Comments on: The Last Mission To Save Hubble

By: Daniel

Daniel — Mon, 18 May 2009 21:48:00 +0000

Troy, I heard somewhere there’s a new space telescope going up even while Hubble is still operational, so I think they’re planning on replacing it. Probably a sound decision considering Hubble’s age. As long as it can keep up Hubble’s record of providing 33% of NASA’s results at 2% of the budget (figures from Newsy.com), they’ll be in good shape!

By: Troy H.

Troy H. — Tue, 12 May 2009 17:19:00 +0000

A tad over dramatic, no?

Hubble will be better than ever after this mission. The only real concern is a major micrometeoroid or orbital debris impact. I’ll let you know how the WFPC2 looks after 16 years up there.

After 2015, the Hubble could still be serviced if we could put someone up there with the parts. Robotic repair missions could still happen if we wanted to or we could send astronauts up in the new Orion capsule. They will just have to figure out how to get the components up there.

Someone or something will have to go back to attach a booster to deorbit it anyways.

With the new flight plan (different orientations during certain parts of the flight), the risk to the shuttle is much less than initially calculated.

By: Dawn

Dawn — Tue, 12 May 2009 07:40:00 +0000

My dad worked on the Hubble way back when, so it has a special place in my heart. :)

By: Robert

Robert — Tue, 12 May 2009 04:07:00 +0000

Didn’t I hear something cool about building telescopes on the moon out of liquid mercury or something like that?

By: Dave

Dave — Tue, 12 May 2009 04:04:00 +0000

Saying the Hubble is the most important thing the shuttle has done ignores the years of flights building the ISS and going back and forth to Mir. There were many other worthy bits of research in the shuttles’ 29 years.

I believe that this is scheduled to be Atlantis’ final flight.

By: Johnny Cat

Johnny Cat — Tue, 12 May 2009 04:04:00 +0000

I love the drama about the Endeavor standing by in case of a rescue needs to take place. This is some seriously good stuff. Kudos to NASA, when I’m sure if someone built one Hubble before, it would be somewhat thrifty to just build another one. They do that with F-22’s, Don’t They?