Debate over Hubble...

Yesterday the Houston Chronicle carried a guest column from
the NASA administrator defending the decision to not service the Hubble
with one of the remaining space shuttle flights. Today, Walter Cunningham
(former astronaut) fired back in a column that was titled "The Wrong Stuff
is Tipping the Scales at NASA". (note: column titles are made up by the
editors, normally, and not the writers).
Cunningham emphasizes that all space risks are balances of safety
and mission. He argues that Hubble is worth the risk, and that NASA is
playing a kind of CYA by agreeing to any/every safety proposal put forth.
He notes that the CAIB does not specifically preclude a Hubble mission, and
that Admiral Gehmen has stated that only a "deep and rich study of the entire
gain/risk equation can answer that question..." about the Hubble mission.
Cunningham indicates that top NASA brass did not want any such study/discussion
and had their minds made up even before CAIB results could be studied. He
also states that not a single astronaut he knows agrees with the decision to
forego a Hubble service mission -- but doesn't mention how many astronauts
he knows.

At any rate, more grist for the debate.

regards,
----------------------------------------------------------------

In article ,
Steven James Forsberg wrote:
Cunningham indicates that top NASA brass did not want any such study/discussion
and had their minds made up even before CAIB results could be studied...

If true, this strengthens the theory I suggested: the hidden agenda is to
firmly and finally eliminate all options for *later* servicing visits,
funding extensions, upgrades, etc., and the loss of *this* servicing visit
is just collateral damage.
--
MOST launched 30 June; science observations running | Henry Spencer
since Oct; first surprises seen; papers pending. |

On Wed, 17 Mar 2004, Steven James Forsberg wrote:

Yesterday the Houston Chronicle carried a guest column from
the NASA administrator defending the decision to not service the Hubble
with one of the remaining space shuttle flights. Today, Walter Cunningham
(former astronaut) fired back in a column that was titled "The Wrong Stuff
is Tipping the Scales at NASA". (note: column titles are made up by the
editors, normally, and not the writers).
Cunningham emphasizes that all space risks are balances of safety
and mission. He argues that Hubble is worth the risk, and that NASA is
playing a kind of CYA by agreeing to any/every safety proposal put forth.

Make debate
if the Hubble
does rate
to be rubble!

If NASA was really concerned about safety, it would listen to its
engineers.

He notes that the CAIB does not specifically preclude a Hubble mission, and
that Admiral Gehmen has stated that only a "deep and rich study of the entire
gain/risk equation can answer that question..." about the Hubble mission.
Cunningham indicates that top NASA brass did not want any such study/discussion
and had their minds made up even before CAIB results could be studied. He
also states that not a single astronaut he knows agrees with the decision to
forego a Hubble service mission -- but doesn't mention how many astronauts
he knows.

At any rate, more grist for the debate.

Henry Spencer wrote:

[...] first surprises seen; papers pending.


I hope the pending papers get published soon. I've been very curious
about these surprises for some time.



--
Hop David
http://clowder.net/hop/index.html

In article ,
Hop David wrote:
[MOST] first surprises seen; papers pending.

I hope the pending papers get published soon. I've been very curious
about these surprises for some time.

Me too! I don't know a lot about them myself; the astronomers haven't
been talkative. I'm told that the first paper is in the pipeline at Nature.
--
MOST launched 30 June; science observations running | Henry Spencer
since Oct; first surprises seen; papers pending. |