Saving the Hubble Telescope Is a Job Worth Paying For

tech.hindustantimes.com:

Since 1977, the US has spent at least $16 billion to design, build and operate the Hubble Space Telescope. What a bargain. Not only has Hubble redefined how humans understand the universe, but it's played a critical role in training a generation of scientists and engineers.

Unfortunately, Hubble is steadily losing altitude — essentially falling back to Earth — and soon NASA will have to make a decision. It must either boost the telescope to a higher orbit, or let it continue falling until it crashes back to Earth, hopefully in the ocean.

The good news is that technology is emerging to save the Hubble, and NASA is willing to work with companies to make a mission happen. The bad news is that NASA will not pay for the effort. That's the wrong call. If NASA is serious about prolonging a national asset's life, it should pay for it. Doing so will attract more and potentially better bidders and play a role in accelerating the development of the emerging satellite repair industry.

For at least a century, scientists speculated on what might be seen by a telescope situated beyond the distorting effects of Earth's atmosphere. That dream became a funded reality in the 1970s, when NASA authorized the development of the Hubble. From the start, it was designed to be repaired and serviced in space. Reparability came in handy, quickly: When Hubble launched in 1990, years late and wildly over-budget, it had a flaw in its mirror that rendered its images blurry.

Fortunately, what could have been a multibillion-dollar fiasco turned into a triumph. In 1993, NASA launched the Space Shuttle on a mission to correct the Hubble's optics. It worked, and over the next three decades the public has been gifted with Hubble's photos and discoveries, while