Trading Votes for Science

It seems it's as simple as that. Shrubby's grandstanding, election year announcement that NASA will focus its energies (and hence its monies) on returning men to the moon and eventually to Mars is the death knell for one of the most important and fruitful missions ever undertaken. Because of aWol's announcement requires that all future shuttle missions be dedicated to completing ISS, NASA has canceled all future servicing missions to the Hubble Space Telescope.

Hubble has provided incredible and unprecedented views of the distant universe; into the past; closer to the "Beginning" than we had ever seen. It gave us beautiful pictures, definitely. But it also gave us insights into the most fundamental questions that a sentient race could ask: "where did we come from? what came before?"

But NASA had to cancel the last servicing mission that would have provided Hubble with updated gyroscopes, batteries and perhaps, in a future mission updated sensors. The final mission to Hubble will now be a small rocket to ensure that Hubble de-orbits in a safe manner. The budget for that mission, likely around 2007 - to kill Hubble - must come, in a final irony, from NASA's astronomy budget.

As the news flashed around the world by e-mail, other astronomers joined the Hubble team in their shock. Dr. David N. Spergel, an astronomer at Princeton and a member of a committee that advises NASA on space science, called it a "double whammy" for astronomy. Not only was a telescope being lost, but $200 million worth of instruments that had been built to be added in the later shuttle mission will also be left on the ground, Dr. Spergel said.

If I thought that this program would actually result in the establishment of a permanent base on the moon and the landing of astronauts on Mars, I might not despair for Hubble. But for a publicity stunt, one which he has already underfunded even in its announcement, aWol has ensured the destruction of one of the finest scientific instruments ever devised by man.

Go here to see some of the incredible images brought to mankind by Hubble.