http://www.nasawatch.com/misc/01.16.04.hst.html

This is an internal STScI memo from Steve Beckwith:

Colleagues,

A few minutes ago, we concluded a meeting at which Sean O'Keefe, the
NASA Administrator, announced his decision to cancel SM4, the next
servicing mission to Hubble. It was his decision alone, and I will
discuss the details with your personally. I will be holding a
town-hall meeting in the auditorium at 3:00 pm today for everyone who
is interested to answer your questions about the decision and talk
about the future.

Steve


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From:

Subject: Cancellation of SM4

Dear SOC:

You've just heard from Randy, and I just finished a long conversation
with Dave Leckrone. O'Keefe decided, apparently almost purely for
reasons of Shuttle safety, to cancel SM4. Budget was not a driving
concern, nor was the new Bush space initiative. (Only the timing was
related to the President's announcement.) Code S opposed the decision
and had identified sufficient funding to cover the SM4 slippage.

Basically, the problem was that a Hubble Shuttle mission would require
special safety procedures to be developed (inspection, etc) that would
not be necessary for an ISS mission. (This point seems to be disputed
by people in Houston, who were eager to do SM4.) Only ISS missions
will be carried out in the future.

John Grunsfeld, the Chief Scientist, was apparently as surprised as
most everybody else at the decision. Dave's first inkling was the
email sent out by Rogier yesterday. This has been held very close to
the vest.

The decision is such that it looks like there is no recourse.

We have been encouraged to think of other productive ways to use WFC3
and COS---maybe on MIDEX's, etc. Looking for bright ideas to salvage
something from these excellent instruments.

If the President's initiative is approved, even in its first phase,
there will be significant science involved, in which GSFC hopes to
participate.

Despite our own fundamental disappointment, we were on the periphery
of the project, and our main concern should be for those who spent the
last six years of their careers working on it and doing such a
beautiful job.

There are plenty of issues to work through, and we should still plan
to hold our February SOC meeting.

Regretfully --- Bob