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Feb. 8, 2013
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Jewish World Review
June 6, 2012/ 16 Sivan, 5772
Spy agency magically produces two space
By
Dale McFeatters
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
It has long been a part of American folklore that Uncle Sam has packed away in secret warehouses all sorts of useful and intriguing artifacts -- complete World War II Jeeps packed in sealed containers, the bodies of dead aliens and their wrecked spacecraft, the crate containing the Lost Ark.
That myth turns out not to be totally far-fetched, although somewhat less dramatic.
In January, NASA got a call from another government agency, the super-secret, spy-in-the-sky National Reconnaissance Office (NRO).
Would NASA be interested in having two never-used space telescopes as big and powerful as the space agency's ailing and failing Hubble Space Telescope? Would it? You bet it would.
Without a major overhaul, the groundbreaking Hubble Space Telescope, launched in 1990, is nearing the end of its life span, and without a space shuttle NASA has no way of effecting the necessary repairs. The likely outcome is a controlled crash into the Pacific.
The Hubble's replacement, the James Webb Space Telescope, is behind schedule -- it is not due to be launched for another six years -- and at a cost nearing $9 billion.
Another telescope, the $1-billion-plus Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope, with an acronym like a German sausage, WFIRST, is on hold because of budget problems.
However, making use of the NRO's surplus spy telescopes entails more than just sending a truck to Rochester, N.Y., to pick them up from the warehouse.
NASA has no budget for them. They need to be outfitted with space-specific instruments, cameras and controls. The telescope chosen for a mission needs to be launched, while the other is held in reserve. And the agency needs a staff of specialists to support the mission.
And NASA already has a mission waiting for the appropriate vehicle. In 2010, it identified as two of its top priorities locating extrasolar planets and studying the mysterious phenomenon of dark energy.
The answer to those two problems has been sitting in a warehouse for a decade. NASA says that getting one of the telescopes would cut $250 million off the cost of a mission started from scratch.
True, Congress has its budget problems and is determined to show that it can be tough on spending, but not allowing NASA to pursue its mission with these windfall telescopes would be a waste of money already spent and a further erosion of the U.S.'s increasingly precarious lead in space exploration.
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© 2011, SCRIPPS HOWARD NEWS SERVICE
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