A U.S. Capitol police officer walks past a statue of Gerald Ford in the rotunda on Tuesday, October 1. The Capitol is closed to tours because of the government shutdown.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- Government shutdown affects NASA, where employees are off the job
- Meg Urry: A two-week shutdown could waste $3 million to $8 million of taxpayer money
- She says loss to science is greater as critical astronomical work could be affected
- Urry: NASA scientists can't do their work and must make up for it when shutdown ends
The world-famous Hubble Space Telescope is owned by the U.S. government and operated cooperatively by NASA and an institute under contract to NASA. Now that the government has shut down, the institute can still use existing resources to continue Hubble operations for as long as possible. Its staff has tried to ensure that -- to the extent possible -- the shutdown will not affect telescope operations.
But events can overtake plans. If Hubble encounters a problem or a glitch, as happens occasionally, science operations will be suspended and the spacecraft will be locked into safe mode until government employees can issue spacecraft commands to restore operations.
Safe mode means orienting the delicate instruments away from the sun while keeping the solar panels illuminated, to make sure no instrument loses power and is ruined. But in safe mode, the instruments won't record any of the light coming to the telescope.
Meg Urry
The approximate cost of one hour of Hubble observing is somewhere between $8,000 and $25,000, depending on whether one adds the costs of operating and refurbishing the facility to its initial construction costs. That means a two-week government shutdown could waste $3 million, $5 million, even $8 million of taxpayer investment.
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