As many of you have probably heard, NASA Director Sean O'Keefe recently
announced the cancellation of the next Hubble Space Telescope servicing
mission. The reasons are complicated but boil down to two basic things:
money and fear of losing another Shuttle. Many throughout the
astronomical/general science community and at least one congress woman
have mounted a campaign to try and get O'Keefe to reconsider. Details on
what is going on and how you can help are at (see the links at the
bottom of the story for background info):
I would encourage any of you who touch on astronomy in your classes to
educate your students in the the benefits of unmanned space missions.
HST and its fellow space observatories (Chandra X-Ray, Spitzer IR,
Compton Gamma-ray Observatories) are safe missions that do good science.
The International Space Station does not have the same track record for
research. As Bush tries to push forward with his plans to send men to
the Moon and Mars, we need to find ways to protect research funds by
reminding the public that NASA does more than put men in space.