Newly Refurbished Hubble Sends Back Stunning First Images

Hubble will never fail to wow me. Every picture is amazing!

wow.........i hardly know anything about astronomy, but these pics are sweet!!! i'm amazed at the clarity of them....

sox all the way

Last night we cooked a dish using Corning Ware. That and maybe one or two other great products I don't know about are insufficient for the cost of space research.

Yes, Hubble is a sight to behold, in all ways. But the cost of the entire space program is a huge part of our national deficit. That Dubya decided to go to the moon -- again -- is a good example of the mis-use of this program. Education, health care, the National Parks and your favorite federal program are suffering for lack of funding but NASA types are fuming because they want to go to Mars rather than the Moon. That's embarrassing.

Space is possibly the greatest waste of public resources in our nation's history. What is worse beside the horror of war which is sometimes fought in defense but even then it was likely the result of some political pride hurt rather than the actual threat of foreign domination.

HawaiiBill

I think you are way off base on this one, Medicare and Medicaid and social security make up the vast majority of our national deficit. NASA comes in at a very small % of our national budget and does not add to our national debt at all.

If we want to talk about A huge waste of public resources we need to look at the defense spending we spend more on defense the every other country in the world combined. Much of that is pure waste.

Space research is vital to not only national security but also for the imagination of our people and key to the survival of our species. Think long term here. While some claim that we have environmental problems now were obviously not around for the last ice age;=) If we don't become interplanetary our species with wither and die out. If we don't explore the unknown to try to decipher who we are and why we are here then what is the point of being here? Science must answer the questions that religion simply BS ed their way though. Space is probably the best use of public resources in our nations history.

1 The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.

2 Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they display knowledge.

3 There is no speech or language
where their voice is not heard.

Psalms 19:1-3

I feel that any cost towards education, understanding, or simple inspiration is money well spent. These are the factors that support any progress for any nation. A nation simply trying to feel the wants of it's people is not enough to sustain it. Through research and discovery, a nation not only developes pride for it's people but also builds value to the national community.

Exploration is never a waste of time or money. Us North Americans would not be here if someone didn't want to see what was beyond the horizon.

The United States spends far more money coming up with hi tech ways to kill people in mud huts (see point, click, kill in this months issue) than they do on education or space.

@EricIQ-2
insperation mabye but that little picture teaches me NOHING and have not gained an ounce of understanding

when I was a kid...I really was a space nerd
then I cooled down and saw how quite pointless it really is, what sort of knowledge have we gained from spaceflight that we could not have learned from direst research...like better parachutes for example

No point to this exploration
(insperation, pointless knowledge and understanding my ass)

Twelve Starred Crown

SPIN OFFS! Aside from space travel, security, telecommunications satellites, etc. check out the NASA Spin Off websites. While touring space sites with the kids we came across these publications that revealed how many daily items we owe to the space program: http://www.sti.nasa.gov/tto/

TechnoFreakFace:
Your numerous spelling and typographical errors show that the little books and such in your classrooms left you short a few ounces (dat why u lern NOHING). Perhaps as a child if you'd put down your toy lightsaber and seen the science instead of the fiction, you'd have gained some appreciation for the search for knowledge that Hubble represents.

@ TechnoFreakFace

You may think that space exploration is pointless, but there are numerous things that we've learned from trying to go to space, being in space, and living in space that have ALREADY contributed to us and the rest of mankind.

How would we live today without telecommunications satellites up in the sky? GPS satellites to direct not only wayward drivers but bombs and missiles towards our enemies? How would scientists know that the polar ice caps are melting without pictures from high above that shows them melting? And those are only things I can think of at the top of my head. Technology that didn't exist before, were invented for space travel, and many of them have made their way into everyday homes and workplaces. Just like war spurred the creation of TVs and radar, etc, space travel/exploration will spur newer inventions and technologies that will help us later on.

Research into space exploration increases our understanding of the universe and in turn our place in it. What we may learn in the future may very well protect our future generations from some disaster or event. We could unlock the secrets of energy and find methods for producing cheap, renewable and clean energy that may revolutionize the world and make everyone's lives that much better in addition to helping the planet out. If you didn't know, some of the experiments are conducted in space can only be done in a 0 g weightless environment.

You obviously weren't really that much interested in space as a kid, because you obviously don't know much about it or what it has helped us understand about our own planet and its fragility.

P.S. Just because you haven't learned anything from the picture just means that YOU aren't capable of gleaning information from it. That doesn't mean other people can't and won't be able to get useful information from it. By the way, there's a thing called spell checker. The "internet police" won't cite you for bad spelling and grammar, but when it gets to the point that people have a hard time comprehending you, you should really pay better attention to your keystrokes or go and get yourself a dictionary.

Unfortunately, NASA has decided to scrap the entire Hubble program. A spokesman sited the fact that "TechnoFreakFace" has not only failed to gain an ounce of understanding, but he has indeed learned NOHING.

P.S. If someone says, "When I was a kid..." it doesn't mean that they are an adult.

TechnoFreakFace through space research not only have we seen what troubles have plagued other galaxies with gamma bursts, super novas, and other such things, but as we understand more about such events we also will learn the signs and hopefully the cure for events about to happen in our own back yard. Furthermore, by looking at neihboring planets and galaxies we get an idea of where our planet came from along with where we are going, not to mention some really cool vacation spots, but I digress. As a pollution investigator I know that a lot can be gained from a simple photo. For instance the colors which emminate from different stars and galaxies can tell scientists what elements they are made of, and that one fact by itself could lead to future sources of energy for transportation, agriculture, or things essentials of human life. Maybe you would like to be a dinosaour; you wake up one morning thinking the day will be like any other and then blam your gone along with everything you knew in life. One last point, I doubt you were a space nerd. It sounds to me as though you learned a fraction of what I expect a space nerd to know, than you got lazy and dropped the whole thing.

"A traveler has no protection besides his fire-arms; and the constant habit of carrying them is the main check to more frequent robberies" --Charles Darwin from The Voyage Of The Beagle

Does not the sunrise or sunset reveal too thoughts of a man. Any man may be encouraged by the sight of something beautiful and glorious. Men have fought some of the greatest battles in the universe just because of the great beauty of a single woman. Shakespeare compared the beauty of a woman to that of a rose. Do you not think that the brilliance of M31 or the Ring Nebula could be rightly compared with the beauty of "Helen of Troy" (She who's face launched a thousand ships) or the "Madonna with Child" or even Leonardo Da Vinci's "Mona Lisa".

At its worst Hubble gives us images that even though they maybe surpassed. Can not be improved upon ever. I for one would give up every dime I have to keep supplying these images to the world and all its children as they are the ones who benefit from these images.

73
dray

So beautiful as to take the breath away...
Reminds me of Michaelangelo's picture of 2
people touching their forefingers together.

Created by Nature, colorized by man...
In this case, we work together.

I don't know anything of greater wonderment
than the display of the celestial heavens.

Without Hubble, where are our dreams?

~~~

Cdin
------------------------
cdin.us/all
cdin.org
cdin.us/blogsites
: )

> TechnoFreakFace

> No point to this exploration
>(insperation, pointless knowledge and understanding my ass)

Perfect example of an underfunded education system, right there. No sense of wonder. No intellectual curiosity.