Comments on: Happy birthday, HST!

By: Melusine

Melusine — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 15:09:18 +0000

Anthony, what substances do you add to your coffee in the morning?

By: Anthony

Anthony — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 13:56:33 +0000

If only Marilyn Monroe were around to sing “Happy Birthday” to Hubble! (Would Marilyn Manson be a proper substitute?)
Is it true that when Kennedy said “ich eine Berliner” some people thought he was saying “I am a jelly doughnut” or is this merely Ann Coulter recycled?
And where oh where is Planet X? My stock at the office certainly nosedived since 2003, when I went around screaming about “the end of the world as we know it”! (Or was that because REM is considered “so 90s” by the folks I work with?)

By: Melusine

Melusine — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 12:58:04 +0000

For longevity and breadth of “giving back to the public,” Hubble rivals the Apollo program, imho. Not that I don’t like rockets, and it was because of my visit to KSC and going ~ooh, wow, cool~ over the Saturn V, that I ended up on Phil’s Bad Astronomy site here. But Hubble has given 16 years and tons of wallpapers to boot; it’s still living and thriving, even if at times in fits and starts. And with all the cool Mars images et al, Hubble is still grand, as evidenced by the Pinwheel Galaxy images produced not so long ago.

And though we all know it is hours and much work done by the men and women behind the Oz curtain of Hubble that produces all these mind-blowing pictures, Hubble still seems to have a life of its own. When they talked about letting Hubble fly off into the ether, so to speak, grown men (and women) at the observatory were practically in tears discussing it. Really.

Either Hubble has to live, or have a child. ~Lol~ Bourgeois Nerd, it should be obvious what Hubble’s birthday present should be.

By: Kaptain K

Kaptain K — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 09:23:04 +0000

If NASA lets this magnificent machine die, it will be a shame!

By: Chip

Chip — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 03:23:12 +0000

Bob â€“
I don’t recall the hard news media saying it was “worthless”, just that there was disappointment with the images. The mission to correct the mirror problem was yet another technological accomplishment, which the media, including science journals duly reported.

Global warming is off-topic to Hubble, though it is a real phenomenon and is currently suspected to be peculiarly balanced by something not as often reported, global dimming, caused by air pollution. This could lead to serious climatic problems in the near future.

Aside from Hubble, there are other orbiting spacecraft that monitor Earth’s land and sea changes and climatic conditions, and are highly helpful in this on-going research.

By: Bourgeois Nerd

Bourgeois Nerd — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 01:13:42 +0000

Happy Birthday, HST! But what DO you get for a space telescope? And how much do you think NASA would charge to deliver it? *LOL*

By: Cindy

Cindy — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 00:37:06 +0000

Bob,

Maybe you’re thinking of the announcement on June 27, 1990 about the spherical aberration of the primary mirror? (I remember the date very well as it was my birthday and I was working on Hubble at the time!)

At the time of the launch, nobody knew about the problems with the mirror. It wasn’t until Hubble started looking at objects in May and June of 1990 did anyone realize the problem. NASA then looked back at the data from grinding of the mirror and realized it was ground wrong. Because NASA then knew how it was ground wrong, corrective optics could then be made to correct for the problem.