Posted by
Bill Crawford on Thursday, May 28, 2009 12:47:45 PM
We just spent almost a billion dollars repairing the Hubble telescope once again. From the stand point of pure science, I can't think of a better investment. That device has been a godsend to physics research since it went into action around 1990, and it has been improved even more by the last Shuttle mission.
It has provided us with more information about the origins of the Universe and the nature of missing or "dark" matter than any terrestrial super collider can give us.
This is not a trillion dollar super collider, smashing particles together at near light speeds to imitate early Unverse conditions and try to match theory. This is real time, real world. It has done more to get us closer to Einstein's vaunted Unified Field Theory than all the humans who have tried since Albert died in 1955.
This is Hubble's last gasp, the five to ten years it will grace us with, until the even more powerful James Webb telescope is launched into what essentially will be a solar orbit beyond the Moon.
On to other things topical. The Shuttle will soon be retired, and it can't happen fast enough. It's capacity served us well over the last twenty years, but it was based on a few misnomers. First, that a fixed wing craft that could land on a runway would make it into a utility vehichle that would run a regular schedule. Second, that there was ANY constructive notion that humans should be launched in any configuration save top of the stack, in case of problems in the boost phase (as the Challenger astronauts learned the hard way). Third, that the glue holding the heat shield tiles on should be scrapped and replaced with something more environmentally friendly, which did in another unlucky seven.
The upcoming Orion series is reusable and all of it, including every non-escape velocity staging device, is capable of re-entry and chute retrieval. It may just cover the gap and keep us going into orbit until the final answer is achieved before the end of the century: elevator cables running up to a platform in geosynchronous orbit.
The plan is to return to the moon eventually. As with Mars, the search will be on for water sources. Where there is water, there is air, drinking water and fuel. Water is the key.