January 16, 2004

Hubble Shots This makes me stop and realize that my company's annual report and the daily butt kicking I receive for it are vastly less important than I make them out to be.
posted by f8xmulder 20 years ago
  • Wow. I am just an insignificant blob on a tiny speck of a planet... Humbling, and beautiful too.
  • is it just me, or does that blob in the upper-left of the first photo look like a hand flipping somebody off?
  • Majestic. Unfortunately, it might end sooner than expected.
  • Hmph. The Hubble program has coined scientific gold for NASA time and again. I doubt seriously that it's funding will be cut in favor some sky-pie moonbase plan by a president whose grasp of space science is widely know to be not exactly Einsteinian in scope.
  • The BBC has picked up on it as well.
  • I hope that Hubble isn't being abandoned. Being a space enthusiast (possible obsessive) - and the son of a physicist and satellite engineer, so obviously I am fairly biased - but Hubble has probably been the most scientifically important and effective of NASA's missions - along with Voyager and Gallileo, probably - and to see it abandoned would be a shame, especially as, as far as I know, no replacement is currently in development. A sad day - if true - for astronomy, in particular, and science in general. I hope this is a misunderstaning, somewhere. (Also, SideDish, you are not alone) /self aggrandising comment of the day
  • Fez: I do so hope you're right. The view Hubble has provided us into the development of the universe makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up - in a good way. The unimaginable made viewable. Over the years, I've kind of begun to imagine that Hubble is a being of some sort. I know it's lenses and electronics and stuff, but what it's given me (us) feels personal and satisfies a craving I didn't know I had. I should undoubtedly give the credit to the scientists who put it up there and kept it going, but they've stayed in the background to the point where seems it's Hubble that did it all. If they can't keep it going, they should at least bring it back safely. Hubble wouldn't care, but I would.
  • I hope none of you are forgetting about Hubble's brothers and sisters. You know, it's not all about pretty pictures (although NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has brought us some nice ones). Hubble was already planned to be replaced in 2008 by the James Webb Space Telescope long ago. The only difference now it's that, instead trying to extend it's life circle because of the delay of the JWST launch to 2011, and then try to recover it for the Smithsonian, they will let it just decay and finally plunge into the ocean by 2013. And that was already being discussed by astronomers back in July. It's still uncertain if the JWST mission will be delayed more or if it will be cancelled. But cosmological projects are considered high profile by NASA and the scientific community in general (and they have strong public support also) so, it's pretty sure it will carry on.
  • No love for Hubble bastards!!
  • Ah, good ol' Hubble.