During "Late Night with David Letterman" last Tuesday, the television comedian's nightly "top 10 list" was the "Top 10 Hubble Telescope Excuses."
The list began with "The guy at Sears promised it would work fine," and included "Some kids on Earth must be fooling around with a garage door opener," "There's a little doohickey rubbing against the part that looks kind of like a cowboy hat" and "Ran out of quarters."The No. 1 excuse, according to Letterman's list, was that a "race of super-evolved galactic beings are screwing with us."
Letterman's poke at the Hubble Space Telescope reflected a perception that the highly publicized $1.5 billion space observatory has been plagued by problems since it was placed into orbit in April.
Scientists at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration acknowledge the telescope's careful start-up has hit many unexpected snags. But they argue work has proceeded relatively smoothly considering the giant observatory is the most complicated machine of its kind ever built.
"I don't mean to be a Pollyanna," said David Leckrone, deputy project scientist. "But I do know that this time, right after launch, early bugs and early problem-solving is very characteristic. I think we would have been very naive to think it would have been any different."
The overall start-up process is about 10 days behind schedule and engineers are still trying to fix two unusual movements in the telescope, including a vibration that occurs whenever the 12-ton telescope passes into or out of sunlight.
But officials are confident the problems will be fixed and note that work is actually ahead of schedule in some areas and predicted the telescope could take its historic first picture of the heavens as early as Sunday.
"It's not a doom and gloom atmosphere," NASA astronomer Edward Weiler said. "Things are running pretty smoothly."