The Triangle

Issue date: 1/28/05 Section: Sci-Tech

Media Credit: NASA

If you've lived on earth for the past 15 years, there's a good chance that you've heard of the Hubble Space Telescope.

The telescope was originally put in orbit in 1991 with a projected lifespan of 15 years. The White House is purportedly eliminating funding for the Hubble in its 2006 budget in a move to focus taxpayer money on NASA's "Moon, Mars, and Beyond" agenda. When I first heard this, I thought, "1991 plus 15 years equals 2006. That hunk of metal has done its job. I agree with George W. that it's time to focus resources on new, exciting NASA objectives."

Then I remembered something, a moment in my childhood. I was all of a sudden much smaller and sitting at a much smaller desk. It was fourth grade, I believe. Instead of starting math class with more long division exercises, my teacher began talking to us about the Hubble Space Telescope.

For a moment, the Hubble was more important than long division. It had been used to discover another solar system that had a sun and a planet very similar to our own. That was awesome. I remember everyone being excited.

Not just kids wearing plastic frame glasses like me, even the cool kids who that week were showing off their awesome pogs and slammers.

Ok, enough of the past. The future is where the problem lies.

My point is that the Hubble is much more important than a tool. It stands for human's characteristic desire for knowledge. We know so much more about the universe today because of this telescope.

Year after year, the Hubble made the 1.5 billion dollars the United States originally spent on it seem like a drop in the bucket.

Any space museum is guaranteed to have more pictures taken by the Hubble than by anything else. Its discoveries have helped NASA and the White House set priorities for future space programs. Picture after picture and discovery after discovery, the Hubble made outer space graspable for almost anybody.

Now, to save money, some want to drop it into the ocean and discontinue this tap of new discoveries.

Fortunately for this hunk of metal, I'm not the only person who wants the Hubble to live on. Senator Barbara Mikulski and Representative Steny Hoyer, both from Maryland, the state in which the Hubble is managed and operated, are two of the few who have made it known they will fight for one billion dollars in funding for the telescope's repair so that it remains operational until 2011.

The National Academy of Sciences states that Hubble discoveries are "among the most significant intellectual achievements of the space science program" and urges NASA to reinstate a space shuttle mission to refurbish the telescope.

If the Hubble telescope was a person, chances are it would be pretty mad. It's been a workhorse for the scientific community for over a decade and provided a lot of useful information.

Now, some government bureaucrats want to terminate it because they want to use tax dollars to pursue some new space ideas that greatly were conceived because of the information the Hubble provided.

But the Hubble isn't a person, so the fate of this deep space telescope is now in our hands.

I don't know about you, but in the future I want to keep experiencing the feeling of "WOW!" that comes from a Hubble discovery.

Anthony Cesarini is a sophomore majoring in computer engineering.

Page 1 of 1

Article Tools