NASA: Repair the Hubble http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2006/07/21/nasa_repair_the_hubble/
July 21, 2006 THE post-flight examination of the shuttle Discovery has yet to be completed, but by all initial accounts it weathered its voyage to the International Space Station well. This should make it more likely that NASA's administrator, Michael D. Griffin, will decide this fall to use a future shuttle flight to repair the Hubble Space Telescope. The Hubble, a wondrous window into the universe, deserves such a priority. Griffin's predecessor, Sean O'Keefe, was reluctant to send a shuttle to Hubble for fear that if it were damaged during launch, it could not be repaired, as it could be if it were going to the space station. Discovery's flight this month indicates that NASA engineers have a better handle on the falling debris problem that doomed the Columbia, making a Hubble mission less risky. Over the years, shuttle crews have made several visits to Hubble for repairs. Whether or not to repair the space telescope is just one of the difficult decisions Griffin has to make. In 2004, President Bush set NASA on the course of sending astronauts to the moon and eventually to Mars. The cost of preparations for this has squeezed other NASA programs, especially its unmanned probes and research in astrobiology, climate science, and other space-related fields. NASA also believes it must fulfill its commitments to the space station, a joint venture of 15 nations. The shuttles are the only space vehicles big enough to carry the parts needed to complete the facility. A flight by Atlantis as soon as Aug. 28 will take a truss and solar array to the station. The plan is to have the station finished by 2010, when NASA expects to stop flying its shuttles. Last September, Griffin promised that the moon-Mars work would not cut into spending for science programs, but he has since been forced to drop or postpone several projects. In May, the National Research Council of the National Academies of Science concluded that ``NASA is being asked to accomplish too much with too little." Bush's 2007 budget calls for just a 3.2 percent increase for NASA, despite the need to fund the president's moon-Mars vision. If he and Congress are really serious about that project, they must agree to increase NASA's budget accordingly, even during an election year like this one when there is so much pressure to reduce the deficit. Space travel without space science is not a wise way to expand mankind's knowledge of the universe. Reply with a "Thank you" if you liked this post. _____________________________ MEDIANEWS mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
