Mapping and measuring the stars began as an aid to astrologers, who were making predictions for kings, and it continued to be essential in surveying and navigation. Naval officers are trained in celestial navigation, and I don't mean Capt. Kirk, but finding out where you are after all power is lost and you are floating without engines in hostile waters, or blown to hell and gone by a typhoon.

Astronomy has moved into hard science, used to test theory, and also to assay asteroids for their mineral value. It has become the venue for the most ambitious Unification Theories, with string theorists, standard-model disciples, and loop quantum gravity rebels all hoping for vindication from the cosmic microwave background, or calculated expansion rates, or element-abundance measurements. It has even joined the team of homeland defenders, searching for threatening asteroids.

But the ascent of Hubble was revolutionary. It extended our telescopic reach exponentially, increasing our view of the Universe by such a huge amount that even the unimaginable advance from Galileo's little spyglass to Palomar's 200-inch mirror was a smaller jump.  And this jewel is not pointed down, like its sister spy satellites, is never used for military or intelligence work; it used to look outward, so that we may know our place.

And for those who find manned spaceflight an extravagance, think about the likely result of having stayed at home either before or after the Moon: no Hubble. My father worked on the first orbiting astronomical observatories, OAO 1 and 2. The first died after three days, the second did OK, but was so modest in scale that the big earthbound glass could make these first efforts seem like only practice. But with the confidence of being able to repair and upgrade, (thank you KH-11s) we not only orbited a telescope that is almost as big as Palomar, we fixed it when it was discovered to be the wrong specification. And we fixed it again. And we fixed it again.

When it looked like it would die again, and we had lost confidence in the shuttle, NASA announced its retirement. The howl of protest quickly altered that plan. Now it is not only being fixed yet again, but upgraded yet farther to new capability, and getting custom repairs it was never expected to enjoy. Is this not something the planet can take pride in?

Yes, people starve, they die of disease, they are enslaved, tortured, befuddled by propaganda, exploited, and live in squalor. But would the world be a better place without Hubble orbiting serenely above it all? People would still fight and face famine. And we would not know the beauty that is our Universe.

The new telescopes just launched, our own recent ones, and the planned James Webb, will all be sent to locations too distant to service, in trailing solar orbit. But the experience in design and materials, the knowledge of system lifetimes, will make those much more likely to be successes instead of embarrassing failures. Hubble was giant whose shoulders will support those new telescopes.