Hubble plug to be pulled

60 minutes had a piece on Sean O'Keefe's decision to no longer support the
Hubble Space Telescope. His reasoning: it's too risky. Supporting the
space station is okay because if the shuttle is damaged and cannot reenter,
they can always board the ISS and wait for a rescue mission. The Hubble
mission would not have a rescue option. So the current effort to put
together an upgrade package to keep the telescope and its research alive for
another decade may not come to pass.

Maybe I'm missing something here, but isn't ANY form of exploration
accompanied by risk? If we accept the President's challenge to go to Mars,
will we only do so if we have a solid, low risk, plan B? (Did Armstrong,
Aldrin, and Collins even contemplate a plan B?)

NASA's chief scientist John Grunsfeld (two Hubble missions) seems to
equivocate:

From 60 minutes transcript
"I still think that Hubble is a tremendous resource and was worth risking my
life for," says Grunsfeld. "But Columbia changed all of that in a very
fundamental way. We now know more about the risks of the space shuttle than
we ever knew before."

Does he think that flying to Hubble is more dangerous than flying to the
space station?

"If everything goes perfectly on a mission, I would say it's comparable
risk," says Grunsfeld. "But we've seen from Columbia that things don't
always go perfectly. And it's that fundamental difference that on a Hubble
flight if something goes wrong you run out of options very quickly. And on
these space station flights we have lots of options."
Snip

Was worth it, but evidently no longer? We've all been there ... lose a
wingman, watch a friend hit the ramp ... when the risks suddenly seem very
real, very personal, and quite possible. Then you shake it off, put your
gear on, strap in and do it.

But not NASA.

R / John