The Trouble with Hubble
No one knew, when the Hubble telescope was launched, that it was going to be a star-of-the-show on the level of Galileo, Marco Polo or Magellan. But it was and the photographs it sent back mesmerized the public and the science-side is for the scientists, but we can make a pretty good guess that it’s unparalleled.
But like all good things, it must come to an end and like all things that go up, it must someday come down and therein lies the rub. The NASA Administrator, a guy by the name of Sean O’Keefe, does his administrating in the best tradition of administrators, which is gun-shy, snake-bit, timid and not likely to stick his neck out. Challenger sapped all O’Keefe’s courage and if you have an administrator-mindset it’s hard to fault him. Heads roll when those things break up in mid mission and O’Keefe’s going to make damned sure his head isn’t one of them. He sure wasn’t going to send another squad of astronauts up and into harm’s way for some hunk of machinery and so he decided to l…