Jun. 02, 2004 - 23:32 MST

THE WONDERING JEW

Humble Hubble

A space resident telescope more powerful than any other, out in space where its vision is unimpeded compared to one on earth would be. A device that scientists hope to look back to the Big Bang or disprove it. An article by Jim Erickson of the Rocky Mountain News of today discusses this.

Robots may work on Hubble Telescope

"Launching robots to save the Earth-orbiting Hubble Space Telescope, "Now appears to be technically feasible," NASA's chief told more than 1,000 astronomers Tuesday at a Denver meeting."

- - - "NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe announced that the space agency is seeking industry proposals for a robotic servicing mission to rescue Hubble by the end of 2007."

""A CU team, working with engineers at Ball Aerospace & Technologies in Boulder, spent two years designing and building the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph for the telescope. It is one of two Boulder-built, next generation science instruments awaiting installation. The spectrograph and the Wide field Camera 3, also built at Ball, carry a combined price tag of $170 million."

O'Keefe set a July 16 deadline for the proposals. The ideas will be evaluated for six to eight weeks, with a decision around Labor Day. It's unclear, at this point, how much a robotic rescue would cost or whether it could be undertaken in time to save Hubble," O'Keefe said."

"Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver plans to submit a proposal, according to a comany spokeswoman. A Ball Aerospace official said his company is interested in participating."

"This is very, very encouraging," said Steven Beckwith, director of the of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore. But what we don't want to do is go up there and simply leave Hubble on life support -- change the batteries and maybe the gyros," he said."

"The reason Hubble has produced so much and has become an icon in the public eyes is because every time we go up to visit it, we make it better," Beckwith said. "And we want to keep doing that."

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This seems to me to be a much saner, worthwhile endeavour. Better than trying to bring Democracy to a wild land that doesn't really know what it is and resents very much our being there. A land that resembles an anthill that has many kinds of ants fighting for supremacy, and the ants don't give a damn about anything but themselves and their kind. I do hope something good, informative and productive comes of this.

Days of madly helping each other to get things together. Consequent crossing of the wires of communication. hoping to convey our thanks to the many folk who are doing what they can to help. But everyone gets it together and continues on. Gee, I am totally tired. Hope the wheels turn on the robotic project for the Humble Hubble . . . . . . . .

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