Saturday, May 9, 2009

ABC News and HST

ABC News has been following the crew of the Hubble repair mission, set to launch Monday, for about a year. A series of reports began last week and will continue throughout the mission. It is rare, comprehensive coverage of a space mission by one of the major networks.

Charles Gibson, anchor of World News Tonight, insisted on calling the mission challenging and dangerous. Well, it is, but every manned spaceflight is challenging and dangerous; ABC and Gibson have seemingly felt no need to emphasize that right along. This will also be the third Hubble repair, so NASA should have some sort of handle on it. Still, this mission was canceled by NASA after the Columbia tragedy because it was seen as too risky; pressure from the public and the science community led NASA to reconsider. It's also true that NASA has a second shuttle on a launch pad in case a rescue attempt is required. We can probably forgive Mr. Gibson for hyping this one.

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