Taylor to continue fight for Hubble

Following NASA's announcement Monday that it will scrap plans to re-service the Hubble Space Telescope, physics professor and Nobel laureate Joseph Taylor called the decision "a great pity for astronomy."

The decision came despite the unanimous recommendation from a 20-member NASA assessment committee — of which Taylor was a member — that the Hubble be serviced.

"NASA in particular, the agency that had commissioned the study and the report, decided that it didn't like the recommendations and has not followed the advice that we provided," Taylor said.

"Consequently, the president's budget does not have funding in it for the Hubble servicing."

Taylor, who won the 1993 Noble Prize in Physics for his discovery of a new type of pulsar, said he was surprised by the announcement's timing.

Sean O'Keefe, a NASA administrator who recently resigned, has been outspoken in criticizing the report on the grounds that the proposed mission would be too risky.

"I thought that they'd wait until a new administrator was chosen before making a decision," Taylor said.

Acknowledging safety concerns, he said NASA is performing comparably dangerous operations, such as flights to the International Space Station.

"Our committee pointed out that the difference between safety issues of fixing Hubble and each trip to the International Space Station was very small, and that there was clearly a big difference between the safety of 25 missions to the space station as opposed to one to Hubble," he said.

The cost of the job has also been a thorny issue.

A National Academy of Sciences committee led by Taylor recommended that the Hubble be serviced. At the time, the committee estimated the cost at about $300 to $400 million, while NASA recently placed it at $1.5 billion — more than legislators were willing to approve.

Despite NASA's opposition, Taylor has not given up on the possibility that Hubble's term of service may be extended. He testified in Washington last week before the House Science Committee, which will ultimately decide the fate of the government's space budget and the Hubble.

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Despite his suggestion that the White House might be "calling the shots," Taylor maintained hope that the democratic process would triumph.

"I think there will be a lot of public support for re-servicing the Hubble," Taylor said. "My impression was that most of the members of the House Science Committee were very favorably disposed to keeping Hubble operational."

Taylor also plans to continue drawing attention to the issue by writing letters to newspapers and submitting guest editorials.

"At this point, I would say that I do have hope," he said. "In a sense Hubble represents science in the U.S.; it certainly has had the effect of inspiring a whole generation of youngsters who are scientifically inclined . . . I think the country would lose a lot if NASA were to give up."