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23 January 2004

Editorial: Losing Hubble

by Sheldon Greaves

Various news outlets reported on Monday that one of the results of the new emphasis on manned space exploration announced by President Bush will be the end of the Hubble Space Telescope program. The current space shuttle fleet, currently grounded in the wake of the Columbia disaster, will only be used to fulfill the commitment of the United States to the International Space Station. All further maintenance missions to the Hubble have been cancelled.

This means that the Hubble will slowly degrade over the next few years until it becomes useless as a scientific instrument. No one knows for sure how long it will last, but eventually it will become so much space junk. It is a dismal, early conclusion of a program that has done so much to expand our knowledge of the universe.

Hubble Space Telescope (HST) being deployed during the STS 31 flight. NASA photo. Click image to enlarge.

Further, over 200 million dollars spent to build new equipment for the Hubble will now remain on the ground. Current plans to send a small probe to attach itself to the Hubble and fire a rocket to deorbit the telescope at the end of its useful life will cost another estimated 300 million--money that will presumably come out of the NASA astronomy budget.

This decision is misguided. In terms of cost per amount of knowledge gained, I cannot imagine a more successful program than the Hubble. While telescopes like the mammoth Keck observatory are approaching the quality of Hubble images thanks to adaptive optics, Hubble still has an edge by being above the atmosphere. Although some have cited safety considerations in the wake of the Columbia tragedy as a reason to end flights to the Hubble, I find these arguments unconvincing.

Hubble was also a boon to amateurs. Not only have it's stunning photos of the universe captured public imagination, some amateurs were actually able to get time on the Hubble. About twelve years ago an anesthesiologist and amateur astronomer named Donald Parker took some remarkable photographs from his own telescope showing large storms on Jupiter. His images were so good that the Hubble was directed to observe the Jovian atmosphere to learn more about these storms.

Manned space flight is difficult, expensive, and dangerous. Although manned flight has been an integral part of the Hubble program, to eliminate this crown jewel of the US space program, and it's contributions to astronomy the world over, is an unfortunate and regrettable decision. If you want to explore the universe, unless someone develops a practical means of interstellar travel, you can hardly do better than the Hubble Space Telescope.