E-Paper
Bubble bursts for Hubble
The ageing Hubble Space Telescope — a path-breaking scientific instrument whose eye-catching images have won fans around the world — would die in orbit under the 2006 budget for NASA proposed on Monday.
The ageing Hubble Space Telescope — a path-breaking scientific instrument whose eye-catching images have won fans around the world — would die in orbit under the 2006 budget for NASA proposed on Monday.
The US space agency's total budget would go up 2.4 percent to about $16.5 billion, but only $93 million would be spent on Hubble, with $75 million of that used to bring the observatory down to Earth safely.
The big winners in NASA's proposed budget were the shuttle program -- grounded since 2003 but set to return to flight this year -- and the International Space Station, along with plans to develop a vehicle to replace the shuttle.
Hubble, the first telescope to take pictures of the cosmos outside the blurring effects of Earth's atmosphere, got off to a rough start in 1991 when it was discovered that its main mirror was flawed, producing disappointing images. An astronaut repair call fixed Hubble in 1993 and subsequent shuttle missions upgraded the craft's capabilities.
"Hubble is a spacecraft that is dying," Comptroller Steve Isakowitz said at a budget briefing last Friday. "We have decided that the risks associated with the Hubble servicing at this time don't merit going forward."
