Scientists, Public Fighting to Keep Telescope Alive

Feb. 2, 2004 — -- Perched about 375 miles above Earth, a powerful eye has tracked everything from the speed of our expanding universe to the weather on Mars to the presence of a mysterious force known as dark energy.

Now people are unwilling to let go of its lens. A torrent of protest from the public and scientific community has led NASA's chief Sean O'Keefe to review his decision to effectively cut Hubble's lifespan by five to six years by canceling an upcoming service mission.

The outcry is testament to the telescope's years of discovery, and perhaps, more importantly, to the stream of tantalizing space images it has produced for a rapt public.

"The scientific community is very upset, the public is very upset," said Bruce Margon, associate director for science at the Space Telescope Science Institute. "It just goes to show you have to list public science literacy as one of Hubble's best achievements."

Trip, Not Telescope in Question

O'Keefe's announced on Jan. 16 that the agency was canceling a 2005 shuttle mission to provide the Hubble Space Telescope with fresh batteries and gyroscopes — a trip that would have extended its operating life another five to six years.

Since then people have sent 400 e-mails every day to protest the move. Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., sent a joint letter of protest from all members of Congress from Maryland, where the telescope's operations are based. And scientists working on the project have been scrambling to find a way to salvage the telescope without the service mission.

All that ruckus led O'Keefe to finally concede and reassess his decision on Thursday by asking retired Adm. Harold Gehman, who chaired the independent board that investigated the Columbia disaster, for his thoughts on the matter.

"I asked him, 'Would you be available to look at this and offer your view?' " O'Keefe told reporters. "So we'll see."

It's not that NASA decided the telescope wasn't worth the trouble. The telescope has more than proven its worth. Since 1990, it has helped scientists determine the exact age of the universe (13.7 billion years), discover planets outside our solar system and confirm the existence of black holes.

Rather, NASA says the decision to allow Hubble to meet an early demise was one based on priorities and safety.

Safe Base Issue

In the wake of last year's Columbia disaster, and the recent presidential mandate to build a base on the moon and travel to Mars, NASA officials have pared down space shuttle missions, leaving any remaining shuttle missions to service the International Space Station.

There's also the consideration that a shuttle sent to service the Hubble telescope would not be able to dock at the shelter of the space station (the station and the telescope are in different orbits). The space station offers shuttle crews the option to remain aboard until a rescue craft could be dispatched in the event of an emergency.

As a result, O'Keefe initially decided the fifth and final scheduled trip to Hubble in 2005 won't happen and the bus-sized telescope will likely only last until 2006, rather than 2012.

But scientists aren't giving up yet.

The director of Hubble's institute, Steven Beckwith, has dispatched astronomers to work on ways of prolonging the telescope's life from devising strategies to save battery juice to limiting the telescope's focus to a few important spots in space.

Meanwhile, the public has taken matters into their own hands. Michael Paolucci, president of savethehubble.org, a grassroots campaign to save the telescope, says more than 3,000 people have used a letter form on his site to protest the decision.

"If it's a question of human risk, it doesn't ring true when the president has just announced we're going to Mars and the moon — missions that are much riskier and grander in their scope and scale," he said.

(Paolucci, a businessman with a technical background, has somewhat of a personal stake in keeping up public interest in space with projects like Hubble. His Web site, Slooh.com, permits browsers to control an earthbound telescope from their computers for an annual $49 fee.)

Passing the Torch

NASA is quick to point out that while service missions to Hubble will end, another powerful telescope is due to launch by 2011. The James Webb Space telescope will be stationed much further from Earth — about 1.5 million kilometers away — and is designed to detect distant planets and galaxies in infrared — a light level not visible to the human eye.

The infra red camera will allow astronomers to peer further back in time, and is expected to lead to the discovery of more planets outside our solar system and shed light on how stars and galaxies began to form.

Telescopes can see back in time by viewing the faint light of the past that has spread further away. As light expands, only infrared wavelengths become visible and these are what Webb is designed to see best.

"We calculate we should be able to see the first stars when the universe was only 200 million years old," said John Mather, senior project scientist with the Webb telescope.

Still, there are some things the Webb won't be able to see that Hubble can, such as the makeup of matter between galaxies.

Margon explains that before Hubble began watching the skies in 1990, scientists believed most of the atoms in the universe are congealed into galaxies. Hubble revealed the gaps between galaxies are also packed with atoms. The Webb telescope won't have the benefit of ultraviolet cameras to peer into these gaps.

Hubble also unveiled a mysterious force at work when it showed that galaxies are pulling away from each other at an increasing rate, despite the attractive force of gravity. By tallying the telescope's data, scientists showed so-called dark energy is the major component in the universe.

"Now we know we're not even made up of what most of our universe is made of," said Margon. "Atoms turn out to be just a footnote."

Paolucci, meanwhile, is concerned that the Webb telescope won't be able produce the same kind of "pretty pictures" that Hubble supplied in spades since it will be watching space in infrared, rather than visible light. But Mather assures they'll be able to produce stunning photographs from the Webb telescope.

"We can adjust the colors in pretty ways so people can appreciate them," he said.

Mind the Gap

Different vision and pretty pictures aside, probably the main concern among astronomers is the possible long gap between having a seeing-eye in space.

The new telescope is due to launch in 2011 but NASA launches have a record of setting off late. The fact that the president recently outlined an expensive mandate to send people to the moon and possibly Mars could further derail funding and push off the launch.

Michael Brown, an astronomer at the California Institute of Technology, used Hubble to spot a massive asteroid nearly the size of Pluto in 2002 and recently made another, yet unannounced discovery using the space telescope. He expects that delays could lead to a gap of 10 years without a working telescope in space.

"We've gotten used to discovering something from the ground and then seeing it in greater detail from space. Now we're probably going to have to wait a decade to figure out what we're seeing," he said.

Still, even if lobbyists and scientists don't manage to extend the aging telescope's operating life, Brown adds there is some consolation: "Hubble has already given us a great ride."