In a stroke of pure lunacy the White House has decided to eliminate funding for a future mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope from its 2006 budget request and in the alterative, has directed NASA to focus solely on deorbiting the telescope safely.
The only funding set aside for Hubble will be for a mission to "attach a propulsion module to Hubble needed to deorbit the spacecraft safely with a controlled re-entry into the Pacific Ocean."
Apparently, the $1 billion price tag could not be covered by NASA because of all the other projects on its plate, including efforts to resume flights of the giant rocket propelled toilet, otherwise known as the Space Shuttle.
NASA officials had concerns that a "rescue mission" to refurbish the Hubble would pose too many dangers to a Shuttle Crew. NASA director Andrew Penfield commented, "We don't take risks around here like we used to. This is the smart man's NASA and there's no room for space cowboys like Glenn and Sheppard, God rest their souls." Former Astronaut and U.S. Senator John Glenn responded, "Tell that dickhead that I'm not dead. Further, the only risk that desk jockey ever took was deciding which Senior NASA administrator to be a power bottom for."
The Hubble telescope offered arguably the most stunning hard scientific evidence ever of the origins of the universe. The volume of information it produced may never be understood. The data collected over its short life span dwarfs all that collected since Galileo first lifted his eyepiece to the heavens. Penfield downplayed the loss of this asset. "Hubble has served its limited purpose. Now its time to move on. We here at NASA are particularly excited about our next shuttle mission, where we plan on measuring the erections of Rhesus monkeys in a low gravity orbit to determine if monkeys truly can reproduce little space monkeys. Now that's a project that is truly shooting for the stars."
