What's New May 8, 2009 Washington, DC

WHAT’S NEW   Robert L. Park   Friday, 8 May 09   Washington, DC

1. HUBBLE: THE TELESCOPE THAT KEEPS EVOLVING.
It’s been a lesson in overcoming birth defects.  The final shuttle mission 
to service Hubble is set for launch on Monday.  It’s more than just a 
mission to keep the telescope alive; if all goes well, Hubble will be 
reborn as a new telescope with years of exploration ahead of it.  NASA’s 
top priority at Hubble’s birth was to justify the shuttle program; 
everything that went into space was designed to make work for the shuttle.  
Then the Challenger disaster shut down the shuttle, and thus the entire 
space program, for three years.  Worse, after it finally got into orbit 
Hubble’s optics was found to be flawed, delaying it another three years to 
fit it with glasses.  The shuttle, which was at the root of Hubble’s 
problems, is now offered a chance at redemption.  Hubble can be reborn as 
an even better telescope, but can NASA be fixed?

2. NASA: A NEW PANEL WILL REVIEW SPACEFLIGHT OPTIONS.
Yesterday the Obama administration announced that an independent panel will 
take a fresh look at NASA’s human spaceflight program.  The panel will be 
new, but its chairman won’t.  Norm Augustine, former CEO of Lockheed, has 
headed many national committees, including the 1990 report on NASA 
priorities http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN90/wn121490.html that called 
for putting space science above space stations, aerospace planes, manned 
missions to Mars, and all the other engineering spectaculars on which NASA 
has focused.  The new panel could not do better than to resubmit the 1990 
report.  

3. RESTARTING START: A WORLD WITHOUT NUCLEAR WEAPONS?
The 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty eliminated half of all the nuclear 
weapons in the world.  U.S. and Russian negotiators are meeting in New York 
at this moment to talk about the other half.  Between them, the U.S. and 
Russia hold more than 90 percent of the nuclear weapons in the world.  
Unfortunately, that still leaves a lot of nukes.

4. CANADA: RESEARCHERS GO WHERE THEY CAN DO RESEARCH.
Even as researchers in the U.S. are looking at record basic research 
increases, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government next door plans cut 
basic research to help pay for his "stimulus package."  According to 
Monday’s Globe and Mail, one of the worlds leading immunologists, Dr. 
Rafick-Pierre Sekaly, is leaving the University of Montreal for Florida and 
taking 25 scientists on his team with him.

5. IRVING/ERWIN: PERSONALLY, I BLAME IT ON TECHNOLOGY. 
The minnie emails I got this weak about the first name of the father of the 
wave equation were pretty gentile, considering.  Bear with me.  I’ve had to 
switch to voice recognition.  I’m on a learning curve, and so is the Dragon 
program.   It’s an amazing technology, but it’s hard to proof your own 
stuff.  Besides, I find myself worrying about what the little guy inside 
thinks about what I say.   

THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND.
Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the
University of Maryland, but they should be.
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