Mongoose, what do you mean, “The Hubble is not science, it is engineering, and, as far as astronomy goes, nothing is particularly new about it.”?

Well sure, the building of the scope is engineering, but tremendous science has been done with it, and our understanding of the universe is unbelievable different today than twenty years ago when the Hubble was launched. In fact, I know of no single period in time or single instrument, that has had more impact on the *science* done as a result.

We now have other satellites doing the same kind of work in other frequency ranges, and the new 8-meter ground-based scopes are even better for some optical purposes, and much of the “magic” is in digital processing of the images, can even be done with home telescopes (with AMAZING results!).

But to say anything like, “The Hubble is not science”, well, come on now!

(OK, *astronomy* is not an experimental activity so does not well fit some standard definitions of “science”, but it’s also one of the most amazingly succesful branches of science over the last hundred years, so it pretty much gets a pass on that!)