Hubble cage match: STIS vs ACS

Servicing Mission 4 to the Hubble Space Telescope will instal new gyros, batteries, and 2 spanking-new instruments (COS and WPFC3). There may also be time to repair one or two existing, dead instruments (STIS and ACS).

If NASA only has time/money/astronauts to repair EITHER STIS (the UV imaging spectrograph) or ACS (the optical camera) onboard Hubble, which should get priority from a scientific standpoint?

Ignore feasibility for the moment. Just pick which one would be more profitable scientifically, and defend your answer.

Noctilucent clouds

NASA just launched the "AIM" satellite to study noctilucent clouds (very high altitude clouds seen in reflected sunlight long after sunset), and why they're becoming more common. These clouds increase the reflectivity of the Earth, and are therefore important to understand man-made climate change.

A few noctilucent clouds are caused by rocket launches -- here are some cool examples. The top photo, of a Minotaur rocket launch in 2006 from Vandenberg Air Force Base, was taken by Steve West in Tucson. I saw those clouds, too (in a Target parking lot) -- they really were that spectacular! Drivers pulled over and got out to gawk.

Here's another fanastic launch-cloud photo by Steve West, this one of a THAAD missile test.

Actual astronomy

Enough bitching about politics & news.

Here's a pictoral atlas of the universe, designed to give you that visceral understanding of where your "YOU ARE HERE" dot fits in the great big universe.

Bonus for amateur astronomers: it marks the positions in our Galaxy of famous nebulae and stars you know and love.

Justice Ginsburg can ride shotgun for me anytime

Well, I'm getting an abortion now, while it's still legal. Maybe I'll spring for 2 or 3.

See? It's women like me, flippantly getting abortions like candy, who must be stopped by a federal law, just okey-dokeed by the supreme court, stating that Congress can make medical decisions for me more responsibly than me & my doc.

Do those pricks on the bench KNOW how many of their female colleagues, sisters, wives, old girlfriends, once needed an abortion? Any idea at all?

You tell 'em, Ruth Bader Ginsburg. (Seriously, her dissent is beautiful reading.)

NPR

Gave a ride today to a South Korean grad student. NPR was on the radio, more on the Virginia Tech shootings.
"News from Virginia?"
"Yeah. What do you think about all of it?"
"Korean people are very ashamed."
I tried to convey that he shouldn't be, that everyone understands that the shooter was mentally disturbed. We talked a little about the search for a "motive", as if there could be a rational reason for mass murder.

Must be surreal, to be living in strange country, struggling with English and the difficulties of Astro grad school, and then this happens.

Cinderella

Having returned from the Cinderella bridal shop, I now suspect that straight-girl feminism, while well-intentioned, may be doomed.

I've toured the solar system and it's not yet 9am.

Cool gallery of all large bodies in the solar system -- a nice visceral presentation for easy comparison.

Pluto boosters especially, go take a look.