The Hubble has been an amazing tool, and the taxpayers have certainly gotten their money’s worth from it. Sadly, I fear it’s days are numbered. The reaction control system is failing and it is now running on backup systems for some operations. It’s a shame that we cannot send up a crew to do a major service visit to the telescope and replace all of its failing hardware. Even if it is 31 years old, it still has the potential to do serious scientific observations. If Hubble does go dark, NASA will have a lot riding on the successful launch of the Webb telescope (hopefully) later this year. Due to its orbital distance (over a million miles) from earth, it will truly be on its own.