To the Honorable Jim Saxton:

You may or may not remember me, but in case you do not, we met briefly on September 18, 2004 at the USO of Pennsylvania & Southern New Jersey 62nd Anniversary Gala, at which you were the very deserving recipient of the USO Liberty Award. As I recall, we had a fruitful discussion on missile defense, a program that has benefited greatly from your leadership and support. I appreciated your willingness to discuss the current situation and future of the missile defense program with me, and look forward to following the program's progress in the future (especially now that I have been hired as a systems engineer at Lockheed Martin in King of Prussia, PA).

I am writing to you today with regard to the recent news that the White House has elected to cut funding for the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) servicing mission in its 2006 budget request for NASA. I fully recognize that this cut may have been made with the expectation that Congress would add money to the NASA budget before its ultimate passage, which I suppose is acceptable if Congress does have every intention of adding money to the budget. As I am sure both I and more importantly you know, nothing is ever for sure in the United States Congress, and for that reason I am writing to you today to ask that you do as much as you can to ensure that a provision is added to the 2006 NASA budget for a (robotic or manned) servicing mission to the HST.

I recognize that my standing as an undergraduate major in astrophysics does not place much weight behind what I have to say on this topic. I also realize that this is perhaps not an issue that you are terribly interested in, since it does not have a direct effect on your constituency and is an additional expense during a period when budgets are being closely scrutinized. That being said, however, I hope that after reading the totality of this message, you will agree with me that this expenditure is something that we should and must do. My hope is that if I can convince you of that, you will work to garner support for this measure with your colleagues in Congress in an effort to ensure that the 2006 NASA budget does not pass without a provision for the HST servicing mission.

To be honest, the news of the White House cut of the HST servicing mission caught me, and I am sure much of the astronomy community, utterly by surprise. Following the announcement a year ago by NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe that the planned shuttle servicing mission to HST would be cancelled, NASA and the astronomy community has been scrambling to find an alternate solution to the problem of servicing HST. I would also point out that there was a significant outcry by the scientific community following Administrator O'Keefe's announcement, which fueled the creation of several panels that found that the HST's contribution to science and the nation as a whole merited another servicing mission, and that the servicing mission should be conducted by a shuttle crew. Despite the finding of these panels that a shuttle crew would be the most viable agent of a mission to service Hubble, much work has progressed in the past year with the goal of designing and constructing a robotic mission to service the telescope. Just a week ago I attended the 205th meeting of the American Astronomical Society. At this meeting, NASA representatives made a presentation on the current status and viability of a robotic servicing mission. Much to my delight, NASA has demonstrated (through demonstrations on Earth) that a robotic servicing mission can accomplish all tasks required of a servicing mission to HST. That is, they have shown that the robot they have constructed for the mission can accomplish the same tasks a shuttle astronaut would have to accomplish for this servicing mission to be deemed successful.

While Administrator O'Keefe's initial cancellation of the shuttle servicing mission received some acceptance within the astronomy community because he was following the recommendation of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) that all shuttle missions should be planned such that the shuttle would be able to dock with the International Space Station (ISS) if a problem arose (a mission to the HST would not allow for this contingency because the HST and the ISS are in different orbits around Earth), the recent cancellation of any servicing mission (robotic or manned) has not thus far and will not receive any such acceptance because it is now obvious that money and not safety is the reason for the cancellation. It is clear that with the new Moon/Mars Initiative established by the President, at least some NASA resources will have to be diverted from space science to manned space flight. Certainly, it is admirable goal of the President that humankind return to the Moon and then on the Mars, but sacrificing the HST for this goal is not acceptable. The money spent on a mission to service the HST would have a very real benefit for the science community in the next few years, whereas money spent on developing missions to the Moon and Mars may not have any return for decades to come.

I think it is also important to realize that there is no operating or planned telescope that will replace the HST. While it is true that the agreed upon successor of the HST is the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the point should be made that JWST is not merely a bigger and better HST for several reasons. First, the JWST is an infrared observatory, while HST is an optical and near ultraviolet observatory, so the loss of the HST will mean the loss of our ability to make space-based observations of astrophysical objects and phenomena in the optical band of the light spectrum. It is hard for me to stress how significant this loss would be to the astronomy community, for losing the ability to make space-based optical observations is like a painter losing his or her best paintbrush. Certainly, in this analogy, the painter has other paint brushes, but none as effective as his or her best, and in the same way the astronomy community will not be without any optical telescopes without Hubble, but it will be without it best. Second, the JWST will be in an orbit extremely far away from the Earth, so far away in fact that it will not be a serviceable telescope. Therefore, if any problems arise following its launch, there will be little we can do on Earth to correct those problems. As a result, trading the HST for the JWST is like a baseball team trading away their established superstar for an up and coming rookie. Ultimately, this trade could pay off, but there is no guarantee. Lastly, the JWST is not scheduled for launch until 2011, so if the HST loses (as expected) its ability to function in the next 2-4 years and is then de-orbited, the astronomy community will be without either of the HST and the JWST for a period of 2-4 years. During this period of time the astronomy community will be severely limited in the observations and research it will be able to conduct.

It is clear that there is and will be no substitute for the HST, but I have yet to talk about why we still need a telescope like the HST. Aside from the success of the HST program in engendering public interest in astronomy through the magnificent images it has released, the major contribution of the HST has been its ability to help scientists understand both the large and small scale structure of the universe, from the smallest star forming regions to the largest galaxy clusters. The HST has been mankind's eye to the cosmos. It has allowed our civilization to see farther into space than any civilization has seen before, and has given us a better understanding of the universe we live in. The legacy of the HST will be that it has been the most successful venture into astronomy in the history of Earth, and to let it die prematurely because of budget constraints would demonstrate a denial and/or ignorance of that legacy.

In closing, I would mention that both past and present astronauts have gone on record as saying they would be willing to risk their lives to service the HST, numerous scientists and engineers have volunteered time and toil in the past year to design a revolutionary robotic servicing mission, and countless other taxpaying voters have said they would support the expenditure of additional funds to service the HST. If all of these people are willing to make sacrifices on behalf of the Hubble Space Telescope, why then should Congress not honor that sacrifice with additional funding for a Hubble servicing mission? Certainly, I cannot think of a good reason, and I would hope you cannot either.

I thank you for your time, and if you are so inclined I would love to read any response you have to what I have written above.

Sincerely,

Nathan Shupe