One of the big questions about the incoming NASA administrator is whether or not he'll reinstate the Hubble mission. Keith Cowing has doubts:

...Mike Griffin will work for the very same White House which endorsed Sean O'Keefe's decisions regarding Hubble - and adjusted the agency's budget profiles accordingly - two fiscal years in a row. Such a reversal would be a change in Bush Administration policy - and we don't really see a lot of that, now do we?

I don't think it's quite that simple. For example, Dr. Griffin could have made such a policy change a condition of his accepting the job (I'm not saying that he did, just that he could have). As a sweetener, he might have offered other savings (such as his postulated plan to reduce Shuttle support to complete ISS from the planned two-dozen plus missions to just a few, with earlier phaseout). That would allow the mission to be accomplished with no increase in budget.

My sense, from knowing him, is that he has some big ideas about how to implement the president's goals that aren't necessarily completely in synch with current plans. Many consider him (not Dan Goldin) the true father of "faster, better, cheaper"--a legacy from when he left the agency in the early nineties that he probably considers to have been poorly implemented by Goldin.

I'll bet that he's coming up with what he thinks are "faster, better, cheaper" ways of getting back to the moon, and on to Mars, and he could very well include keeping the popular Hubble alive as part of the overall deal. And I doubt if the administration is all that wedded to the specifics of the plan laid out a year ago, as long as the goals are achieved. I also doubt that the administration has any innate desire to end the Hubble program--they just didn't want to pay for it, so if Mike can come up with a way to do both, I doubt if they'd view it as a "policy reversal."

I'm not claiming any special insight into what he will do, or wants to do, just what he could do. Hubble may yet live. The confirmation hearings will be very interesting.

I think your assessment is a good one. Remember that it was O'Keefe, not the White House, that canceled the Hubble servicing mission. If Griffin wants to revive it, the White House (OMB) might set the bar high, but their primary concern is going to be the money. They might tell him "You can do this, but you have to find the money within your own budget. Carve it out of something else."

Another issue is that NASA under O'Keefe appears to have deliberately high-balled their estimate of the costs of a servicing mission. One requirement is to have a "rescue shuttle" on the pad during the mission. If Griffin says "there will be no rescue shuttle, we will simply accept the risk," then this brings the cost of a servicing mission down.

Another thing Griffin could do is to get specific congressional buy-in on such a mission. If he worries about the risk, then he should seek a congressional stamp of approval on the higher risk, telling them that if they think such a mission really is important, then they have to accept some of the responsibility for approving it.

Personally, I think that such a mission could be a major boost for NASA (and the administration). Announce that you're going to do it, wrap the agency in the flag, and sing the Star Spangled Banner as you launch a group of American heroes to save a treasured asset. It's not a big roll of the dice risk-wise, and if it is successful, the agency and the administration reap the benefits. Compare that to the bad publicity NASA will get when Hubble finally goes silent, and the bad publicity NASA will get when they de-orbit it. Why not end on a high note?

NASAWatch is wrong to imply that the Bush White House doesn't change its mind. Bush opposed creating a Department of Homeland Security, right? How did that work out?

I guess I’m a bit ambivalent about the Hubble. I’ve followed it since my days of struggling to keep other Perk & Elmer products up and running. It’s had a good run; however there are several telescopes in the pipeline that will more than replace the science contribution the Hubble has given us. I will miss the pretty pictures all graphically enhanced and colored.
There is still time for the private sector to rescue it if a feasible method can be designed. I suggest we look at moving the mountain to Mohammad. If a robotic mission is too complex to repair it, lets move it closer to the ISS and send a crew to fix it from the station. Surely we can get a robot\rocket motor to attach itself and move it. If not it would be a great learning tool.

Rescuing Hubble is certainly nice from a PR perspective, but the cost-benefit ratio seems much better with a new Hubble Origins Probe:

http://www.pha.jhu.edu/hop/

Costs less than a rescue (at least O'Keefe's version) and produces far more science. Barely anybody seems to know about the proposal, though.

Ah, but O'Keefe's version of the mission cost was always vastly overstated, for obvious reasons.

"Barely anybody seems to know about the [Hubble Origins Probe]proposal, though."

That's not true. That team briefed the HOP proposal during congressional hearings on Hubble a few weeks ago. It is worth noting that the HOP proposal is only one of several proposals for reusing the instruments built to upgrade Hubble. There are others. HOP has gotten more attention than the others.

It is also worth noting that there is dissent within the astronomy community about doing this because of both the cost and the changing focus within astronomy. There is a general view within the astronomy community that the major discoveries in astronomy lie in other sections of the spectrum and that NASA should not fund another big visible/UV telescope in the near future. They are willing to accept an extension of Hubble, but an entirely new telescope changes the equation a bit.

mr. Griffin was one of the people who already proposed cutting remaining STS flights to a bare minimum ( six or eight IIRC ) so i doubt that that one extra flight to Hubble sounds very exciting to him.
Wouldnt it be nice if the last year to have multibillion-dollar STS budget line would be 2006 ?

"Griffin was one of the people who already proposed cutting remaining STS flights to a bare minimum ( six or eight IIRC ) so i doubt that that one extra flight to Hubble sounds very exciting to him."

You're completely missing the point. Actually, several points.

First, NASA is not a dictatorship. The administrator does not automatically get what he wants. Second, it is easier to talk about things you would like to do if you were king than it is to actually do them when you become king. He made those comments when he was not NASA administrator and did not have to face the consequences of such a decision (for instance, angering the White House, Congress, ISS partners, NASA constituencies, etc.).

But the most important thing that you fail to understand is that NASA does not fly shuttles _simply to fly shuttles._ They seek to do something with them. (Leaving aside the next question of whether what they are doing with them is simply used to justify their continued existence.) So if Griffin has said that he wants to cut shuttle flights, it is not because he finds them unexciting, but because he does not believe that they are accomplishing anything. Instead, ask him if it is worth flying a shuttle to repair Hubble. Does that excite him?

"thing that you fail to understand is that NASA does not fly shuttles _simply to fly shuttles._"

Thats IMHO not at all certain. I get the impression that a sizeable part of NASA is happy as long as there is a budget for STS, regardless of whether they are flying or not.
Your points that NASA is not a dictatorship etc: well, then the question of whether mr. Griffin will do anything at all becomes moot, because nothing else has changed since O'Keefe left.
And judging from mr. Griffins comments so far, i think his main point is that STS isnt worth flying for anything, Hubble included. Especially when there are cheaper alternatives like HOP proposal.

The Hubble issue is just part of a larger existential question for NASA. What exactly does it exist to do?

NACA/NASA actually had a purpose before the Moon Race. It was involved in an exploration of aeronautics which provided a civilian complement to the efforts of the Air Force and Navy. The Moon Race changed everything, giving NASA a grand mission that came to dominate its culture. But once that was achieved, as we all know, NASA never replaced that grand mission with another.

But NASA has become yet another gov't entity that was created for a specific purpose that has since lost any core purpose and yet is still funded by Congress because they can't kill anything.

Why does NASA even exist? The first Bush made a speech about landing a man on Mars, but that never really gained momentum among the populace.

WE can't just continue supporting NASA because of nostalgia for the 60s. It has to have some real purpose that can inspire and justify support.

Listening to Burt Rutan talk about his Sopaceshipone project with a passion and an excitement sends chills up my spine and drives my imagination. What does NASA have to offer to induce the same response?