A Sad, Sad Day

Yahoo! News - NASA Decrees Early Demise for Hubble Telescope: "CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) - NASA announced on Friday it would cancel a space shuttle mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope, a decision that dictates an early demise for the most storied science program in the space agency's history."

NASA says the reason for allowing Hubble to die is safety -- the space shuttles don't carry enough fuel to get from the Hubble to the space station in case of an emergency or damage to the shuttle that needs repair before re-entry (new policies resulting from the Columbia disaster).

However, considering the timing of this announcement, the real reason appears to be lack of funds. It costs $500 million a mission to service the Hubble, and it would cost even more to develop a system to check the shuttle's tiles for cracks and make repairs while not docked at the space station. With W now decreeing NASA build a moon base and send humans to Mars, there's just not enough cash leftover to maintain the telescope beloved by astronomers and everyone else for the discoveries it enables and the marvelous peek at the universe it provides.