Hubble trick or treat

By all indications, fans of the Hubble Space Telescope should start stocking up on champagne.

NASA bigwigs are discussing the venerable observatory’s fate today and agency chief Mike Griffin will announce on Tuesday whether or not astronauts will be sent to service and upgrade Hubble. Such a mission should allow it to make observations until 2013, buying it an extra five years or so of productive science time.

But in a strange press release put out a little while ago, NASA says it has planned three tentative press events ? just in case the decision is made to go forward with a servicing mission. Two will be with astronauts who would carry out the mission ? though NASA has not released their names, while one will be with unnamed “experts” on the telescope.

Also, Griffin is making the announcement at the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, US, which manages the telescope. If NASA was simply going to let Hubble die, I bet he would choose another venue for the announcement ? say, US vice president Dick Cheney’s secret bunker.