Colin A. Norman, Professor of Physics and Astronomy at 
Johns Hopkins University, testifying before the 
U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science February 2nd, presented the Hubble Origins Probe (HOP) as a replacement for the Hubble Space Telescope.
Concerning the shuttle's estimated one billion dollar cost and 65 month
time-frame for deployment to earth orbit, Norman said: "The
groundbreaking science, the cutting edge technology generated in
the development of new instrumentation, the ability of Hubble
science to engage the interest of the public, and its impact on
the imagination of students, make it worthwhile to invest this
sum of public funds to complete the last chapter of Hubble's
remarkable legacy."
HOP will tackle three of the most central intellectual issues of
our age; the nature of dark energy, the nature
and distribution of dark matter, and the
prevalence of planets, including earths, around other stars.
Norman noted during the testimony that HOP would be, essentially,
a lighter copy of the Hubble Space Telescope and would include
two instruments that were scheduled for installation on the
Hubble: the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS), the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3), plus the new Very Wide Field Imager (VWFI) to be paid for and provided by Japan.
The VWFI has a field of view 17 times greater the advanced
camera on board the Hubble now, and is 3-4 times more sensitive
at critical wavelengths. This will provide for mapping 20 times
faster than achievable by the Hubble at present.
The COS would make possible the identification of the invisible
portion of "ordinary matter," potentially residing in gigantic
gas clouds discovered by the
Chandra X-ray Telescope.
"The WFC3 has greatly enhanced power for discovery in the blue and
the red region of the spectrum and will significantly enhance
studies of galaxies and stars. Its infrared capability is
essential to studies of dark energy," Norman added.
"The decision is obvious. We must continue with the
Hubble adventure to explore these great questions
further, to understand more fully our remarkable
Universe and our place in it. We must do this with
intense determination and energy and thus continue to
inspire new generations with the wonder and thrill of
exploration and discovery," concluded Norman.
Colin Norman was educated at the University of Melbourne and
Oxford University. He has been a professor of physics and
astronomy at Johns Hopkins University and astronomer at the 
Space Telescope Science Institute since 1984.
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Astronomer proposes Hubble replacement