Editorial: Saving a telescope

Thursday, Nov. 2, 2006 | 7:19 a.m.

NASA officials have announced that the Hubble Space Telescope will be repaired, rather than abandoned, in a $900 million rehabilitation mission set to take place in 2008.

The Hubble, launched in 1990, has needed repairs and an upgrade for some time. But NASA's previous chief nixed such a mission because of safety concerns after the 2003 Columbia space shuttle explosion. All seven members of that crew died.

Work on the Hubble is to begin in spring 2008 and will include five spacewalks by astronauts. The repairs and upgrades should keep the Hubble shooting until 2013.

Repairing Hubble is the environmentally sound thing to do. We ought to make sure we are reusing to the fullest extent the technological debris that we shoot into space.

But the more important reason for saving the Hubble is that it has shown us so much. Often referred to as "the people's telescope," the Hubble has shown images that, as one scientist told the Associated Press, "transmit the magic of space in a way that words cannot."

The Hubble has documented the existence of hundreds of young galaxies in the early universe, giving scientists unprecedented clues as to how galaxies are formed. It has sent back images of a rare lunar eclipse of Uranus and has shown us the ragged remains of a star's explosive end.

It is worth the effort to repair this amazing window on the universe, which may one day help us understand not only what is out there, but also how it all began.