Review Panel Weighs Robot Rescue of Hubble

By Richard Harris

Published June 3, 2004 at 12:00 AM EDT

In January, NASA announced it would no longer service the Hubble Space Telescope -- a decision that would doom the popular observatory to a quiet death in orbit.

The decision was so unpopular that Congress asked the National Academy of Sciences to review it. In a round of meetings that wrapped up today, the academy committee struggled to weigh two very different risks: the risk of sending another space shuttle to Hubble versus the risk of sending an untried robot to do the job. NPR's Richard Harris reports.

Richard Harris

Award-winning journalist Richard Harris has reported on a wide range of topics in science, medicine and the environment since he joined NPR in 1986. In early 2014, his focus shifted from an emphasis on climate change and the environment to biomedical research.

See stories by Richard Harris

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