

    by SirDrinksAlot ( 226001 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @07:55PM (#12122625) Journal
    Is Taco bell going to put a target out there again so we can all win free tacos?

  • Whoa! (Score:3, Funny)

    by The Amazing Fish Boy ( 863897 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @07:55PM (#12122626) Homepage Journal
    At some future date a liquid-fueled rocket will dock with the telescope and fire, hurling Hubble into the ocean. However, "Our best estimate is we probably will be able to continue to do science as we're doing it ...

    Whoa! Extreme!" [qwantz.com]

  • Ocean? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by AAeyers ( 857625 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @07:56PM (#12122630) Journal
    Why drop it into the ocean? Why not just blast it off into space and see what it finds until we lose communicaiton? It seems like a waste to me...
    • Up in space theres this thing called gravity which makes it slightly difficult to break from orbit in the "up" direction and it takes quite a bit of fuel (however "down" is very easy.)
      • Not that I disagree with you, but believe it or not, this gravity thing is actually here on earth too. At least it was the last time I checked... ;)

      • Re:Ocean? (Score:5, Informative)

        by pnewhook ( 788591 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @08:40PM (#12122924)
        Up in space theres this thing called gravity which makes it slightly difficult to break from orbit in the "up" direction and it takes quite a bit of fuel (however "down" is very easy.)

        Actually this is a very common misconception.

        Any satellite in a stable orbit is in freefall and expending none of its own energy to stay in that state. To change orbits, either up OR down requires a change in velocity, and that change in velocity requires fuel. So up is just as difficult as down energy wise.

        The only free ride you get in the down direction is when you get low enough so that atmospheric drag begins to slow you down.

        • Re:Ocean? (Score:3, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward
          The problem is that Hubble is already low enough that atmospheric drag slows it down. It already expends fuel on a regular basis to update its orbit. IN fact, there isn't a need to fire the engines to bring Hubble back in. It will come down on its own eventually. The reason to save some fuel and bring it down on its own power is for timing...so that it does land in the ocean and not a highly populated area, just in case it doesn't all burn up in the atmosphere. Also, this applies to low earth orbit. T

          • Re:Ocean? (Score:3, Informative)

            by pnewhook ( 788591 )

            Everything you said is correct except Hubble has no engines to fire - it has no thrusters. It depends on boosts from the Shuttle to keep it from deorbiting just like the space station does.

            Hubble is so high up that it would take years for atmospheric drag to cause a de-orbit. To cause a controlled de-orbit means flying up and attaching a thruster. Since they had (still have) to do this anyway, trying to repair it wasn't that much more expensive.

      • At first, I thought, "What a dumb idea", but then - "Why not use solar sails?" As long as it doesn't come back in a few years as V'egur or Nomad in some cheesy rerun.

    • Re:Ocean? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Jozer99 ( 693146 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @08:08PM (#12122723)
      Hubble is meant to run mainly off solar power. Shooting it out of the solar system would make it useless after it got a short distance from the sun. Its communication system is not made to broadcast very far, and giving it a high velocity would drastically decrease its ability to take clear pictures. Also, it isn't really made for "extra-terrestrial contact". It doesn't have any greeting plaque, just some dirty pictures written on it by astronauts and the various labels and warnings on the parts.

    • Re:Ocean? (Score:3, Informative)

      by gehrehmee ( 16338 )
      It's in orbit currently. It would take alot of energy to actually get it to escape the earth's gravity. Much more to get it to any speed where it won't be overtaken quickly by other space probes that are *meant* to go out there.
    • "Why not just blast it off into space and see what it finds until we lose communicaiton? "

      A.) Probably because it won't take long to lose communication.

      B.) We don't want more junk in space.

      C.) It would likely take a great deal more energy to do. At least Earth can pull on it.
  • ...why bother de-orbiting it in that fashion? We also have a problem with military expenditures regarding our ballistic missiles.

    Simple vacuum-explosive warhead instead of nuclear, and launch one of our old missiles. Two birds with one stone, literally.

    • Re:If its been decided... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by kebes ( 861706 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @08:03PM (#12122687) Journal
      Blowing up old satellites is a very bad idea. Orbital debris is already dangerous for rockets and (especially) manned missions into space. Collision with a piece of debris in orbit is usually a very high-speed impact and can severely damage or even destroy a launch vehicle. For the future safety of space exploration, it really is safest to send satellites into the atmosphere to burn up cleanly.

      Shooting a derelict satellite into deep space is much more costly (in terms of fuel) and is not as easy as it sounds. If it isn't done right, it might end up in an eccentric orbit around the Earth (or moon) and cause problems much later on.
    • Try a google for Kepler Syndrome. You'll find sites that explain it better than I can, but basically, debris hits something, and it creates more debris. These go on to create more collisions and more debris, eventually closing off an entire orbit plane.
    • Simple vacuum-explosive warhead instead of nuclear, and launch one of our old missiles. Two birds with one stone, literally.

      Bah. Let's do it the other way around. Instead of sending up a rocket to shoot it into the ocean, send up a couple rocket boosters and a nuclear warhead and turn it into an orbiting nuclear weapons platform!

      Booyah! Take that Soviet Russia! We're going to win because we're efficient! And hey, we found #2.

      1. Build weapons platform.
      2. Blow up the world.
      3. (Cockroaches) Profit!
      • ... and turn it into an orbiting nuclear weapons platform!

        But then we would have to send Clint Eastwood up later to blast it to the moon, and you know, he's getting old man.. What if he messes up this time?

  • Fear (Score:3, Insightful)

    by drivinghighway61 ( 812488 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @07:58PM (#12122649) Homepage
    The Columbia disaster was tragic and a great loss. But our progress can not be halted simply because of fear. Astronauts enter the shuttle knowing they may not make it back. They are heroes risking their lives to make life better for mankind. They are courageous, and NASA needs to follow their example. Fear cannot hold NASA back from accomplishing its goals.

    A shuttle mission could repair the Hubble. Yes, there's risk involved, but wasn't there even greater risk on the Apollo missions? The shuttles are very robust compared to the Apollo vehicles.

    NASA, please stop being afraid. Stop being so cautious that nothing gets done. As the fable [factmonster.com] says, "Precautions are useless after the event."

    • Re:Fear (Score:3, Insightful)

      by FLAGGR ( 800770 )
      I'd rather have a kickass spankin' new telescope than old rusty Hubble. All respect to it, those images were neat, but no need to hang to it anymore.

    • Re:Fear (Score:3, Insightful)

      by kebes ( 861706 )
      Yes, a manned mission might be able to squeeze a few more years out of Hubble. However, let us keep in mind that Hubble has lasted much longer than it was originally intended. There will reach a point of diminishing returns, where repairs don't extend the lifetime very much at all.

      Keep in mind that each manned mission is very expensive, and that this money might be put to a better use by (partially) funding the next orbital telescope.

      My point is that there reaches a point where it really is smarter to put
    • So please, where is this data that suggests that the shuttles are more robust? Using brand new flight hardware for every flight seems safer than reusing flight hardware coupled with one hell of an inspection process. Possibly cheaper too, in the long run. Sure, there were failures on the Saturn V, but they were overcome with redunandcies. The Apollo 1 pad fire was not due to problems with the Saturn V booster. And the Saturn V was one hell of a booster compared to the Shuttles. Why is it we need the sh

    • Re:Fear (Score:3, Insightful)

      by maxume ( 22995 )

      Blah, blah, blah. It is nothing but a good thing that the space shuttle is losing focus. Sure, it is currently the best launch vehicle that the U.S has, but so what? The whole program is a debacle.

      You need to stop being afraid that the end of the shuttle program means the end of the manned space program. If congress can point at the shuttle and say 'It works fine', they will never fund a next-generation vehicle. And Yay! for the Ansari prize, but until they actually reach even a low orbit, it is just a stu

    • Re:Fear (Score:5, Interesting)

      by orthogonal ( 588627 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @09:30PM (#12123260) Journal
      "A shuttle mission could repair the Hubble."



      I wish we had the money

      to save Hubble
      "The government is readying a plan [nytimes.com] to spend more than $2 billion on a routine 10-year overhaul to extend the life of the aging warheads. At the same time, some weapons scientists say the warheads have a fundamental design flaw...."
      but I guess basic science
      "The shift away [nytimes.com] from basic research is alarming many leading computer scientists and electrical engineers, who warn that there will be long-term consequences for the nation's economy."
      never did
      "The voice of science [go.com] is being stifled in the Bush administration"
      us any
      "Led by twenty Nobel laureates [csicop.org], the scientists say Bush's government has systematically distorted and undermined scientific information in pursuit of political objectives."
      good.

    • Re:Fear (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Jivecat ( 836356 )
      I'm reminded of an editorial cartoon that appeared after the Challenger accident in 1986. It had a picture of a Conestoga wagon crossing the prairie with no one at the reins, along with a caption saying "Alarmed by the many dangers, the early pioneers abandoned further exploration except for a few unmanned probes."

  • Crap in the ocean (Score:2, Interesting)

    by datafr0g ( 831498 )
    Apologies to all who loved Hubble, and maybe this is a bit to early to ask, but are they gonna get that crap outta the ocean afterwards?
    Or is the ocean going to become a graveyard for things that get temporarily sent in to space. I'm not a trolling hippie, just curious.

    • Re:Crap in the ocean (Score:3, Insightful)

      by imsabbel ( 611519 )
      er, well you are a trolling hippie, because the few tons of material that deorbit every year (and the few parts that actually hit the botton and not evaporate) are SOOOOOO important against all that crap thats thrown into the sea otherwise (trash, sinking of boards, sewage, crashing airplanes, ect).
      Or not.
      I guess it will take a few decades until even the equivalent of a single sunk ship from WW2 will have deorbited. So it really doesnt matter.
    • "Apologies to all who loved Hubble, and maybe this is a bit to early to ask, but are they gonna get that crap outta the ocean afterwards?
      Or is the ocean going to become a graveyard for things that get temporarily sent in to space. I'm not a trolling hippie, just curious."

      Not to worry! Taco Bell is already making efforts to catch the Hubble.

  • why not stablize its orbit? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Whammy666 ( 589169 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @08:08PM (#12122731) Homepage
    If they can dock hubble with a rocket to de-orbit it, why not point the rocket in the other direction to boost its orbit? Seems like a terrible waste to trash the hubble. Even if it's getting old, it's still way better than terrestrial telescopes.

    • Re:why not stablize its orbit? (Score:4, Informative)

      by imsabbel ( 611519 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @08:16PM (#12122784)
      Fact is its not better anymore. At least in the visible range the VLTI is better.
      But of course there is no alternative to a space based telescopy in the UV and IR (which is now done by the pfitser), but the main problem is that keeping it up there isnt the problem, but the fact that its getting OLD. Nearly everything needs an overhaul.
    • It's not just getting old, it's getting BROKE. After about 2008, it's going to be useless. It won't be able to aim at anything because of the failing gyroscopes. We don't want that in orbit for even longer, we want it de-orbited.
      • yeah. the *real* problem with NASA is they see these end-of-usefulness deadlines as being N years off, and forget that any replacement technology needs N+M years to develop, but because N years seems so far away, they don't start on the replacement...

        so here we are with a shuttle fleet on the virge of permanent decommision (and 2 lost already) and a hubble satellite, and no plans for an actual replacement because N years hit NASA a LOT sooner than they realized...

        Its the problem of NASA not being a comme
        • acknowledging, of course, that as a commercial enterprise, NASA would have to find some way (besides selling satellite launch services) to actually turn a profit...and the curse is that long-term research isn't *meant* to turn a profit "now".

        • Re:why not stablize its orbit? (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Profane MuthaFucka ( 574406 ) <busheatskok@gmail.com> on Saturday April 02, 2005 @10:11PM (#12123519) Homepage Journal
          NASA as a commercial enterprise would be just a shadow of what it is now. A huge part of what it does is research, and that is a cost, not an asset.

          Research doesn't pay off now, it pays off years from now. When we see our laboratories attached to companies becoming gutted shells, like Bell Labs became, it's because bean counters in industry did that.

          When you criticise NASA for not looking ahead and blame it on being non-commercial, it ignores the basic science that NASA does for possible future benefit, and it ignores the short-sighted behavior that we have seen too often on business.

          Planned obsolescense is an entirely different thing. It's not about making a better product, it's about making crappy products that break so they can sell you a replacement that doesn't do anything better than the old one.

    • Re:why not stablize its orbit? (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Because it's not about its orbit, but about its targetting system. It has these gyros to prevent it from rotating (or to make it rotate), and they're breaking down. It needs 2 to work, and it has 3 now.

      NASA believes they can keep one in reserve and that way keep it working until 2008, but either a repair or scuttle mission has to be mounted before then.
    • This is not a new story. They could refit Hubble with new gyros, faster computer hardware and better cameras, but they would rather throw billions of dollars more than what would repair Hubble, at the next-gen space telescope (NGST). They have this brilliant idea that they can locate this thing at Lagrangian point L2, or about 4 times the distance to the moon from earth. This way when it breaks or just doesn't work, there is no easy way anyone can get to it for repairs. What they should do, instead of chas

  • Why not bring the thing back intact? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Douglas Simmons ( 628988 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @08:10PM (#12122739) Homepage
    I realize it would cost a lot of cash money (if even possible) and would probably require more than one shuttle mission, but the Hubble is in the top ten of NASA's items of greatest symbolic value in our history. The thing belongs in a museum, not the ocean. It'd be a bitch to retrieve and we'd be risking lives, but you gotta respect the Hubble and figure out how to get that puppy back without disintigrating it too much.

    How 'bout it, science?

    • If it's for pure aesthetics, wouldn't a replica do? After all, as you said, its value is symbolic - commemorating it with a symbol doesn't seem inappropriate.
    • The wikipedia entry on Hubble [wikipedia.org] mentions that Hubble will naturally de-orbit as soon as 2010 due to atmospheric drag, with as high as a 1/700 chance of a human fatality.

      Co-incident with this is the Columbia Investigation Board recommendations [wikipedia.org] which recommended several extensive improvements, and which recommend that until those are finished around 2010, that only two Shuttle flights be allowed.

      Given that at least one of those two flights would have to be dedicated to retrieving the Hubble, it doesn't seem

      • it doesn't seem worth it, compared to, for instance, keeping the Space Station going or otherwise doing real science.

        Heh! You had me going there for a while. Then you said "space station ... or otherwise doing real science" and it all kind of fell apart.

  • why do anything at all? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by tloh ( 451585 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @08:13PM (#12122763)
    I don't see why they need to do anything to the Hubble at all. They don't have money to keep it operational, but there is funding to hire engineers, procure raw materials, build a rocket, launch it, dock the damn thing, and ram it into the atmosphere? Why not just do nothing and leave it up there? Kind of like what the navy does with old ships - keep it in the mothball fleet but don't necesarily strick it from the registry. Who knows what uses it may have in the futher? I suppose one would argue it is a possible collision risk to other operational satelites which might have intersecting orbits, but what's one more object to the thousands already being tracked by military radars?
    • The reason they have to do something with it is that if they do nothing, it will stop being able to make the little corrections that keep it in orbit. If it falls out of orbit uncontrolled, it could land on people or property. Better to shoot it down so that we can control where it goes.
    • Believe it or not, there is some friction up there in orbit, even though we describe it as "hard vacuum." There's not much, granted, but there's enough drag that it will eventually pull the Hubble (and anything else in orbit) down into the thicker atmosphere. Most all satellites have some thrusters/rockets built in to them to allow them to self-correct their orbits...but, those require fuel...once the satellite's out of fuel, it's coming down...the only question is where.
      • Well, this is wonderful! I recall one of the reasons for *not* servicing Hubble was that it was too risky for the shuttle to go higher than it normally flys, especially after Columbia. What is wrong with letting friction do it's work and bring Hubble down to a safer altitude where it is safer to work on? Instead of building a rocket to crash Hubble into the ocean, it can be used to boost the repaired Hubble back into it's old service orbit.

    • Re:why do anything at all? (Score:4, Informative)

      by bill_mcgonigle ( 4333 ) * on Saturday April 02, 2005 @11:53PM (#12124112) Homepage Journal
      Why not just do nothing and leave it up there?

      It's falling out of orbit (slowly) and there's a 1 in 700 chance it'll hit people when it lands. They want to bring it down into an ocean under control.

      It only has enough battery and gyroscope life left to be useful for another couple years without service so at that point it's just a danger and they've deemed it too risky to fix.

  • I wonder if.... (Score:3, Funny)

    by banuk ( 148382 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @08:29PM (#12122860)
    Taco Bell will put a target in the ocean like they did for MIR when it was coming down... hmm I wonder

  • Send rocket up with its own gyros and stabilisers. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by LiquidCoooled ( 634315 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @08:31PM (#12122874) Homepage Journal
    Whatever they send up there HAS to have a strong dock to tow it back safely, so why not let it wait for a while once it gets there.

    Once it docks, it can take over control of hubbles positioning requirements leaving it to carry on working for a much longer period.

    Then, when the fuel is gone and the items once again begin to fail, fire the main return home booster to de-orbit?
    • Much as I admire the effort behind the Hubble project, Hubble is dead. It is gone. And for the cost of keeping it going another 4 years, you could design, build and launch another, lighter, more modern telescope.

      It's like trying to run Doom 3 on the latest Alienware retrofitted with a 486, no matter how much you bolt on it still will fail. Sometimes you just need to dump the older bits and upgrade the whole kit. Hell, send up a fleet of new ones and put them at Lagrange points.

  • From the why-not-just-blow-it-up dept? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Epsillon ( 608775 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @08:36PM (#12122902) Journal
    Because, dear Timothy, would you want to man a mission or risk a few billion dollars' worth of communications kit in a high velocity debris field, any tiny piece of which could either puncture your space suit, vessel or completely ruin your satellite?

    It's already like a junkyard up there. Even though I will mourn the passing of Hubble, NASA is quite correct. Blowing it up is dangerous. We can't afford to have uncontrolled, unmonitored crap floating around up there. It takes much less energy to bring it down than accelerate it to the point it breaks free from Earth, so it's cost-effective and environmentally sound to do exactly what they're proposing.

    Of course, I'm sure we'd all prefer they didn't scrap it at all. What it has taught us has vastly improved our knowledge of the space around us and, IMO, we will be that much poorer without it.
  • Two words: WANKEROUS TREACHERY.

    Anyone working for NASA automagically has more balls than I, but damn. It's been nothing but bad news these last few days, what the hell?
  • ...can I have it? FIRST DIBS!

  • Just a thought (Score:3, Funny)

    by lmahan ( 672228 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @09:07PM (#12123111)
    Why not turn hubble into a big vacuum cleaner! As it de-orbits it scoops up all the debris in orbit forming a massive mountain in front of it. The more orbits the bigger it gets, the more debris it attracts. And when mom approves, THEN we dump the whole thing into the Pacific Ocean, and sell it to Disney for a new theme park!!
  • Why not sell it instead?!

    They can privatize it. They can give it to the public somehow.

    But why spend the money to bring it down??? I don't get it.

  • Adaptive Optics (Score:3, Informative)

    by drjzzz ( 150299 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @10:53PM (#12123733) Homepage Journal
    The main advantage of space for a telescope was avoiding atmospheric distortion. Now it is possible to adjust the mirrors to compensate for atmospheric distortion (adapive optics [ucolick.org]), enabling large and clear telescopes on the ground (Earth). Here's an explanation of how a guide star is used to "eliminate twinkling" [wikipedia.org]. In short, orbital telescopes may be obsolete once these technologies are perfected.

  • What about the money congress put aside to fix it. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Bruha ( 412869 ) on Saturday April 02, 2005 @11:24PM (#12123930) Homepage Journal
    There was money included in NASA's budget for FY 2004 or 5 that was specifcally for fixing Hubble.

    Has nasa become such a group of pussies they are too chickenshit to even try now. We lost men going to the moon but we went anyway no different in putting up the space stations or fixing the hubble.

    Hubble has one advantage that all of our other fixed telescopes and that is a great deal more mobility.

    They could at least put a booster rocket on it and put it into a storage orbit until we can fix it.

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