Write or call Congress to save Hubble space telescope

In article .com,
"Impact9" wrote:

I really am having a hard time understanding why anyone with a serious
thought of astronomy and reads this group would choose to retire the
HST.

....and in the same paragraph, wrote:

By now we should already have a colony on the moon!

....which seems to be answering your own question. By now we SHOULD have
a colony on the Moon, but we don't. If we did, a project like the
Hubble would be almost trivial -- certainly, orders of magnitude cheaper
and easier than it is for us in our current Earth-bound state.

Put simply: the existence of Hubble (or of astronomy in general) does
nothing to help us develop an off-world population, but the existence of
an off-world population would help projects like Hubble (or astronomy in
general) enormously. So, if push comes to shove, obviously you should
choose to put your money into projects that will help develop an
off-world population.

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In article ,
"Brian Hill" wrote:

I know I'm new here and I'm sorry for butting in but the space shuttle
program is a money pit in it's own right. It would seem to me our only hope
for space exploration is if the Russians or somebody else got a big space
program going and we got jealous and tried to out do them. Isn't that how it
happened before?

That's how we got ourselves into this mess, yes. What we need is NOT
another waste-anything-except-time project to do something big and
impressive and totally unsustainable. Instead, we need sustainable
commercial development, and after a couple decades of false starts,
things finally seem to be moving on that front.

I sure hope research takes off more in the private sector.

Research? I thought we were talking about development... I don't
foresee astronomy ever taking off in the private sector, but it's
certainly true that as commercial space capability develops, orbital (or
lunar) astronomy will get much cheaper.

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| Joseph J. Strout Check out the Mac Web Directory: |
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Joe Strout wrote:
In article ,
"starlord" wrote:


I say keep the shuttles flying ( also fund and build the next genation
shuttles ) and keep the HST running.


I agree; let's also build a space elevator, colonies on the Moon and
Mars, discover alien intelligence, and have floating cities held up by a
complex matrix of wishful thinking.

Or maybe we could have a yard sale to get rid of all those apples and
oranges you seem to be tossing about...

Rand Simberg ) wrote:
: On Mon, 24 Jan 2005 19:49:29 +0000 (UTC), in a place far, far away,
: (Eric Chomko) made the phosphor on my
: monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

: : Or write your senators and representative to fund the vision for space
: : exploration with the money saved from cutting hubble.
:
: : Very little money will be saved (as long as they give up on the
: : ridiculous proposal to do it robotically).
:
: Should robot manufacturing be scrapped all together or do you think it has
: a place on ISS?

: I've no opinion on that, and it has nothing to do with my post, which
: wasn't about robotic manufacturing. But what else is new?

You mentioned "ridiculous proposal to do it robotically". That would imply
that it IS on topic. That you choose to avoid only furthers your
chicken**** status on issues. If you truely are some sort of commercial
space guru, then the whole thing is in trouble with you at the helm.

You either need to gain some chutzpah or get the hell out of the way!

Eric

Does anyone know the Space Shuttle's schedule for the next year past
initial launch dates?

On Mon, 24 Jan 2005 19:49:29 +0000 (UTC), in a place far, far away,
(Eric Chomko) made the phosphor on my
monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

: Or write your senators and representative to fund the vision for space
: exploration with the money saved from cutting hubble.

: Very little money will be saved (as long as they give up on the
: ridiculous proposal to do it robotically).

Should robot manufacturing be scrapped all together or do you think it has
a place on ISS?

I've no opinion on that, and it has nothing to do with my post, which
wasn't about robotic manufacturing. But what else is new?

"starlord" wrote in message
...
The "Little" savings of any $$$ from cutting the Hubble wouldn't be enough
to fund the designing, testing and building of a new Saturn V type rocket
needed for replacing the shuttles as bush wants done.

There is no need for a new "Saturn V type rocket" to achieve the goal of
putting men back on the moon. Delta IV (Heavy) and Atlas V (Heavy) will do
the job. If they aren't big enough, they can evolve.

I say keep the shuttles flying ( also fund and build the next genation
shuttles ) and keep the HST running. After all we don't scrap the 100inch
scope on Mt.Wilson just because of it's age.

Why would we need a "next generation shuttle"? Unless you mean the CEV,
which I doubt.

Jeff

--
Remove icky phrase from email address to get a valid address.

On 24 Jan 2005 22:05:58 -0000, in a place far, far away, Thialfi
made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a
way as to indicate that:

The Europeans and the Russians have figured out the fact that
the USA is an unreliable partner, and there's no sense depending
on them.

I'd like to think they've figured this out, but I see little evidence
of it.

Commercial satellite launches are pretty much monopolized by the
Russians and Europeans already, and the commercial airplane
business is moving to Europe as well.

That remains to be seen.

The only thing the Americans are spending money on is
unproductive military boondoggles.

Actually, military expenditures are a minor part of the overall
budget.

On Mon, 24 Jan 2005 22:31:24 +0000 (UTC), in a place far, far away,
(Eric Chomko) made the phosphor on my
monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

: : Or write your senators and representative to fund the vision for space
: : exploration with the money saved from cutting hubble.
:
: : Very little money will be saved (as long as they give up on the
: : ridiculous proposal to do it robotically).
:
: Should robot manufacturing be scrapped all together or do you think it has
: a place on ISS?

: I've no opinion on that, and it has nothing to do with my post, which
: wasn't about robotic manufacturing. But what else is new?

You mentioned "ridiculous proposal to do it robotically". That would imply
that it IS on topic.

No, it wouldn't. I was referring to servicing Hubble robotically, not
doing robotic manufacturing, which is completely different, though I
suppose I should have cut you some slack, since you're too brainless
to understand the difference.

Tim Killian wrote in
:

Keep the shuttles flying? To do that, we need to reopen the assembly
line because the lifetime of an orbiter appears to be 25-50 flights.

Umm, no. The first shuttle accident occurred after 25 flights, the second
after 88 more flights. With only 28 flights remaining for the entire fleet,
reopening the assembly line is entirely unwarranted.

--
JRF

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