http://www.savethehubble.org/

Sign the petition folks, the hubble is a valuable research tool that shouldnt be allowed to decay!

I read about this on Yahoo, this morning. I'm not sure how to feel about this. It would be horrible to lose the Hubble. It's an amazing scientific tool. I love looking at pictures from it. but I also feel for Sean O'Keefe. It is his decision about whether to do it, because he will be held responsible if something goes wrong. with the attention focused on the lines of communication within NASA, they will not be able to say that objections were not brought up to the highest authorty like in the Columbia disaster.

According to the article, trips to the space station will allow oppurtunities to inspect for damage and other contingencies that will not be available during a mission soley to the Hubble. Although there are engineers who supposedly disagree with that. But faced with conflicting advice, it is no doubt that Sean O'Keefe will choose the more conservative route. He has to be able to sleep at night. And the only way you do that is to feel like you are taking every precaution that is possible. An avoidable accident is the worst. And unfortunately people in aerospace consider every accident avoidable.

It's wierd to see how accidents in NASA are handled so much differently than accidents in the military. Helicopters and planes go down with much more regularity but the military doesn't stop. I think it's because NASA is a civillian organization.