The Official Bell Tolls: With New NASA Budget, The Hubble Is Dead

The "crats" at NASA are getting thier wish, the bulk of the money being budgeted for the Hubble is earmarked for a robot to make sure it is steered into the ocean What a waste

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (AP) -- With the moon on its horizon, NASA sees a slight increase in the budget proposed by President Bush on Monday, but it's not enough to save the Hubble Space Telescope.

Only $93 million in the space agency's $16.45 billion budget would go toward Hubble's survival: $75 million to develop a kamikaze robot that would steer the orbiting observatory into the ocean at the end of its lifetime, and $18 million to try to eke out as much scientific observing time as possible from the telescope through clever remote controlling.
www.cnn.com...

The Hubble is dead, long live the Hubble!

It brought back some unbelievable images. Best stuff ever, actually. Some of the things you could do with a Hubble image and color swaps blows the mind. Showing gas colorations and density changes in galaxies millions of light years away. Absoultely incredible. It is a real shame we are losing that resource.

The James Webb may launch in 2011, but it will not be returning the sorts of images Hubble was, different wavelengths being studied I think. There was some talk about using a number of smaller observatories to imitate the Hubble, but I don't know how feasible that would be even if the money were available, which it isn't. There is a 50 million dollar bounty for the extension of life artificially and similar feats, I think most of the scientific community is focused on earth rather than the stars at the moment. Which may not be such a bad thing..

Its such a shame, some of the pictures hubble produced were absolutely astounding, and now Bush has sent it to its death so he can invade some other country. Long live hubble!

Seems it was a choice between the Shuttle Program or the HUbble no? In addition to picking up an international shortfall on the ISS.

Without more science funding, I suppose it was inevitable. Terrible, but inevitable.

Damn NaySay... Just another reason to add to the list of why it needs to be majorly revamped. Sad to see the Hubble will die in a few years.

Excellent.

I hoped congress would make the smart choice on this, and they did.

That stinks, i dont understand why they just cant leave it up there, it cant cost more than the robot. Also why does a fricking robot cost that much!

I'm pretty sure sometime in the near future, there will be better optics and technology to make an advance space telescope that will do a better job. Hubble's has more than outlived its usefullness. It's time for a new one to takes its place.

Originally posted by 954speeder
I'm pretty sure sometime in the near future, there will be better optics and technology to make an advance space telescope that will do a better job. Hubble's has more than outlived its usefullness.

So maybe we have to scrap pretty much every land-based telescope because their optics are older than ten years... some of them are ~100 years old!

Well working optics doesn't get old, it's detectors and instruments which get old and those are replaceable. (which won't be case with Webb)


At least we know where the fat goes... ~18 billion increase in 2006 budget compared to 2005.
Bush Delivers $419.3 Billion DoD Budget to Congress

What a disappointment, I really loved those pictures.
According to the Financial Times Hubble isn’t the only project being affected by the new budget:

"The new budget suggests the Moon-to-Mars missions may also have been placed on the backburner.

The agency has effectively cancelled the Jupiter Icy Moons probe, which was to be the first long-range test of a nuclear-powered craft.
Spaceships powered by solar energy - which becomes weaker far from the Sun - are considered unusable
for manned missions well beyond Earth. Nasa says it will test its nuclear power technology with a cheaper mission.

Nasa is also reducing funding to develop a new vehicle to send astronauts to the moon."

I think this decision is made with the knowledge that ESA is launching 2 brand new telescopes in the next 2 years, the cost of leasing time on these is most likely much less then the cost of repairing, upgrading and replacing hubble.

Hubble itself isn't pure NASA's doing either you know. Its a Joint operation by ESA and NASA.

I don't think its a bad decision or wrong to phase out Hubble. It has done a great job for over a decade and now its time for it to be replaced by new tech, by not 1, but 2 new telescopes even.

From both an economic and future cost point of view, its better for NASA and ESA to keep using Hubble as long as it stays afloat and then for NASA to lease time on the 2 new tech telescopes launched by ESA, that will be financed and maintained and repaired by ESA when needed.





[edit on 8-2-2005 by thematrix]

I don't like the choices being made.

Why is NASA abonding research on new tech to extend the current?

If it's time to phase out anything, it's solar power probes and the shuttle.

I can't wait for the current NASA leadership to retire. They have been hodling us back to long.

If it's time to phase out anything, it's solar power probes

Umm are you crazy? We still need solar powered probes for Mercury and Venus as well as Lunar exploration. I do agree that anywhere Mars and Beyond nuke power will be needed. Shuttle fleet should also be retired, and a new prize competition should be set up for the first private company to create a completely re-usable Space Shuttle/Ship that can do more the just LEO.

As for Hubble, if the new tech doesn't get delayed because of budget cuts then I don't really care all that much. It would mean that we would have an Optical blind spot for a few years but if we put the money that we save by scuttling the hubble into the Next Gen Space Telescope then I'll be happy. I would even be happy if they put they donate that money towards the X-Prize foundation, its already proven its worth IMO. Up the ante I say

No I am not crazy, but it would be more adventageous if we could deveople nuclear plants to a point that the compent's weight and space requirements are far less that current solar tech.

Let's not forget that 20 years ago Main Frames that equal the computing power of your desktop would have filled a whole room.

I am not saying scrap it out, I am saying phase it out.

[edit on 8-2-2005 by crisko]

Originally posted by crisko
No I am not crazy, but it would be more adventageous if we could deveople nuclear plants to a point that the compent's weight and space requirements are far less that current solar tech.

Let's not forget that 20 years ago Main Frames that equal the computing power of your desktop would have filled a whole room.

I am not saying scrap it out, I am saying phase it out.

[edit on 8-2-2005 by crisko]

Wierd, my computers still fill a whole room :p
(But yeah, I have many of em :p)

I am not saying scrap it out, I am saying phase it out.

Oh okay I thought you said get rid of them completely(meant that is ) It was early okay heh.

hey, for $75 million, they can get a 2nd tier shortstop !

LOL, it's late here.

But this really irritates me. If your going to decomission hubble, fine. At least appease the public with plans for an equal replacement. I know I ESA has plans, but American's have issues with machoism.

Scrap plans for a new vehicle to get us to them moon, and extend the life of a low orbit one?

Put plans on the back burner for developing fuel sources that could benefit use greatly while in deep space?

This is the point I am trying to make.

I say let the private sector improve upon the existing methods for commerical use, and the gov move on to more "advanced" methods.



[edit on 8-2-2005 by crisko]

[edit on 8-2-2005 by crisko]

Originally posted by thematrix
I think this decision is made with the knowledge that ESA is launching 2 brand new telescopes in the next 2 years, the cost of leasing time on these is most likely much less then the cost of repairing, upgrading and replacing hubble.

None of them will be Hubble like "general purpose" telescope. (from near-IR to UV)
www.esa.int...


First remember that with longer radiation's wavelength you have to have bigger mirror to keep "resolution" even at same level. (have you ever wondered why radio astronomy uses thousand kilometers long interferometers)
And again, Webb won't be optical (visible light) telescope so it can't really replace Hubble.

Also there's other very big problem in IR telescopes... basically they detect heat radiation so in order to see anything mirrors and detectors (and telescope's tube) have to be kept at very low temperature or otherwise heat radiation from them swamps radiation from target.
To achieve this IR telescopes generally use liquid Helium to cool them... and after they run out of coolant they're useless.
They could be used to optical observations after running out of coolant by adding approriate detectors, but accurasy of mirror made for IR observations isn't enough for visible light, (because of shorter wavelength of visible light) or it would have to be made with accurasy of mirrors used in optical telescopes.



en.wikipedia.org...
ISO (Infrared Space Observatory)

www.astro.queensu.ca...

blah blah blah, the grays just want to keep us off of their bases on the moon and mars so they brain washed bush into this budget through a connection he has from the old S&B days, a well know mason and satanist ....