Baltimore
NASA last week promised to reconsider plans to abandon the Hubble Space Telescope to an early death. Under orders from President Bush to return to the moon, the space agency in mid-January decided to cancel a 2006 shuttle mission to upgrade the orbiting telescope. Without the tuneup, Hubble will flicker out before its scheduled retirement, in 2010. Astronomers flooded the space agency and the Hubble lab, in Baltimore, with pleas to keep the telescope sending back photos. “Its ability to peer into the distant universe is unparalleled,” said scientist Bruce Betts. NASA asked a retired Navy admiral to study whether was it worth the risk to launch the shuttle mission to keep Hubble functioning.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
China looms large over India and Pakistan's latest violenceIN THE SPOTLIGHT Beijing may not have had troops on the ground, but as South Asia's two nuclear powers bared their teeth over Kashmir, China eyed opportunity in its own backyard
-
Where the new Pope Leo XIV stands on various issuesThe Explainer The first American pontiff is expected to continue some of his predecessor's work
-
What's wrong with America's air traffic control systems?Today's Big Question The radios and radar keep going out at Newark International
