Tonight on 60 Minutes Bill Bradley gives the story on Hubble. As you've probably heard, NASA is shutting it down.
Never mind that Hubble just got a shot that features 10,000 galaxies and shows "the universe the way it looked near the dawn of time." It's work is done. It needs a new gyroscope, new plugs, rotor, water pump; it's due to crash and burn in a few years. It is essentially space debris, not worth fixing.
I don't cry easily, but this made me cry. I teared up. I had to get philosophical. Why mourn the vessel when we've still got the pictures?
I slept on that, woke up pissed, searched the net to see how much of this was George Bush's fault, and either forgot what I was searching for or got interested in something else.
Now I'm pissed again. I remember Bush saying we're going to Mars. It didn't catch on, so he never mentioned it again. He might as well have said, "We're going to McDonald's!" But what if that's why they're killing Hubble? That'd be a bitch, huh?
What happened to us? Where's our willingness to boldly go where no human being has ever gone before? Back in the day of Star Trek, when time could be traveled as easily as an infinitive could be split, no one ever dreamed that time travel could ever be possible. Yet here it is in the Hubble. Time travel is now a reality, but unfortunately it's space junk.
If the Hubble were just a telescope with a camera, it might make sense to let it drop. But Hubble is a type of time machine and its work is far from finished. There is a quiet race for a better model of the universe, a way for the human mind to more clearly grasp our place in the universe.
Hubble may fall but it will not die. Hubble will be to the space program what the Casio digital watch once was to the consumer. It will be an accessory of the space station or some other shared platform which any visionary American president would be thinking about, and adjusting his actions to accommodate a climate of cooperation. Hint to Mr. Kerry.
People out my way, 60 miles out of Chicago, haven't seen real stars or experienced actual night darkness in years. Last summer we thought we had the Northern Lights, turned out to be a new Wal-Mart.
If you're curious about Hubble's future and the universe's past, it's on 60 Minutes on CBS.
Article comments
1 - Ms. Tek
I feel really sad about this too. I think it should be fixed and improved.
Then again, if Star Trek were real, I'd be the first to get on a star ship.
2 - duane
"Time travel is now a reality..."
Huh? We have a long way to go before time travel will be a reality. Are you trying to wax poetic? In this regard, Hubble hasn't done anything that we couldn't do decades ago. It has improved our lookback capabilities, but it cannot match the capabilities of the COBE mission, which records microwave radiation, rather than visible radiation.
"In part due to Hubble's revelations, the Big Bang theory is destined to go the way of Big Foot."
Huh (again)? Did I miss something?
"The Parallel Universe theory is picking up steam, fueled by mathematicians, mystics and homophobes."
Do you mean the multiverse? What are you talking about (or, huh?) ?
3 - Eric Olsen
Duane is a physicist, he is not to be trifled with.
4 - duane
Also "Money will never be the problem" ?! That is problem #1 when it comes to space exploration.
Thanks, Eric (I think). To borrow from Ghostbusters, "Back off, man. I'm a scientist."
But on the other hand, trifling with each other is one of the many pleasures of Blogcritics.
5 - JR
That Mars initiative is just going to get cancelled when the big bills start coming in; then we'll have neither a space telescope nor a manned Mars mission. Thanks for nothing, George.
6 - CW Fisher
Duane, thanks for your observations. I did make changes to the text above, mainly to make you look foolish now that the evidence is gone. Oh, you finicky, foolish physicists. Your problem is too many esses. But thanks for the whack.
7 - duane
Not at all, CW. By the way, the only mechanism by which time travel is believed to be possible (in principle) involves black holes. Hubble did provide some very compelling evidence, including mass measurements, for the existence of so-called supermassive black holes. Not that it was a big surprise, mind you. But the data were fantastic. You could check this out by googling M87 and Hubble. A very nice application of the Doppler effect.
By the way, physicists are generally not finicky. That would be your engineering professionals.
8 - Shark
Nice piece, Fishman, despite the physics faux pas, which, btw, physicists make all the time.
heh.
Man, I hate to see the Hubble go. I think the closest I ever got to God was staring at that famous photo of the Eagle Nebula, (M-16, right, Duane??? The cover of "other worlds"?)
Anyway, the Hubble may tumble, but as Bogart said in Casa Blanca, "We'll always have...um... pictures."
9 - Shark
Fish, don't fret; we might not go to Mars, but we'll get steroids out of professional sports IN OUR LIFETIME! ~Whoo-hoo!
"One step for a man, one leap too late for a guy with testicles the size of shriveled peanuts."
10 - duane
Fish, Shark. I have to get myself a sea creature name. How about Sperm Whale? How about Sea Ameno...Anen..Anem...uhhh... Barracuda? Yeah, that's not bad.
M16 is the Eagle Nebula, yes. The site of the so-called Pillars of Creation, where EGGs (evaporating gas globules -- talk about a faux pas) were seen, regions of star birth. I'm reminded of one of the Intelligent Design complaints that although we have witnessed stars dying (supernovae), we have never seen one being born (Heads nod, "Hey, that's right!"), which would imply that the theory of stellar evolution ( there's that bad word) is entirely wrong. It's a small step from there to claim that Human Evolution is bogus, too. But it seems that most people will accept the explanation for the Pillars of Creation, brought to us by Hubble. I don't get it.
11 - CW Fisher
Duane, I like your name the way it is. I hate "Fish." All my life people have called me Fish. Hey Fish. Hi Fish. Bye Fish. Read Fish, Blew Fish. Nicknames don't stick to fish. Please don't call me Fish.
Probably all your life people have said to, "Well, Duane in Spain falls mainly on the plain."
Name jokes are always slugworthy.
Shark, his name, now his name, who knows how he got that name? My guess is it has something to do with hydrocephalis and a severe overbite. But it fits and I enjoy the idea of him in a large aquarium swimming by with little comments.
M'Diva... I'd like to say all this in French, but I don't speak French. I understand what you're saying about Shark but feel you would have better luck on the grill. Shark is a wet meat that can stand high heat for brief periods.
Shark's a poster boy today! In his game.
Surely you weren't implying, my diva, that Shark the man get into a gas oven? Because -- whoo -- that -- that's like Britney saying suicide is cool.
By the way, Britney, Jennifer, and Paris are three new keywords for me.
12 - duane
No, CW, actually it was "Duane the bathtub, I'm dwowning." I kinda like it. Wasn't Fish a character on Barney Miller? He was pretty cool. I would have called you Fisher Cutbait, if I were the type to tease people about their names.
13 - Eric Olsen
teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime
14 - Shark
Fisher, what a curt reply! Anyway, sorry about the nickname.
I thought we'd create our own little imaginary aquarium, but I didn't know you'd been branded for life by your little evil contemporaries on the playground.
Forgive me once again.
re: my nickname - Like you, I got it on the playground because I was the apex of evolution and a streamlined killing machine that gave nicknames to kids based on their last names. They would start to cry and complain -- and then I'd eat 'em.
Small world, eh.
15 - Shark
Duane, I think it's between 'Sperm Whale' and 'Flaccid Flounder'.
We e-mailed your wife and await her opinion.