Crazy idea ... give the Russians a call! (Score 1)

If it's such a concern about getting a crew back down in the event of a Columbia type scenario, what about developing a servicing mission for the HST with a two man shuttle crew flown in conjunction with a standby Soyuz with only a single pilot? Hey, why not pay the Russians to actually do the servicing mission? (I've got no idea how large the changeover components required are - could be hard without a robot arm & payload bay!). We're already outsourcing everything we can (in the western world, I'm not from the US), what's wrong with outsourcing a bit of pride also? The IP has already left the building. I'm not sure, maybe it's unworkable for all sorts of reasons I don't understand. But isn't NASA planning to have a second shuttle on standby for all shuttle future launches anyway? International Rescue to the ... rescue! Granted there are newer facilities than the HST that compete in key areas, but it's a great big night sky out there, surely the additional research bandwidth the HST offers has still got to be amazingly useful to astrononers for many years to come?