The brouhaha over Hubble illustrates the absurdity of political trying to run scientific enterprises. With the cost of the number of studies on how to save Hubble we could probably launch a replacement twice as good. It's just no way to run a business, although I doubt anyone would mistake NASA for a business. NASA has an impossible job with the 2nd guessing, constant oversite that never seems to stress effectiveness only political immediacy, need for bureaucratic cover the ass decisions. The white elephants of the Space Shuttle and even worse the ISS convinced me that NASA had been lost to the committees and bureaucrats and politicians. I fear that anything good that comes from NASA will have cost a factor 10 more than needed.

Specifically, on the Hubble issue, why can't we make a decisions and stick to it? Anyone that works in the real world of business, knows that not all decisions are correct, but that endless 2nd guessing and wrangling is worse than a fair share of wrong decisions.

I remember when the decision to build ISS was made, and that decision made me so angry, because I knew the cost to orbit was just too high to justify the ISS before we had developed a new generation of launchers with cheaper payloads than the shuttle could provide. I also knew the way they had rushed the first modules up to try to gain the momentum necessary to guarantee the commitment to build it. The absurd costs vs. science return of the ISS illustrates how easy it is to waste billions and billions.

Now, we all wait breathlessly as this same culture is going to attempt human piloted Lunar and Mars exploration programs. I love space exploration, and will follow every minor advance, but it turns my stomach whenever I think about how just a few common sense decisions could advance us so much farther for the same money. End of rant.