Astronomers blast plan to end Hubble mission

By Kevin Dayton
Advertiser Big Island Bureau

HILO, Hawai'i — NASA's plan to pull the plug on the Hubble Space Telescope is disturbing to Hawai'i astronomers, some of whom use images captured by Hubble to complement research they are doing from the ground-based telescopes on Mauna Kea.

In January, NASA canceled next year's space shuttle mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope. If that decision stands, the telescope is expected to cease functioning in three or four years. Advertiser library photo • Feb. 19, 1997

They have offered evidence that the expansion of the universe, presumably formed by the "Big Bang," is accelerating, not slowing, upending basic ideas about the cosmos.

Working together, the space- and ground-based telescopes have served up images of new stars being born 13 billion years ago in young galaxies. They have penetrated the remnants of a red supergiant star that ended its life with an explosion into a supernova.

It is, therefore, no surprise that NASA's plan to let Hubble fall into disrepair and drop back to Earth stirs outrage among Hawai'i astronomers.

"We're all really shocked, I think, at the announcement that Hubble is just going to be left to die," said Michael West, astronomy professor with the University of Hawai'i-Hilo. "The whole human race loses something, in my opinion."

In January, NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe canceled next year's space shuttle mission to replace the Hubble's degrading gyroscopes and batteries and upgrade its equipment. Without the repair mission, the telescope, which was launched in 1990 and orbits 375 miles above Earth, is expected to cease functioning in three or four years.

O'Keefe has said that safety rules approved by Congress and NASA after the 2003 space shuttle Columbia accident that killed seven astronauts make a repair mission virtually impossible. O'Keefe said he will limit shuttle missions to the International Space Station, since in an emergency, shuttle crews could remain on the space station until a rescue craft could be launched. That would not be possible on a mission to the Hubble.

Rolf-Peter Kudritzki, director of the UH Institute for Astronomy, is one of the local astronomers tracking the Hubble's fate with intense interest. Kudritzki used Hubble images along with data from the W.M. Keck Observatory on Mauna Kea to plumb the mysteries of an exploding red supergiant star in research published earlier this year.

He called the space-based device "an enormously productive telescope."

"It continues to be a fantastic science machine, and it is hard for an astronomer to understand why this science machine should be disconnected," Kudritzki said.

Rather than becoming obsolete, Hawai'i astronomers said the Hubble has become more powerful and more important with each visit to the telescope by space shuttle astronauts for repairs and upgrades.

West will work at the W.M. Keck Observatory on Mauna Kea for two nights this week gathering new data to build on observations obtained from Hubble photographs. The research is part of an effort to study 100 nearby galaxies and search for evidence of black holes at their centers.

Earlier this month, West used observation time on Japan's 8.2-meter Subaru telescope on Mauna Kea for research on a separate study of "orphaned star clusters" that also uses observations from the Hubble. "Orphaned star clusters" are groups of stars that drift alone in space, unattached to any galaxy.

"There's this real synergy between ground-based and space-based telescopes, so if Hubble ceases to exist, then I and other astronomers here in Hawai'i and elsewhere cease to get data that are giving us all sorts of ideas and new discoveries about the universe," he said.

There will still be plenty of science to do atop Mauna Kea even without the Hubble, but astronomers agree much will be lost if it is abandoned.

David Sanders, professor of astronomy at the Institute for Astronomy, is co-investigator on the COSMOS Survey Project, which involves the largest allocation of Hubble observation time ever for a single project.

COSMOS is an attempt to study "the cosmic web," or the design of the universe. It will probe the way galaxies are arranged in a section of space and study how different environments affect the "lives" of those galaxies.

The Hubble was gathering data for that project last week, and will make additional observations during the next two years. Again, the images from the Hubble will be combined with data from Mauna Kea telescopes such as Subaru, the Canada-France-Hawai'i Telescope, the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory, Keck and probably others.

"Probably our project will be finished while the (Hubble) telescope is still in healthy shape, but in terms of follow-on observations and pursuing observations with different cameras on the telescope, that's all in jeopardy," Sanders said.

The COSMOS project will surely suggest the need for new observations because "astronomy doesn't stop," he said. "It keeps building. You go discover something, and then you find out what else needs to be done."

Hubble supporters in Hawai'i and elsewhere believe the telescope is being sacrificed for President Bush's enormously expensive plans to develop spacecraft and equipment for manned voyages to the moon and Mars.

"I think to most astronomers, the view is that Hubble was the first victim of that sort of shift in emphasis on how to fund future space study," West said.

Kudritzki, who wants NASA to maintain and improve Hubble, said he is hopeful the space agency will reconsider. Protests by scientists and U.S. senators on Thursday prompted NASA Administrator O'Keefe to agree to an independent review of his decision by the National Academy of Sciences.

"We're talking about one of the most productive telescopes in the history of astronomy, and it's still extremely productive, so I think it is such an important issue that it deserves careful deliberation," Kudritzki said.

Reach Kevin Dayton at kdayton@honoluluadvertiser.com or (808) 935-3916.