House Science Panel Questions NASA Officials About Budget
Feb. 18–In their first opportunity to face NASA administrators since the agency’s budget ruled out repairs to the ailing Hubble Space Telescope, members of Congress on Thursday questioned why a repair mission had seemingly evaporated after growing enthusiasm for the idea.
Of the $93 million for the Hubble in the budget proposed last week, $75 million was earmarked for a suicide craft that will guide the telescope into a final descent into the ocean once its usefulness has run out. Another $18 million was to be used for software upgrades that would allow Hubble to continue doing science after its worn-out parts inevitably begin to fail.
The House Science Committee on Thursday heard testimony from NASA officials about the agency’s proposed $16.5 billion budget for the coming year. The fiscal 2006 budget, directed by the White House, includes a proposal for $858 million for Mars and lunar exploration, but would reduce spending in some space science programs, including Hubble.
“Congress has never endorsed, in fact has never discussed, the vision,” said committee chairman Sherwood Boehlert (R-N.Y.).
Though still functioning well, Hubble is aging quickly, its life ebbing out through fading gyroscopes and tiring batteries. The telescope will plunge to Earth in 2012 without equipment upgrades and a boost into higher orbit. Its science effectiveness is expected to peter out in 2007.
Astronaut safety concerns have hamstrung plans to rescue the satellite since early last year, when departing NASA administrator Sean O’Keefe said the benefits of prolonging Hubble’s life through a space shuttle servicing visit were not worth the risk to the crew.
A proposal to fix the Hubble with a remote-control robot–embraced by O’Keefe as recently as last summer–has been all but dismissed as impractical.
The suggestion came after Congress and O’Keefe bent to public outcry and ordered further studies of Hubble’s immediate future. In recent months, those studies bolstered astronomers’ contention that Hubble’s best years appear to be ahead of it and that a shuttle mission would not be as dangerous as earlier thought.
But no sooner had Hubble’s supporters breathed a sigh of relief than the telescope seemed pointed toward trouble once more.
While astronaut safety is still at the core of NASA’s opposition to a shuttle mission to Hubble, congressmen on Thursday questioned budget proposals that allow 28 flights to the International Space Station in coming years, but none to fix Hubble.
“The Hubble telescope in a week will do more and better science than we are likely to do in the lifetime of the International Space Station,” Rep. Vernon Ehlers (R-Mich.) told NASA officials before the House Science Committee. “What I see before me now very much appears to me to be justifying a decision that was made in haste.”
Recently, NASA has moved beyond the safety question to argue a repair mission would cost between $1 billion and $2 billion. Earlier estimates from the space agency were near $500 million.
Astronomy fans, hoping to reverse a tide that appears to be moving against Hubble, have turned to Internet communities and taken up letter-writing campaigns to support the far-seeing telescope.
Several groups have posted special Internet pleas to their memberships. Angry letters have made their way to the White House and Hubble headquarters. One group, www.savethehubble.org, has raised $15,000 in pledges and 42,000 signatures on a petition, but is unsure what exactly to do with either.
“A good start, but it’s not enough,” said Michael Paolucci, president Telescope Time Inc., which runs the site. “I don’t understand why they can’t come up with this money.”
“All of the e-mail that I’ve gotten has expressed outrage,” said Steven Beckwith, director of the Space Telescope Science Institute, which manages the Hubble.
Besides the steps toward Mars and lunar missions, NASA Deputy Adminstrator Frederick Gregory on Thursday said other major priorities for the space agency this year included returning the space shuttle to flight within two years of the Columbia disaster and completing the International Space Station.
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