Hill Staffers Try To Revive Robot-Service Option For Hubble
Aviation Week & Space Technology 03/07/2005, page 19
Edited by David Bond
Not Dead Yet
Don't count out that robotic Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission. NASA scratched it from the Fiscal 2006 budget request, recommending that Congress fund only development of a propulsion module to deorbit the telescope when it stops working. But some key staffers on Capitol Hill still believe the Hubble can be saved, and they don't want to use a precious space shuttle mission to do it, as recommended by a National Research Council panel. Instead, after taking a look at the Canadian hardware that would do the robotic touch labor in space, they believe the Hubble team at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center can accomplish a robotic rescue given adequate support from NASA headquarters. Cuts to the robotic servicing mission in the agency's Fiscal 2005 operating plan are already starting to block needed long-lead hardware purchases, and cost estimates are growing. But Hubble engineers still believe they could do the work before the telescope's projected failure in 2008. And new analysis suggests another year can be squeezed out of the Hubble's batteries and other life-limited components with careful operation, so there may be even more time. Watch for Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), whose constituents manage the Hubble, and other supporters to try to keep the robotic mission alive this year.
As a cash cow to pay for it, NASA's Prometheus space nuclear power project looks good to some. Nearly $750 million is programmed for Prometheus in Fiscal 2006-07.
It would seem to me that the pain of the loss of Hubble could substantially be eased by simply replacing it. With todays technology I am quite certain that an updated space telescope could be quite a capable instrument indeed. Hubble demonstrated the value of optical and nearoptical spectrum astronomy--also the PR value of some startlingly beautiful pictures cannot be ruled out.
However, I am a sentimentalist. As impractical as it may be, I would recommend one more service mission--the hardware has already been built, why not just go ahead and use it. And even if further servicing mission were out of the question, why not just retrieve the thing and put it on display at the Smithsonian. Hubble has 'earned' its place in Space Exploration History, I would be in favor of one last mission just to preserve this (I know, $600 million of the tax payers' money plus the risk to several astronauts, still I bet there would be a crew who would volunteer despite the risks!)
The Hubble Telescope has transformed many of our notions about seemingly basic things as star formation, composition of molecular clouds, the dynamics of active galactic nuclei, quasars, super-massive black holes, the complex dynamics of the core of our own galaxy--the list goes on. There is hardly an area of astronomy that Hubble hasn't 'touched' and expanded upon. Try going to a library and looking at some of books that were published pre-Hubble--specifically stellar and planet formation. Then look at similar books published well after--the differences are astounding. Whether the Congress of the US knows it or not, Hubble has transformed how we view the Cosmos. Despite its 'growing pains,' Hubble has achieved every objective set for it many times over--and was worth every penny of money spent on it during the lifetime of the program.
