[r9etb]

would you buy Hubble stock??

Hell no. Satellites wear out over time. Hubble's had a good run, but it's oooooold! It'd be cheaper to build and launch a new one.

[jpsb]

Hubble is not an "aging telescope" Hubble is in it's prime and doing the best science in it's field. Hubble is up there and working, everything else is "on the drawing boards" and will most likely not be funded.

You are going to have a long wait if you are waiting for a US moon based telescope. Right now we have 500+ billion and growing budget deficets. The dollars is falling and in a few years all the retiring baby boomers will break the US treasury bank. No body is going to spend unteen billion dollars on a mission to the moon or a new space telescope when the nation is flat broke.

It is either save Hubble or forget about a serious American space telescope for at least a generation.

The Chinesse are launching a smaller space telescope at about the same time Hubble will be burning up in the atmosphere. Think about that.