NASA idiots cancel service mission to Hubble

Just read in the NYT that NASA will not fly the scheduled mission to service
the Hubble telescope. The one thing they've done with the Shuttle that was
worth doing, and now they've chickened out. What a bunch of turkeys!!

Mark Folsom

Mark Folsom wrote:

Just read in the NYT that NASA will not fly the scheduled mission to service
the Hubble telescope. The one thing they've done with the Shuttle that was
worth doing, and now they've chickened out. What a bunch of turkeys!!

Mark Folsom

Time to replace the current administration!

On a sunny day (Sat, 17 Jan 2004 07:07:01 GMT) it happened Sam Wormley
wrote in :

Mark Folsom wrote:

Just read in the NYT that NASA will not fly the scheduled mission to service
the Hubble telescope. The one thing they've done with the Shuttle that was
worth doing, and now they've chickened out. What a bunch of turkeys!!

Mark Folsom

Time to replace the current administration!
Honest, I agree with Sam on this subject.

"Jan Panteltje" wrote in message
...
On a sunny day (Sat, 17 Jan 2004 07:07:01 GMT) it happened Sam Wormley
wrote in :

Mark Folsom wrote:

Just read in the NYT that NASA will not fly the scheduled mission to
service
the Hubble telescope. The one thing they've done with the Shuttle that
was
worth doing, and now they've chickened out. What a bunch of turkeys!!

Mark Folsom

Time to replace the current administration!
Honest, I agree with Sam on this subject.

Well it's been long since time, for a lot of reasons--but the sheep are
unlikely to do it.

Mark Folsom

In article ,
Jan Panteltje wrote:
On a sunny day (Sat, 17 Jan 2004 07:07:01 GMT) it happened Sam Wormley
wrote in :

Mark Folsom wrote:

Just read in the NYT that NASA will not fly the scheduled mission to
service
the Hubble telescope. The one thing they've done with the Shuttle that
was
worth doing, and now they've chickened out. What a bunch of turkeys!!

Mark Folsom

Time to replace the current administration!
Honest, I agree with Sam on this subject.

Sigh! NASA has been under all kinds of administrations and still
is screwing up. There's another thread going somewhere else
where the comment is that one of the problems is that it's a
civilian government org rather than military. [gasping emoticon
replacing bell-bottomed jeans]. I've just read Tip O'Neill's
auto-bio. It appears that the old-style political machines
upgraded themselves from dealing with individual pork to production
line pork without quality control.

/BAH

Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail.

wrote:

In article ,
Jan Panteltje wrote:
On a sunny day (Sat, 17 Jan 2004 07:07:01 GMT) it happened Sam Wormley
wrote in :

Mark Folsom wrote:

Just read in the NYT that NASA will not fly the scheduled mission to
service
the Hubble telescope. The one thing they've done with the Shuttle that
was
worth doing, and now they've chickened out. What a bunch of turkeys!!

Mark Folsom

Time to replace the current administration!
Honest, I agree with Sam on this subject.

Sigh! NASA has been under all kinds of administrations and still
is screwing up.

NASA was once doing ok. It got progressivly worse as the US government
became ever more right-wing since the late 60's/early 70's, while
NASA's budget was cut again and again.

db

db wrote:

NASA was once doing ok. It got progressivly worse as the US government
became ever more right-wing since the late 60's/early 70's, while
NASA's budget was cut again and again.

Once it became clear that the late and unlamented Soviet Union was not
going to be able to establish a Moon base, from which they could throw
rocks at us, the manned program was defunded. What defense function is
there in sending men to the Moon?

Once NASA was defunded, the brighter bulbs that worked for NASA moved on
to greener pastures. The left mediocrities, deadwood, and managerial
parasites. The quality of NASA's work reflects this migration of
technical talent away from NASA. If excellence is required, then
excellence must be paid for.

Bob Kolker

Mark Folsom wrote:

Just read in the NYT that NASA will not fly the scheduled mission to service
the Hubble telescope. The one thing they've done with the Shuttle that was
worth doing, and now they've chickened out. What a bunch of turkeys!!

Mark Folsom

Do you really think NASA made that decision all by themselves?

It is at the request of mr Bush, he wants NASA to focus on going to the moon and
mars.

db

"db" wrote in message
...
Mark Folsom wrote:

Just read in the NYT that NASA will not fly the scheduled mission to
service
the Hubble telescope. The one thing they've done with the Shuttle that
was
worth doing, and now they've chickened out. What a bunch of turkeys!!

Mark Folsom

Do you really think NASA made that decision all by themselves?

It is at the request of mr Bush, he wants NASA to focus on going to the
moon and
mars.

db

I recall reading that Hubble is approaching the end of it's service life,
and that there are other projects in the wings. If that's the case, sounds
like the decision is part of a standard risks/rewards analysis. Maybe
someone who has more direct knowledge the could share?

Considering NASA's concerns for shuttle reliability it would make sense that
they would pick and choose what they signed up for. I don't think it was a
simple decision.

O'

"OhBrother" wrote in message
...

I recall reading that Hubble is approaching the end of it's service life,

No. Not by a long shot.
It has yet to even reach its fullest potential. It has not yet reached
the prime of its life. All the components to accomplish that
have already been built and are waiting in a clean room for delivery.
They cost millions to produce, are the best of their kind ever made,
and are not usable on any other telescope.
Millions ****ed away.
The Hubble Space Telescope is the most productive telescope in
history and it was about to get 10 times more productive.

O'Keefe has shown the blindest "vision" in history.

and that there are other projects in the wings.

1. The year 2014 is not what I would call "in the wings". That is
when Hubble's "successor" (the NGST) is supposed to launch.
What sane person would throw away a car a decade before
he or she plans on buying a new one to replace it?

Besides, the NGST doesn't even replace Hubble.
It will only do 1/4 of what Hubble can do. It is limited to the
infrared. Hubble spans from the infrared to the ultraviolet.
The Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (which is one of the
multi-million dollar new components already finished and
bagged up ready to go) is predominantly an ultraviolet
spectrograph and will not be duplicated in any planned
spacecraft and cannot be used on the ground due to
atmospheric absorbtion. Millions wasted. Who knows
what great science would have come out of it....
The WFPC 3 was to be the next workhorse camera
with a throughput 10 times greater than the WFPC 2.

The best was, by far, yet to come.

If that's the case, sounds
like the decision is part of a standard risks/rewards analysis.

It isn't. My understanding was that it was not a consensus
decision. It was a unilateral decision on the part of NASA's
Director based on his bean-counter interpretation of
Bush's "vision". Kill first. Promises of pie-in-the-sky sometime
far enough in the future so that they won't be in power anymore
when the promises aren't kept.
It a chicken **** LACK of vision and balls on the
part of O'Keefe.
He would have no problem whatsoever with finding astronauts
willing to take the risk. Or civilian volunteers, for that matter.

Considering NASA's concerns for shuttle reliability it would make sense
that
they would pick and choose what they signed up for. I don't think it was
a
simple decision.

No. Instead it was a stupid, ugly, short-sighted decision.