Helps if you read the whole article..

"These same sources, however, said they had not ruled out that the White House and NASA might be canceling the Hubble servicing mission as the opening gambit in the annual struggle that goes on every budget year, fully expecting that Congress will add money to the agency’s budget over the course of the year to pay for a mission that has strong public support."

So it doesn't sound like the fate of the Hubble is truely known and that most of it is speculation.

Also, given the difficulties re: the Hubble mission already, I actually think this was the right move.

Congress has two choices:
(1) Send humans to repair Hubble, despite NASA's safety guidelines (since Columbia) basically making it infeasable to do so unless they made a special exception for this mission. (See O'Keefe's unpopular statement to this effect a while back.)
(2) Send robots to repair Hubble, costing a lot of money and with no guarantee (or necessarily even likelihood) of success.
Either choice costs a lot of money and, at best, buys Hubble a few years; meanwhile the Webb telescope is approaching over the horizon, and some capabilities of Hubble are no longer so amazing what with giant "virtual telescopes" made by using arrays of earth-based telescopes. Also, tt's not as if we're just throwing away the many years of data we've already gotten from Hubble.

Of course, I'm biased; I love space, but as a libertarian I want to see private companies messing with it instead of the government (i.e. my tax dollars). But even setting that aside, I think cancelling the Hubble repair mission is at least ARGUABLY a good idea, and certainly not unarguably "a crying shame."

"NASA's safety guidelines (since Columbia) basically making it infeasable" is debatable. Also, doing a robotic mission would give a lot of experience in ..well... doing robotic missions :) Which, of course, would be very valuable with respect to future missions to moon/mars. And Webb doesn't do UV, IIRC...

What a silly line of reasoning. It's not like the war in Iraq came out of NASA's budget ... you could just as easily blame the tsumani relief or the new prescription benefits program for a shortage of money to spend on the telescope.

If you don't like the war, that's fine. If you think Hubble is worth the expense, that's your perogative. But don't try to draw connections where there aren't any. It just undercuts your persuasiveness on both issues.

Stick to the Mozilla stuff; it's why 99% of us read your blog.

Joe, this is my blog and I'll post what I like. If you don't like it, I won't miss you one bit when you stop coming here.

--Asa

av: but a lot of experience doing exactly what with robotic missions? This article: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6853009/ claims the cost for a repair mission would be north of $1 billion. That's a lot to spend on "experience doing robotic missions." Especially balanced against NASA's other costs (since from what I've read this issue is independent of how much NASA is getting in their budget; it wasn't as if Congress would have given them an _additional_ billion dollars to fix Hubble). For $1 billion, I'd much prefer more Mars missions than a few last years of Hubble, given what I said before about other instruments being able to achieve at least some of its capabilities now.

Asa:

So glad you're interested in constructive criticism!

Joe, if you want some constructive criticism yourself, your constructive criticism would be easier to take if it came with less vitriol.

Justin:

What, exactly, was vitriol? Calling it a "silly line of reasoning"? Saying that most people are here for the browser and not the politics?

That ain't exactly "cancer nazi".

Thanks for the feedback.

Joe, your telling me what to post and what not to post is not constructive criticism. It's just ill-mannered and impolite.

I don't come into your space and tell you what to say and I won't accept that kind of boorish behavior in in mine.

--Asa

The Hubble story may be equal in profundity as the war or attacks on our country or the discovery of nuclear fission or any other human endeavor; but for me, rarely has there ever been something so wholly noble, hopeful, and inspiring. It makes as a good paradigm to judge other achievements, especially to those holding the purse strings.

Joe,

Your attempt to 'constructive criticism'(sic) is flawed on many aspects:

1/ Policy is about making choices. Resources allocation decisions are part of these choices. There is no such thing as a 'Nasa Budget' and a 'God-told-me-to-kill-infidels' budget. Budgets are just a tool to manage resources allocation, and all these budget lines come from one source: tax-payer dollars. So, yes, it is legitimate to challenge the decisions of elected leader to allocate resource one way or another.... you call that 'silly line of reasoning', I call that 'civic responsability'.

2/ You tsunami analogy is flawed on a qualititative level: A tsunami cannot be avoided. Bush's crusades can.

3/ On a quantitative level, it is flawed too: the exepense level are not even close to be in the same leage: Bush's Holy War is costing amount in the hundreds of **Billions** of dollars.... The tsunami relief effort from the Federal Gov is about a **thousand** time less than that. Yep, a 0.1% overbudget in Bush's Wars would cover the tsunami, or for that matter the yearly Hubble program budget (all included).

Asa,
I tune into your blog because I think Mozilla has made my life easier and I want to know more, but not because I want to hear political rhetoric. I don't really care if you voice your opinion...its tough to offend me. However, if you do choose to voice your opinions, which you clearly have the right to do, you have to expect you may offend someone or at a minimum someone else will have an opposing view and with the comment box so easily accessed it's hard not to speak up. The plain reality is that talking about politics in conjunction with Mozilla stuff will not get you greater support as not everyone shares your views.
Having said that, it is your blog...write what you like, but expect opposition when you mention sensitive topics.

Tom, I think you misunderstood me. I don't mind people who have opposing view points. I do mind people coming in to my blog and telling me what I should and shouldn't be writing about. For those people, my only response is "piss off.". Had he come in here and stated some opposing view point, I'd have just read it and moved on. But that's not what happened.

--Asa

Yes, but I did state "some opposing view point" -- that the war in Iraq has no direct bearing on whether or not Hubble gets funding and the cause/effect relationship you blame is a bogus one.

Sheesh, I'm sorry I suggested that you stay on the topic of web browsers ... I didn't realize it was such a sensitive subject or that your readers' preferences are unwelcome.

Joe, "Stick to the Mozilla stuff" is not voicing a preference. That's an imperitive, a command.

This is my space and you're a guest here.

Spouting orders in the comments of my blog is either clumsy or boorish. Given your half apology, I'll assume it was just hurried and clumsy.

Perhaps in the future you could spend a second or two re-reading your comments before you post them, and ask yourself whether or not you think they are appropriate to an invited guest.

--Asa