General Discussions

[LP]

My oldest brother is an astronomer and he would never compromise science for political purposes.  If anything, he is dedicated to using science against political agendas.

I haven't spoken to him about the James Webb Telescope images but I noticed a comparison of James Webb Space Telescope images to Hubble's pictures: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-13/n.../101233396

Yes, maybe that comparison is a 3rd party effort, I can't see how what they did compromised the science at all. In fact they are trying to preserve as much of it as possible. For me the lost opportunity was about outreach, and I fully understand the risks to ongoing funding by having JWST make HST look redundant.

As much as I'm sure your brother's heart is true, everyone I know in science generally does stay true as they are so invested in the process of discovery, however most NASA administrators are political appointments and often career bureaucrats not scientists, and we know the business of space science is big big dollars!

Personally, I'd like to see HST signed over to the UN and be funded globally, I'm sure someone like SpaceX could with it's low cost operations treat it's servicing as marketing exercise. Someone just needs to fund it, and at that time access can be opened up to HST for outreach and training purposes. But it's going to be tough when even countries like Russia threaten to pull the pin on things like the ISS.