Well, space is there, and we’re going to climb it, and the moon and the planets are there, and new hopes for knowledge and peace are there. And, therefore, as we set sail we ask God’s blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked. – John F. Kennedy – September 12, 1962
The on again / off again mission to extend the life of the Hubble Space Telescope is off again:
US space agency NASA will announce the decision in February, ending plans to send a human or a robot repairman.
After a troubled beginning, the Hubble Space Telescope has surpassed even the most optimistic expectations, providing NASA and others with images of deep space that were previously beyond reach. But Hubble requires periodic service to maintain orbit and upgrade components. Without a service mission in the next two years, Hubble’s performance will degrade until it drops out of orbit and is consumed by the earth’s atmosphere. Hubble’s demise is being blamed on the cost of the upgrade mission, $1 billion.
Obviously servicing Hubble isn’t our top priority. There are many domestic programs that would be able to put that kind of money to good use. I’m sure that a few Humvees could be armored. I’m sure the administration could create some kind of targeted tax cut to buy votes from companies that print bibles or make cowboy boots. Simply doing nothing with that $1 billion would mean less debt and less interest on that debt. But those aren’t the options on the table.
In last year’s State of the Union, the President (out of nowhere) proposed missions to the moon and Mars. Where was the money coming from?
Bush proposed spending $12 billion over the next five years on the effort. About $1 billion of that will come from an increase in NASA’s budget, while the other $11 billion would come from shifting funds from existing programs within NASA’s current $86 billion budget.
Estimates for the moon /Mars mission range from $400 billion to $1 trillion, and no plans have even been announced in the year since Bush first floated the idea. But somehow, it is more important to pretend to go to Mars than to extend the operation of an invaluable program that has much more to document.
Exploration whether in the deep oceans, mountain peaks or deep space does hold the hope for knowledge and peace. Travel to other planets should be part of NASA’s mandate because we still enjoy the benefits of the innovations developed in the 1960s space program. But Bush’s Mars plan had nothing to do with the human drive to explore nor the technological dividends that follow. By grafting Mars onto the State of the Union, Bush tried to manipulate the people who dreamed of growing up to be an astronaut into thinking that his speech was lofty and grand. Fixing Hubble isn’t lofty or grand on the surface, and in fact it is a punch-line to many who only know about its early stumbles. While there’s no political upside for satellite telescope maintenance, there is for make-believe journeys to other planets. It’s just typical that the beneficiaries of that upside are among the most anti-science, anti-intellectual regimes this country has ever had.