Save the hubble space telescope

by Ricardo Rodriguez
Web Content Producer

Photo: NASA/GSFS - HST as seem from the Columbia space shuttle on 3/9/2002

“Ask not what your Hubble can do for you. Ask what you can do for your Hubble.” That's what the Save the Hubble Web site is urging planet Earth residents to do.

Since NASA's mid-January announcement that its plan to forgo a Hubble maintenance mission in 2006, professional and amateur astronomers alike have been questioning the decision.

Since the destruction of the space shuttle Columbia on Feb. 1, 2003, NASA chief Sean O'Keefe decided to cancel the fifth and final mission of this decade to service the Hubble Space Telescope. He says the risks for servicing the HST are not worth the risk to the lives of astronauts.

Photo: Fernando Ribeiro - founder of SaveTheHubble.com

Fernando Ribeiro is promoting a grass-roots effort to save the Hubble. His Web site, Save the Hubble, encourages visitors to petition NASA and their congressional leaders to continue servicing the Hubble.

"The HST is such an important, complex, fascinating and cost/benefit effective instrument that it is hard to imagine someone could ever suggest it should be dumped into the ocean, let alone NASA itself," he told BBC News Online.

Fernando Ribeiro first heard of the HST's proposed demise from the Internet.

"I sat in front of the monitor and stared at it for several minutes recollecting all the facts I knew about Hubble; its planning, building, the flawed mirror, the device to fix it, the book I had: Gems of the Hubble. I thought about the loss it meant to the whole human race."

Since the inception of his Web site, he has received thousands of visitors. He has petitions that both Americans and "Planet Earth" residents can sign, which will be sent to the U.S. Congress and NASA. This petition outlines a request to continue servicing the HST until its slated retirement, well beyond 2013. Since Feb. 6, his site has received over 2,300 signatures.

“Let the voters say: ‘We don't want to go to the Moon! We want to go to infinity and beyond!’,” said Fernando Ribeiro.

In the event of a problem, astronauts would not be able to reach the safety of the International Space Station. Even the most loyal Hubble fan can see the logic in O'Keefe's decision, but professional astronomers are concerned with the amount of time it would take NASA to create a solution that would meet NASA's latest safety concerns.

Still, many more astronomers argue the incredible scientific breakthroughs that were discovered through the Hubble - mysterious matter that causes the universe to expand - which were impossible to observe from Earth-based telescopes. But, are the costs for the information worth it?

Retired Admiral Harold Gehman was the chairman of the Columbia investigation. He told National Public Radio that he called for a new assesment on the risks of future Hubble missions. Sean O'Keefe is drafting a letter to the National Academy of Sciences, asking them for advice on his decision to put an early stop to servcing the Hubble.

Photo: Supergiant star V838 Monocerotis Resembling Vincent van Gogh's "Starry Night" is Hubble's latest view of an expanding halo of light around a distant star.

Ray Villard, spokesman for the Space Telescope Science Institute, has stated,

“The Hubble has been continually upgraded and has the best camera and best equipment it's ever had,” said Ray Villard, spokesman for the Space Telescope Science Institute, “It's fully capable of doing exciting and groundbreaking science. Everybody at the institute is tremendously disappointed.”

The Hubble, unlike most satellites, does not have a propulsion system. It maintains its orbit and adjusts it direction through a series of six gyroscopes. Currently, only four are functional, and at least three are needed to maintain its functionality. Its next retrofit is scheduled for 2006. However, the retrofit is being reconsidered by NASA's O'Keefe.

If left unserviced, its remaining gyroscopes would eventually degrade, and it would begin to loose orbit. Much of it would burn up in the atmosphere. Some of it may fall in populated areas. That's why NASA devised a $300 billion plan to launch a Delta rocket which would grapple the HST and pull it into the Pacific Ocean.

NASA states that the Hubble Space Telescope's orbit is not in any immediate danger of degrading. One study concluded that it could stay in orbit until 2013 before it would start falling to Earth.

The original plan involved the Hubble Space Telescope to be retrieved at the end of its life and placed in a museum. NASA now plans a more unceremonious demise for the telescope: crashing it into the ocean.

Graphical model of the JSST Credit: Northrop Grumman Space Technology

While many scientists have been impressed with the Hubble's performance, they are eager for the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) in 2013. It was named after the NASA administrator that oversaw the Apollo missions.

The Webb telescope will be able to see back to the very beginning of time. The Hubble currently sees only nine-tenths back to the Big Bang. The Webb telescope is more powerful than the Hubble and its ability to observe at infrared wavelengths, unlike the visible and ultraviolet wavelengths the Hubble can observe.

John Marther, the senior project scientist for the JWST ssaid, “With the Webb, we'll have a chance to see the very first things that lit up after the Big Bang. We have a lot of theories of what that might be, but almost no information.”

Marther emphasized that the JWST was not meant as a replacement for the HST. The JWST was designed to compliment the HST.