WASHINGTON, Feb. 7 (UPI) -- Two internal NASA reports, circulating in Washington, are raising doubts about the U.S. space agency's reason for abandoning the Hubble Space Telescope.
As a result of the documents, the House Science Committee is expected to discuss the Hubble decision at a Thursday meeting, the New York Times reported Saturday.
NASA's decision to cancel a 2006 shuttle mission to the telescope, which virtually guarantees it will stop working in three years, was allegedly based on safety concerns.
But now an anonymous NASA engineer has released two reports that indicate safety concerns about continued care of the Hubble have been vastly overstated.
"We're reviewing the Hubble decision, looking at it very closely," said a spokesman for Representative Sherwood Boehlert, R-N.Y., who is chairman of the committee.
The reports have deepened astronomers' skepticism that safety -- and not politics and money -- was the issue last month when Sean O'Keefe, the NASA administrator, said it was time to stop servicing Hubble.
Abandoning Hubble means it will probably die in orbit within three years instead of lasting into the early part of the next decade as originally planned.
