AGEING and increasingly decrepit it may be, but the Hubble Space Telescope has still managed to inspire a race by devoted fans to save it from oblivion.
NASA announced two weeks ago that it will not replace the telescope’s ageing gyroscopes and batteries, nor add two new instruments next year as it had planned. New safety rules in the wake of the Columbia disaster require inspection of the shuttle’s exterior in space, which can currently be undertaken at the International Space Station, but not at Hubble. Without an overhaul, Hubble is expected to fail around 2007, so NASA plans to dump it in the Pacific.…
