Bush to announced manned mission to Mars and permanent base on moon

[Ted Striker]

Space Shuttle and Space Telescope have been CANCELLED

Don't know if anyone has mentioned this yet, I know the shuttle was mentioned, but the shuttle is set to retire in 2010 and the Space Telescope is set to retire ASAP.

I can understand cutting the shuttle (about damn time) but it would be nice to still have the space telescope around. There isn't any other piece of equipment that could possibly replace it.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/01/16/hubble.telescope.ap/index.html

[Ted Striker]

All in all though I think this is a great push by Bush. (What a rhymer I am).

The shuttle program should have been scrapped a LONG time ago.

[Ted Striker]

oh i just read that there is a better telescope set to go up in 2011

Hubble will die off in 2008

[The Mad Monk]

With a moon base, we could build immense telecopes on the moon, at a much lower cost.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Ted Striker
All in all though I think this is a great push by Bush. (What a rhymer I am).

The shuttle program should have been scrapped a LONG time ago.

Wrong, the Shuttle program should never have been built in the first place. Any craft that could not go to the Moon was a strategic mistake as it was a major step backwards in capability.

[Ned]

How will they deal with dust on the moon? I can see it clogging/covering everything in a very short time, including telescopes.

[Inverse Icarus]

theres no wind, so the only dust that would matter would b stuff we kicked up ourselves, right?

[Verto]

Originally posted by Uber KruX
theres no wind, so the only dust that would matter would b stuff we kicked up ourselves, right?

Which could be a considerable amount.

[Inverse Icarus]

well, i'm assuming biospeheres would be set up. once the building was created, there wouldn't be "moon dust" inside.

there would be regular dust though, wouldn't there? from dead skin cells et al.

[KrazyHorse]

Everybody at Hopkins' extremely large astro community is up in arms about this. There's a good likelihood that Bush's plan for NASA's budget will destroy any hope of next-gen space telescopes, and a certainty that it will force an early retirement of Hubble.

[Ted Striker]

Originally posted by Ned


Wrong, the Shuttle program should never have been built in the first place. Any craft that could not go to the Moon was a strategic mistake as it was a major step backwards in capability.

No, the shuttle was a good program, in it's time. There are plenty of other things we can learn from space besides going to the moon.

The shuttle drastically reduced the costs. The Apollo program was insanley expensive.

It was a good program. But now it's time to move on to bigger and better things.

[DanS]

Well, there was a big debate about when to retire Hubble. I don't think this moves up the retirement much. And it's not likely to upset plans for the follow-on telescope. What some in the astro community (JH) may have been looking for is a funding double-dip: ramp up funding on the follow-on telescope while keeping Hubble as is. Their hopes may have been running a little ahead of reasonable expectations.

The fact is that Shuttle and the Space Station need to go ASAP. There is a $5.5 billion annual unproductive hole in the space budget because of these programs right now. These programs, especially Shuttle, are contractor wet dreams. Do nothing but maintenance and get paid billions to do it every single year.

The Shuttle was great, but needed retirement earlier. The Station was ill advised from the beginning, because it isn't a building block for any other goals.

[KrazyHorse]

Moves up retirement at least 5 years according to my sources

BTW, the control centre to Hubble is across the street from my building.

[DanS]

See my DanS above regarding those astro boys wanting to double-dip.

[KrazyHorse]

They wanted to keep Hubble operating until next telescope came online. It's not good for data to come in fits and starts. Leads to a lot of unproductive years.