In article ,
Tom Abbott wrote:
I personally hope NASA can figure out a way to service the
Hubble telescope. It is more important than any one piece of the
International space station,...

Hubble is much more important than the entire space station. Hubble is
a spectacular telescope used in thousands of ways by astronomers all
over the world. The space station hasn't really accomplished anything,
and I doubt that it ever will. It's the Spruce Goose of our times.

Anyway, whether you blame the end of Hubble on Bush's "initiative"
or on the Columbia disaster, it just yet another example of astronauts
obstructing space science. If not for the crazy devotion to "repairing"
aging hardware, NASA could have launched new telescopes that would have
been better than Hubble: better hardware, a better orbit, and a better
launch schedule too. The Hubble service schedule has become the worst
possible, namely no launches at all.
--
/\ Greg Kuperberg (UC Davis)
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