Moon in, Mars in; Hubble out

[unixronin]

The Hubble Space Telescope has become collateral damage in the wake of President Bush's plan to send manned missions to the Moon and Mars.  Bush's plan calls for the Shuttle to be retired in 2010, with virtually all remaining Shuttle flights until then scheduled to be used to complete the International Space Station.  (One assumes, and hopes, that the plan also includes having a Shuttle replacement flying by 2010.)  As a side-effect of this plan and of safety requirements established after the loss of Columbia, all remaining Hubble servicing missions have been canceled.

The Hubble Telescope is expected to continue operating until 2007 or 2008, and is planned to be safely de-orbited in 2011 or 2012.  NASA plans to launch a more capable James Webb Space Telescope in 2011 to replace Hubble; no word yet as to what NASA plans to launch it on.

Comments

[jmkelly.livejournal.com]

This is the other shoe dropping (the first was announcing the man-on-Mars project). What do you expect from a guy who has always demonstrated style over substance? Robots like the Mars rovers can go out there and do all the science a human can at a fraction of the cost; a rational president would propose robotically exploring everything from Mars to the moons of Jupiter over the next five years, making a template to be used on subsequent expeditions to the rest of the solar system. But instead we have this cheerleader boob who wants to pick up the phone and talk to some brave soldier saluting the flag on a planet 150 million miles away.

If Gore were in the White House and pushing something this stupid and wasteful everyone to the right of Charlie Rose would making mincemeat of him. I wonder what makes GW so untouchable.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

I still maintain that Bush wouldn't have suddenly announced a project to go back to the Moon and send a manned mission to Mars, if China hadn't announced first that they were planning to do it. The timing is just too coincidental -- the first preliminary press release was within weeks of the Chinese announcement, and that was pretty much the first visible sign during his entire term -- except for when Columbia went down -- that he was even aware the US has a space program. God forbid we should allow those godless Com-mew-nists to steal our rightful thunder by being first at anything.

[ilcylic.livejournal.com]

Hey, fuck it man, if it takes Godless Commies (tm) to get me off this rock, then get me a copy of ... whatever that stupid book by Marx was.

-Ogre

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Groucho, Harpo, Chico, or Zeppo?

[ilcylic.livejournal.com]

They got space capable zeppo-lins? Neat!

-Ogre

[dirtynumbangel.livejournal.com]

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