MORE PLANETS: It is a truly exciting time for science

[aTOMiC]

www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5876835/?GT1=5100

It seems were going to be flooded with new information as discoveries are made on a daily basis. I feel bad for the writers of text books but feel great for the rest of us. Astronomy Rocks! (no pun intended)

[lurch]

...Update....150 extraSolar planets and counting..2/10/05....MEL

[Cheval]

With the rapid-growing technology that comes out, and with the Hubble Space Telescope,
I would not be surprised that "new" planets will be found every few weeks or so.
Look at how many galaxies that were recently discovered.
Surely there are hundreds of thousands of planets that waiting to be discovered within these galaxies.
(And I wonder how many "Earth-like" planets are out there.
Not necessarily having life on them, but just capable of life.
Even if there was "life" on them, would we be able to recognize it as "life"?)

[dennisrwood]

you do realize that the Bush jr team is shutting down the Hubble?

[The 24th Myth]

you do realize that the Bush jr team is shutting down the Hubble?

Wha Wha?? Is there anything he doesn't botch up? Do you have a link?

[I'm Murrin]

The claim is it's too much money and effort to repair it, so they're not going to.

[Cail]

you do realize that the Bush jr team is shutting down the Hubble?

Do you realize you're completely wrong? The NASA budget was increased 2.4 percent by your buddy Bush.

As for Hubble, O'Keefe said the National Academy of Sciences panel presented such a bleak assessment of a robotic mission to install new parts on the space telescope that it made little sense to presume success and, consequently, no money was put aside for such an endeavor.

"We'll see. In a month's time, there may be an epiphany," O'Keefe said. "But I think it's going to be a very difficult mountain, a steep hill, to climb."

O'Keefe reiterated his long-held view that a shuttle flight to Hubble poses too many dangers in the wake of the Columbia catastrophe.

"It is a judgment call and this is a judgment call that is my responsibility for however period of time that I reside here," said O'Keefe, who will leave NASA in less than two weeks to assume the chancellor's job at Louisiana State University.

[I'm Murrin]

NASA does not intend to repair the Hubble Space Telescope, officials confirmed on Monday. But politicians immediately vowed to fight the controversial decision, which came as part of the US president's 2006 budget request to Congress.

The proposed $16.5 billion NASA budget includes just $93 million for Hubble, far less than would be needed to repair it. Of that amount, $75 million is intended to develop a robotic mission to de-orbit the telescope into the ocean.

Hubble is starting to show its age and without a repair mission it is expected to fail irreversibly by 2007. The new budget includes $18 million to try to extend its life by up to a year by allowing the telescope to function with just two gyroscopes instead of the standard three.

[matrixman]

Yes, it's sad about the future of Hubble, but that's still a couple of years away and in the meantime it's still taking fantastic pictures of the universe. I celebrate its remarkable achievements over the years in the name of astronomy. A toast to Hubble!

[Cail]

On a quick side note, my father was the chief guidance systems engineer for the Hubble. He joined the project in 1978-1979, retired in 1991. The fact that the Hubble got built at all is an absolute miracle, the shame of it is that it was so compromised, this was bound to happen. Believe me, I wish there was one person I could blame for HST's failure, unfortunately, there isn't.

[matrixman]

Thanks for letting us know about your father's role in Hubble, Cail! That's major WOW.

When we go back and recall Hubble's initial "blurred" vision that made the telescope a laughing stock in the media and public, it makes the subsequent wealth of beautiful images from Hubble's "corrected" vision that much more satisfying. Despite the compromises and the flaws, the Hubble telescope still ended up delivering the goods.

I don't know what NASA's post-Hubble plan is, but I assume some blueprint is in place for another space telescope somewhere down the line, naturally more powerful than Hubble. I hope such a project will be one of the beneficiaries of NASA's funding increase.

[Cail]

One would certainly hope so. My wife is a science teacher, and acted as a liason between NASA and our county's schools, so she's got a ton of HST-related stuff too. I've still got an old (pre-launch) poster that says, "In 1982 man will be able to see to the edge of the universe". Didn't quite happen, but still, it's amazing what HST has brought in.

[dennisrwood]

funding from FY 2004 to FY 2005 in a table entitled, "Federal Science and Technology Budget." These numbers do not necessarily include changes in program content:

NIST Intramural Research and Facilities: Up 20%
National Science Foundation: Up 3%
National Institutes of Health: Up 3%
NASA Space Science: Up 2%
NASA: Up 1%
Department of Energy Science Programs: Down 1%
U.S. Geological Survey: Down 2%
Defense Basic Research: Down 4%
NASA Earth Science: Down 8%
NOAA: Down 11%
Defense Science and Technology: Down 11%
Defense Applied Research: Down 13%
NIST Advanced Technology Program: Down 100%


Richard M. Jones
Media and Government Relations Division
American Institute of Physics

[lurch]

...Well..there is replacement for the Hubble telescope..I have not its name,,but its to be bigger and thus even more capable of peering back in time. So,,yes,,the Hubble will probably be allowed to take a dive into the ocean,,there is a replacement in the works....Also there is incredible science being done currently by the Chandra and other space born telescopes. And,,with adaptive optics now being installed on earth bound very large telescopes,,they too are seeing into the incredible past,very well at that...So,,in being a realist on the subject,,perhaps the first views offered by the Hubbles replacement will allow folks to gently place the Hubble into the fond memorybanks and deal with the new discoverys offered.............MEL

[dennisrwood]

i'm afraid that much money will be wasted on the manned flight to Mars. and a program that works like Hubble will vanish. hell, how much are we spending on the Star Wars defense system?

www.acq.osd.mil/mda/mdalink/html/mdalink.html

At first glance, this may sound like a prudent step. North Korea is on the verge of restarting its long-dormant nuclear-weapons program; it is also developing long-range ballistic missiles. (It's another matter to miniaturize the nukes and fit them on the missiles, but let us stipulate the possibility.) A closer look, however, reveals some drawbacks to this haste: a) By the MDA's own admission, the $9.1 billion—on top of the $73 billion appropriated for missile-defense R&D over the past 19 years—buys little, if any, protection in the near future; b) in the longer run, again by their own testimony, the MDA's managers don't know where the program is going, what it will look like, when it will be finished, or how much it will cost; and c) the program is still technologically immature—some of its most vital elements have yet to be built, even as prototypes.

the above from the following
slate.msn.com/id/2078882#ContinueArticle