Space/Science — HabitableZone

Space/Science » in reply to if you don't periodically scrap things...

There's a reason why the Air Force no longer flies P-51s and F-86s
Larry J — (archived)

Those were outstanding planes in their day but their day was over decades ago. They'd no longer be combat effective in today's battlespace environment and the maintenance required to keep them operational would be prohibitively expensive.

Sometimes, you have to let things go no matter the sentimental attachment. We've spent several billion dollars building, launching, maintaining, and operating the Hubble. Given the advances in telescope technology, continuing to spend at least a few hundred million dollars a year on the HST just doesn't sound like the best use for limited resources, especially at the expense of newer and more capable instruments under development. The same goes for sending a Shuttle mission to retrieve the HST for display in the Smithsonian. Is that the best use of a Shuttle mission, especially given that there won't be very many more of them.

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