The HST costs several hundred million dollars a year to operate and maintain (amortizing the necessary half-billion to one billion dollar plus of the recurring Shuttle missions every few years along with the costs of the ground equipment and staff). If we had unlimited resources to devote to scientific data gathering, then we should keep everything.
However, we don't live in a world of unlimited financial resources so we have to make hard decisions. For the cost of operating and maintaining the HST for a few years, we can build a few ground based telescopes that cost a fraction as much to operate once built. In the end, which solution gives us the most scientific value? Sentimentality is all well and good but sometimes, we have to say that a system has reached the end of its operational usefulness.
There are EM wavelengths that don't penetrate the atmosphere very well or at all. For those wavelengths, there probably is no alternative to space based observatories. For those wavelenghts that penetrate the atmosphere, ground-based systems with adaptive optics are a much more cost effective solution.
Space/Science » in reply to re: What a bizarre notion...
If we had unlimited resources then by all means we should maintain the Hubble
The whole thread (50 posts)
- Must Hubble be saved?
- re: To control it's deorbit we would still need to visit Hubble.
- Another idea
- Here's an idea
- re: What a bizarre notion...
- Hurts to say it...
- re: Yes!
- Wasn't Spitzer intended to replace the HST, in which case it is obsolete?