Public rallies to save doomed Hubble.

Byline: James Janega

CHICAGO _ Believing it too dangerous to send a space shuttle to fix the Hubble Space Telescope, NASA officials said this year that the stargazing workhorse was doomed, fated to be pulled by gravity back to Earth.

But once the public heard about Hubble's bleak future, it rallied to keep the telescope right where it has been since 1990 _ orbiting 375 miles above the globe.

Ideas to save the Hubble ranged from moving it to safety with Russian rockets to raising money in a 5th-grade class in Ohio.

Then engineers began suggesting a new space robot could fix it by 2007, when Hubble's batteries are expected to go dead.

Having once dismissed the robot idea as impractical, NASA officials now say they are increasingly optimistic about the possibility of rescuing the telescope without using the shuttle and its astronauts. The agency says it will decide in June whether to seek bids to build the robot and try replacing the shuttle's aging parts _ primarily batteries and gyroscopes.

Since NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe's Jan. 16 no-shuttles-to-Hubble pronouncement, the change of tune on considering robot missions has been swift. ...