Hubble

Which of the following do you want your $$$ spent on.

- A picture of a galaxy as it looked 5 billion yrs. ago.

- Or, a live image of an asteroid today, as it nears a collision w/ earth?

America decided on the 5 billion yr. old picture.

It comes from the Hubble Space Telescope,
that costs over $1 billion, without maintenance costs.

It was sent into space before the lens was inspected for defects.

Some idiot was trying to save $$$.

The shuttle launch to install 'glasses' to correct the problem, cost $500 million.
As, children go blind because they can't get 35 cents worth of vitamins per day.

But that's not the half of it.

We are now trying to launch a bigger telescope to get even older pictures.
It's called NGST.

Together w/ Chandra these monstrosities comprise NASA's "Big 3" projects.

It is smaller than earth-based telescopes, but gets better images because
there is no atmosphere or man-made lights to dilute the lights from space.

A CBS graphic below.  Nice solar panels.

Hard to believe they didn't suggest that we use more of
them on earth do we don't have to grovel to Saudi Arabia.