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The Hubble Space Telescope. NASA photo. Over the past few weeks, I’ve sporadically communicated with a longtime friend at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore. That’s the Hubble Space Telescope’s home office, where the images we see and the science we learn from the flying eye are processed. My friend was cautiously optimistic that the telescope, which mysteriously went offline a few weeks ago, would be brought back to life again. He’s always positive, and us Hubble huggers are nothing if not optimists when it comes to the venerable telescope. It has lasted far longer than anticipated and survived numerous hardware failures and glitches over the years. It’s been orbiting for so long that people who started out on Hubble a year or two before its launch have since retired. Hubble has logged more than 1.5 million observations and pretty much rewritten the books on what we understand about the universe.
It’s also done spectacular things like this, which I just happened to have on my hard drive. The Helix Nebula. Hubble/NASA. Hubble is an extremely complex and delicate system of systems. It lives in orbit about 340 miles above us, in space which is passively trying to kill everything it can. Systems and gizmos sometimes fail, as happens with any machine. With Hubble, since spherical aberration was corrected long ago it’s usually the gyros that bust. Hubble is also old but hardy technology.
In past years, when Hubble suffered an issue, we could send astronauts up to fix it and add new systems and capabilities. Hubble is to a great extent barely the same telescope it was at launch in 1990. It has new cameras, new solar arrays, new guts. Even the insulation that blankets it has been replaced.
The end of the shuttle program removed that possibility. From now on, Hubble must be fixed from the ground. Hardware replacements are no longer an option. The telescope operates on metaphorical rusty rails. And it recently suffered a serious failure and went dark. A series of multi-day tests, which included attempts to restart and reconfigure the computer and the backup computer, […]
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We Often Feel Like David Taking on Giants
Today’s Goliath is the Mainstream Media Industrial Complex that brainwashes the masses.
Our mission is very straightforward: To counter the false narratives and nefarious agendas destroying America today. It isn’t easy for obvious reasons; despite incredible growth over the last year we are still a very tiny fish in a huge media pond. But we’re fighting and we will continue to do so, Lord willing, for as long as we possibly can. The battle for America’s present and future is too important for us to back down to the giants that stand in our way.
We need help. I don’t want to say “desperately,” but the need is definitely great. If you have the means, please donate through our GivingFuel page, PayPal, or our Substack page. Your generosity is what keeps these sites running and allows us to get the truth to the masses. We’ve had great success in growing but we know we can do more with your assistance.
Thank you, and God Bless!
JD Rucker