Unfortunately many things changed after February 1. Even the official
position of the astronaut office at JSC is that astronaut lives will not
be risked for an HST retrieval mission, i.e. the benefit of returning
HST to Earth is not worth the risko of astronaut lives. The risk is
acceptable for servicing missions where the benefit is scientific knowledge.

The HST Program did a study to determine what would have to be done to
bring HST back to in the payload bay and while the study assumed
Columbia, i.e. no external airlock, a return mission could be performed
with an orbiter that has the external airlock, although additional work
would have to be done (servicing hardware mods for HST to fit farther
back in the bay).

The current thinking is that some sort of propulsion module will be
attached to HST to provide a controlled re-entry at the end of HST's life.

Craig Fink wrote:

.. belongs in the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, not spread across the
earth as a debris field.

http://www.msnbc.com/news/994737.asp?0cv=TB10

begin quote

In the wake of the space shuttle Columbia disaster, NASA pulled the plug on
any plans it had to retrieve the Hubble Space Telescope at the end of its
life so it could be displayed in a museum.

end quote, begin rant

NASA (or better yet Congress) should pull the plug on some NASA managers,
instead of the Hubble Space Telescope. The Hubble Space Telescope has
contributed so much to our the knowledge of the Universe it would be
criminal not to put it in a museum for display along with all it's
achievements.

NASA management, definitely the "Wrong Stuff". Not a care in the world
about spreading Columbia all across East Texas, but worried about Hubble
debris. Not a creative or innovative thought about how to repair Columbia
on-orbit with the stuff they had on-board. No wonder they can't figure out
how to make a repair kit for the heat shield so they can service or bring
Hubble down safely.

end rant

Save the Hubble, from a disgraceful death,

Craig Fink