Month: October 2022

It’s been five years since carnage and death sent his family running into the night, leaving them separated and terrified as a gunman rained bullets into an outdoor country music festival crowd on the Las Vegas Strip.

The memories don’t fade, they sharpen, William “Bill” Henning said as he prepared for ceremonies in Las Vegas marking the date of the Oct. 1, 2017, massacre.

“Chaotic and unreal,” he recalled. “A human stampede. People were bleeding and screaming and running. We all got separated. We didn’t know who was alive. That was the most difficult.”

He’s now part of a survivor community thousands strong, one that’s helped him sort through the horror of what happened during the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. Fifty-eight people were killed and more than 850 were injured among a crowd of 22,000.

In the years since, the grim drumbeat of mass shootings has continued: schools in Uvalde, Texas, and Parkland, Florida; grocery stores in Buffalo, New York, and Boulder, Colorado; bars in Dayton, Ohio, and Thousand Oaks, California; a city building in Virginia Beach, Virginia; a Walmart in El Paso, Texas. Meanwhile, the debate over gun laws in the U.S. rages on, including a renewed challenge to the federal regulation sparked by the Las Vegas shooting.

Nevada U.S. Rep. Dina Titus on Saturday called again for a federal law banning bump stocks, the devices used by the Las Vegas shooter that allow a semi-automatic rifle to fire repeatedly with just one pull of the trigger. They were outlawed by rule by the Trump Administration but face court challenges.

And President Joe Biden also called for renewed efforts to tighten firearms laws Saturday while mourning the victims and praising residents who came together in the aftermath of the shooting.

The president noted executive action he’s taken to crack down on ghost guns and rogue gun dealers and the passage of the first significant firearms legislation in 30 years. That bipartisan law signed by Biden in June in part boosts protections for domestic violence victims, funnels cash to states for firearms crime prevention and has money for mental health services.

“But we’re not stopping there,” Biden said in a statement. “I am determined to seize this momentum and work with Congress to enact further commonsense gun violence prevention legislation, including banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, which have enabled shooters to slaughter so many innocents.”

The Las Vegas massacre is part of a horrifying uptick of shootings with especially high numbers of people killed, said James Alan Fox, a professor of criminology, law and public policy at Northeastern University in Boston. Five of the nine mass shootings in modern U.S. history with more than 20 people killed have taken place since 2016, starting with the Pulse nightclub in Orlando and continuing through the elementary school shooting in Uvalde, Texas.

“The severity of public mass shootings has increased in the past few years. That’s clear,” Fox said. “And worrisome.”

Fox oversees a database maintained by The Associated Press, USA Today and Northeastern University that tracks mass killings involving four or more people slain, not including the perpetrator. The information is drawn from media reports, FBI data, arrest records, medical examiners’ reports, prison records and other court documents.

Watching the steady stream of shootings in the U.S. is tough for survivors, said Tennille Pereira, director of a Clark County recovery and support program called the Vegas Strong Resiliency Center.

“I know when it keeps happening, people often express feelings of hopelessness,” Pereira said. “I think the big thing for Las Vegas is to be able to share with those other communities that healing does occur, and that there is hope.”

For people like Henning, part of that hope has been the bond formed with other survivors. The retired computer technician was celebrating his 71st birthday at the Route 91 Harvest Festival with friends, his wife, daughter and three teenage grandchildren when the gunfire began. He suffered a knee injury while escaping that required surgery, but his group made it out without being struck by gunfire.

“At first, the first few years, it’s not really sinking in,” he said. “The more we organize ourselves, the more that we see each other, it actually brings us back to how serious this situation was.”

Many in Las Vegas who won’t name the man who police said fired 1,057 bullets from 32nd floor windows of the Mandalay Bay resort during a span of time now memorialized in a Paramount+ streaming service documentary called 11 Minutes.

“We don’t want to give him any more power, credibility, infamy,” Pereira said. “In this survivor population, words matter. We don’t use the word ‘anniversary.’ We use ‘remembrance.’ We try not to use the word ‘victims.’ We try to use the word ‘survivor.’”

Police and the FBI spent months investigating and concluded that gunman Stephen Paddock acted alone, meticulously planned the attack and intentionally concealed his actions. He amassed an arsenal of 23 assault-style rifles in his hotel room, including 14 fitted with bump stock devices that help the weapons fire rapidly.

Caches of weapons also were found at Paddock’s homes in Reno and Mesquite, Nevada. But he killed himself before police reached him, and local and federal officials said they never identified a clear motive for the attack.

Shortly after the shooting, the administration of then-President Donald Trump banned bump stocks under the same federal laws that prohibit machine guns. Gun-rights advocates sued, saying the weapons didn’t qualify as machine guns and it would take an act of Congress to ban them.

The ban has survived several court challenges. But a federal appeals court in New Orleans revived a case there in June, the same day the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a ruling expanding gun rights. That case marked the high court’s first major gun decision in more than a decade and has sparked a wave of court challenges to gun laws around the country.

Meanwhile, in Las Vegas, survivors are working toward a permanent memorial on a corner of the former Las Vegas Strip festival ground.

A sunrise remembrance ceremony is scheduled Saturday at the Clark County Government Center, and the names of those killed will be read at 10:05 p.m. — the time the shooting started — at a downtown Las Vegas Community Healing Garden.

Survivor Sue Nelson, 67, said she fled from her front-row seat and hid for hours on the Las Vegas Strip, forming deep bonds with others who escaped. She declared she has “survivor sorrow, not survivor guilt” because she didn’t do anything wrong.

Nelson drives two hours to Las Vegas from her home in Lake Havasu, Arizona, for memorial events and gives out lapel pins shaped like little guitars and rubber wrist bands stamped with: “We Remember 10.1.17 #Honors58.”

“I’m not afraid anymore,” she said. “It makes a big difference in healing when you’re not afraid anymore.”  
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Turkey’s interior minister Saturday described a gun attack that killed a police officer in the country’s south as an “America-based” operation.

Two suspected Kurdish militants opened fire on security force lodgings in the Mediterranean province of Mersin late Monday, killing one officer and wounding a second officer and a civilian.

The female attackers, who Turkish authorities said were affiliated with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, later killed themselves by detonating suicide bombs.

“This action is an America-based action,” Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu told ruling party officials in the Black Sea province of Giresun, according to the private Demiroren news agency and other outlets.

Soylu also said U.S. authorities had requested the serial numbers of the firearms used in the attack from the Turkish police, without specifying which U.S. agency made the request.

Turkish government officials have previously accused Washington of supporting the PKK by arming and training the group’s Syrian branch, known as the YPG.

Tens of thousands of people have been killed in the 38-year on-off conflict between the PKK and the Turkish state. The PKK is listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the U.S. and the European Union. The U.S. does not recognize the YPG, which helped combat the Islamic State group in Syria, as a terrorist entity.

Soylu last year alleged American involvement in a failed coup attempt in Turkey in 2016 that killed more than 250 people. In 2018, he was placed on a sanctions list by Washington over the arrest and detention of U.S. pastor Andrew Brunson.

The minister said Monday’s attackers, who targeted accommodations for security personnel in Mersin’s Mezitli district, had arrived in Turkey from the YPG-controlled Syrian city of Manbij by motorized parachute.
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The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration has upgraded Malaysia’s air safety rating to Category 1, allowing the country’s carriers to expand flights to the United States after a three-year hiatus, Transport Minister Wee Ka Siong said Saturday.

Wee said the move will bolster tourism and economic growth in Malaysia, which opened from pandemic shutdowns in April.

“With the return to Category 1, our airlines can now mount new flights to the U.S. and have code sharing with American carriers. There is no more barrier now,” said Wee, who was in Montreal for an ICAO assembly. “This is good news after the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Riad Asmat, CEO of low-cost carrier AirAsia Malaysia, said it was a “very good start.” He said AirAsia, currently the only Malaysian carrier that flies to the United States — from Kuala Lumpur to Honolulu — will seek opportunities to expand in the U.S.

The FAA lowered Malaysia’s rating in November 2019 to Category 2 due to non-compliance with safety standards. The FAA identified deficiencies in areas including technical expertise, record keeping and inspection procedures.

Under the FAA system, countries are listed either as Category 1, which meets International Civil Aviation Organization standards, or Category 2, which doesn’t meet standards.

Wee told an online news conference that the downgrade prompted Malaysia to restructure its Civil Aviation Authority and make various efforts to strengthen its aviation workforce, documentation processes and inspection methods to ensure effective safety oversight.

He said the FAA was satisfied the issues identified in 2019 had been rectified but found 29 new problems in its December assessment. Those issues were swiftly rectified in the first half this year, he said, and the FAA has restored Malaysia’s Category 1 rating.

Malaysia Airlines CEO Izham Ismail said the national carrier will resume flight plans with its partners, especially American Airlines, but didn’t elaborate. 
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A U.S. judge on Friday dismissed Mexico’s $10 billion lawsuit seeking to hold U.S. gun manufacturers responsible for facilitating the trafficking of a deadly flood of weapons across the U.S.-Mexico border to drug cartels.

The decision by Chief Judge F. Dennis Saylor in federal court in Boston is a victory for Smith & Wesson Brands Inc, Sturm, Ruger & Co and others accused of undermining Mexico’s strict gun laws by designing, marketing and selling military-style assault weapons that cartels could use.

Mexico said it would appeal the decision.

“This suit by the Mexican government has received worldwide recognition and has been considered a turning point in the discussion around the gun industry’s responsibility for the violence experience in Mexico and the region,” Mexico’s foreign ministry said in a statement.

Saylor said federal law “unequivocally” bars lawsuits seeking to hold gun manufacturers responsible when people use guns for their intended purpose. He said the law contained several narrow exceptions, but none applied.

“While the court has considerable sympathy for the people of Mexico, and none whatsoever for those who traffic guns to Mexican criminal organizations, it is duty-bound to follow the law,” Saylor wrote in a 44-page decision.

Other defendants included Barrett Firearms Manufacturing Inc, Beretta USA Corp, Colt’s Manufacturing Co and Glock Inc.

Representatives for the companies either declined to comment or did not respond to requests for comment. Lawrence Keane, the general counsel of firearm industry trade group National Shooting Sports Foundation, welcomed the dismissal of the “baseless lawsuit.”

“The crime that is devastating the people of Mexico is not the fault of members of the firearm industry, that under U.S. law, can only sell their lawful products to Americans exercising their Second Amendment rights after passing a background check,” he said.

In its August 2021 complaint, Mexico estimated that 2.2% of the nearly 40 million guns made annually in the United States are smuggled into Mexico, including as many as 597,000 guns made by the defendants.

Mexico said the smuggling has been a key factor in its ranking third worldwide in the number of gun-related deaths. It also claimed to suffer many other harms, including declining investment and economic activity and a need to spend more on law enforcement and public safety.

But the judge said Mexico could not overcome a provision in a U.S. law, the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, that shields gun makers from lawsuits over “the harm solely caused by the criminal or unlawful misuse of firearm products … by others when the product functioned as designed and intended.”

Other defendants included Barrett Firearms Manufacturing Inc, Beretta USA Corp, Colt’s Manufacturing Co and Glock Inc. 
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Even after three months of captivity that included execution threats, physical torture, solitary confinement and food deprivation, it was the ride to freedom that nearly broke Alex Drueke, a U.S. military veteran released last week with nine other prisoners who went to help Ukraine fight off Russian invaders.

His hands were bound. His head was covered by a plastic bag, and the packing tape holding it in place was secured so tightly it it caused welts on his forehead. Drueke said he and fellow American prisoner Andy Huynh reached their limit in this state during the transit, which occurred in a series of vehicles from eastern Ukraine to an airport in Russia that was surrounded by armed guards.

“For all we went through and all the times we thought we might die, we accepted that we might die, we were ready to die when it came, that ride was the only time that each of us independently prayed for death just to get it over with,” Drueke told The Associated Press in an interview Friday.

“The mental and emotional torture of those last 24 hours in captivity, that was the worst,” he said.

Drueke, 40, is healing: The swelling is going down on his head and he’s trying to regain some of the 13.6 kilograms he figures he lost eating a poor diet. But awful memories remain, and he’s unsure what comes next aside from trying to focus attention on fellow prisoners who remain in Russian hands.

“The war has not ended,” he said, speaking at the home he shares with his mother and other relatives in Tuscaloosa.

Drueke and Huynh, a 27-year-old fellow military veteran from Alabama, were among hundreds of Americans who went to Ukraine early on to help in the fight against Russia.

On June 9, they were captured during what Drueke described as a reconnaissance mission associated with Ukraine’s international legion, composed of foreign volunteers.

“Everyone else managed to make it back to the base safe,” he said.

Russian soldiers took the two men to their camp, and then into Russia for “intensive interrogation.” While declining to go into specifics, Drueke said the treatment was brutal.

“Every one of our human rights were violated,” he said. “We were tortured.”

The men were taken back to Ukraine to a “black site” in Donetsk for nearly a month of additional interrogation, he said. They were eventually taken to an isolation cellblock within a former Ukrainian prison. There, Drueke and Huynh were forced to record propaganda statements for a Russian video camera with soldiers in the room.

“On the positive side, there were times they would put us in a closet, bound and blindfolded, … while they were waiting for whatever reporter to show up, and it gave Andy and I just a few seconds to whisper things back and forth to check in on each other,” he said. “It was the first time we had talked in weeks at that point.”

Eventually, after weeks of confinement that included multiple threats, it became apparent that something — either a release, a prison transfer or execution — was in the works, said Drueke, who joined the U.S. Army Reserve after the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and served two tours in Iraq.

“We knew something was happening because our normal routine was being skewed and they were having us clear all of our personal stuff out of the cell,” he said.

But even then, the mental torture continued, he said. “One of the guards said a couple of times, ‘I’m pretty sure you guys are getting executed,’” he said.

Instead, they were part of a group of 10 men who were released Sept. 21 in a deal brokered by Saudi Arabia. The others who were released with them were from Croatia, Morocco, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

No one relaxed until the plane was in the air and an official from Saudi Arabia explained what was happening, he said. Landing in New York after a flight from Saudi Arabia, Drueke said he and Huynh were met by a Homeland Security official from an office that investigates war crimes.

Press aides with Homeland Security didn’t immediately return an email seeking comment, but the U.N. human rights investigators have said Ukrainian prisoners of war appear to be facing “systematic” mistreatment by Russian captors that includes torture.
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Deadly Hurricane Ian, one of the most powerful storms ever to hit the United States, roared into South Carolina on Friday, delivering a powerful second punch after walloping Florida.

The National Hurricane Center (NHC) said Ian made landfall near Georgetown, South Carolina, as a Category 1 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 140 kph.

It was later downgraded to a post-tropical cyclone, but the NHC said Friday evening that Ian is bringing heavy rain, flash flooding and high winds to both South Carolina and North Carolina. Some areas can expect up to 20 centimeters of rain.

As for storm-ravaged Florida, President Joe Biden said: “We’re just beginning to see the scale of the destruction.

“It’s likely to rank among the worst in the nation’s history,” he said of Ian, which barreled into Florida’s southwest coast on Wednesday as a Category 4 storm, a tick shy of the most powerful on the Saffir-Simpson wind scale.

The death toll from the storm stands at 23, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement said Friday evening.

News outlets quoting county officials have given even higher tolls, with CNN saying 45 fatalities have been blamed on Ian.

Seventeen migrants also remain missing from a boat that sank during the hurricane on Wednesday, according to the Coast Guard. One person was found dead and nine others rescued, including four Cubans who swam to shore in the Florida Keys.

With damage estimates running into the tens of billions of dollars, Biden said it’s “going to take months, years to rebuild.”

“It’s not just a crisis for Florida,” he said. “This is an American crisis.”

CoreLogic, a firm that specializes in property analysis, said wind-related losses for residential and commercial properties in Florida could cost insurers up to $32 billion while flooding losses could go as high as $15 billion.

“This is the costliest Florida storm since Hurricane Andrew made landfall in 1992,” CoreLogic’s Tom Larsen said.

‘We made it through’

Rescue teams were assisting survivors Friday in devastated Florida communities and the U.S. Coast Guard said it had made 117 rescues using boats and helicopters of people trapped in flooded homes.

Governor Ron DeSantis said hundreds of other rescue personnel were going door-to-door “up and down the coastline.”

DeSantis said the coastal town of Fort Myers where the hurricane made landfall, was “ground zero” but “this was such a big storm that there are effects far inland,” including serious flooding in the city of Orlando.

Many Floridians evacuated ahead of the storm, but thousands chose to shelter in place and ride it out.

More than 1.4 million Florida residents were still without electricity on Friday and two hard-hit barrier islands near Fort Myers — Pine Island and Sanibel Island — were cut off after the storm damaged causeways to the mainland.

Aerial photos and video show breathtaking destruction in Sanibel and elsewhere.

The causeway is seen broken and washed out, with one section covered by calm waters lit up with reflections of the sun.

In Fort Myers Beach, a recreational boat called Crackerjack sits atop a pile of debris like an abandoned toy. A trailer park was blasted away to almost nothing recognizable.

Meanwhile in North and South Carolina, nearly half a million customers were without power, according to tracking website poweroutage.us, as a weakened Ian nevertheless lashed the states.

In Fort Myers, a handful of restaurants and bars reopened, giving an illusion of normalcy amid downed trees and shattered storefronts.

Dozens of people sat out on terraces under a bright sun, drinking beer and eating.

Dylan Gamber, 23, said he had been waiting for two hours at a pizzeria to get food to bring home.

“It was kind of bad, but we made it through,” Gamber said. “The roof of our house came off, a big tree collapsed across our vehicles, our yard was flooded, but other than that we were pretty good.

“As a community, we seem to be coming together and helping each other out.”

‘All submerged’

In nearby Bonita Springs, Jason Crosser was inspecting the damage to his store.

“The water went over the whole building,” said Crosser, 37. “It was all submerged. It’s all saltwater and water damage.”

After making landfall in South Carolina, Ian is expected to weaken fast and dissipate by Saturday night.

Before pummeling Florida, Ian plunged all of Cuba into darkness after downing the island’s power network.

Electricity was gradually returning, but many homes remain without power.

Human-induced climate change is resulting in more severe weather events across the globe, scientists say — including with Ian.

According to a rapid and preliminary analysis, human-caused climate change increased the extreme rain that Ian unleashed by over 10%, U.S. scientists said.
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The United States and Russia traded barbs and accusations at a U.N. Security Council meeting Friday about the apparent sabotage to a major gas pipeline that Russia uses to supply Europe.

Between Sept. 26 and 29, explosions caused four leaks in the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines that run along the floor of the Baltic Sea.

The United States, European Union, NATO and Russia all agree the damage and gas leaks point to sabotage, but they disagree about who is the likely perpetrator.

Russia requested the Security Council meeting to discuss the pipeline incident.

“It’s quite clear to us that carrying out of sabotage of such complexity and scale is beyond the power of ordinary terrorists,” Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said at the meeting. “We consider the actions to damage the gas pipelines to be deliberate sabotage against a crucial element of the Russian Federation’s energy infrastructure.”

He reiterated Kremlin talking points, saying that it could not have happened without the involvement of a state or state-controlled actors, and that Moscow would “certainly identify” the perpetrators.

“I hope, colleagues, that everyone in this room is aware of the dangerous brink to which those who committed this sabotage are leading us,” he said.

Assessing blame

Nebenzia implied that the United States had the most to gain by damaging the pipeline, and directly asked his U.S. counterpart if he could confirm that Washington was not involved.

“Let me be clear: The United States categorically denies any involvement in this incident, and we reject any assertions saying the contrary,” U.S. envoy Richard Mills responded.

Mills accused Russia of using the Security Council as a platform to launch conspiracy theories and disinformation. He noted that since Russia invaded Ukraine seven months ago, it has repeatedly damaged and destroyed civilian infrastructure there.

“If there is any country, perhaps, that has a record of doing what we are discussing here today, it’s not the United States,” Mills noted.

Some European officials and energy experts have suggested that Russia likely carried out the attacks to benefit from higher energy prices and to create more economic chaos in Europe for its support of Ukraine in fending off Russia’s war. But other officials urged caution in assessing blame until investigators determine what happened.

The damage to the pipelines happened off the shores of Sweden and Denmark. Ahead of Friday’s meeting, their ambassadors sent a joint letter to the Security Council president. They said at least two underwater detonations occurred on Sept. 26, damaging pipelines on Nord Stream 1 and 2 and causing “major leaks” of natural gas several hundred meters wide.

The cause was likely two massive explosions, “probably corresponding to an explosive load of several hundred kilos,” which were “the result of a deliberate act.” The blasts were so powerful, they said, that they measured 2.3 and 2.1 on the Richter scale, which is used to gauge earthquakes.

They warned that the gas plumes pose a risk to both sea and air traffic, and they instituted a navigation warning to ships to maintain a distance of at least 5 nautical miles, or 10 kilometers, from the leaks.

Danish, Swedish and German authorities are carrying out a joint investigation. Russia’s ambassador said Moscow would only accept the results of an independent investigation that included Russian experts.

NATO

On Thursday, NATO vowed retaliation for attacks on the critical infrastructure of its 30 member states.

“Any deliberate attack against allies’ critical infrastructure would be met with a united and determined response,” NATO ambassadors said in a statement.

The bloc said the four ruptures in the Nord Stream pipelines were of “deep concern” and agreed that current information pointed to “deliberate, reckless and irresponsible acts of sabotage.”

Two of the leaks are on the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, where the flow of gas was recently halted, while the other two are on Nord Stream 2, which has never been opened.

Although they were not in operation, both pipelines were filled with methane gas, which has escaped and is bubbling to the surface.
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Vice President Kamala Harris and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen plan to use this year’s Freedman’s Bank Forum to highlight how federal coronavirus pandemic relief program funds have helped support Black- and minority-owned businesses.

The Treasury Department said in a statement that “the importance of expanding the community finance system will be front and center” at the Oct. 4 forum. In 2015, then-Treasury Secretary Jack Lew launched the annual Freedman’s conference to develop strategies to address persistent racial economic disparities.

Roughly 96% of Black-owned businesses are sole proprietorships and single-employee companies. These businesses have the hardest time finding funding and are often the first to suffer during economic downturns. They often turn to financial institutions for the underserved and other non-traditional lenders for micro-loans and grants.

Earlier this month, Treasury announced that it had disbursed roughly $8.28 billion in relief funds to 162 community financial institutions across the country through its Emergency Capital Investment Program.

The forum will include a panel on new support for community finance institutions, small businesses and low wealth communities, “all in an effort to unlock the economic potential of communities of color, rural areas, and others that have experienced limits on economic opportunity,” the department said.

A February Government Accountability Office report outlined how various agencies could improve efforts to increase banking access for people who don’t have access to bank accounts.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the National Credit Union Administration and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency were all identified for improvements.
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The world now has stunning new photos of this week’s asteroid strike, the first planetary defense test of its kind.

NASA on Thursday released pictures of the dramatic event taken by the Hubble and Webb space telescopes.

A few hours later, SpaceX joined NASA in announcing that they’re studying the feasibility of sending a private mission to Hubble, potentially led by a billionaire, to raise the aging telescope’s orbit and extend its life.

Telescopes on all seven continents watched as NASA’s Dart spacecraft slammed Monday into the harmless space rock, 7 million miles (11 million kilometers) from Earth, in hopes of altering its orbit.

Scientists won’t know the precise change until November; the demo results are expected to instill confidence in using the technique if a killer asteroid heads our way one day.

“This is an unprecedented view of an unprecedented event,” Johns Hopkins University planetary astronomer and mission leader Andy Rivkin said in a statement.

All these pictures will help scientists learn more about the little asteroid Dimorphos, which took the punch and ended up with a sizable crater. The impact sent streams of rock and dirt hurtling into space, appearing as bright emanating rays in the latest photos.

The brightness of this double asteroid system — the 525-foot (160-meter) Dimorphos is actually the moonlet around a bigger asteroid — tripled after the impact as seen in the Hubble images, according to NASA.

Hubble and Webb will keep observing Dimorphos and its large companion Didymos over the next several weeks.

The $325 million Dart mission was launched last year. The spacecraft was built and managed by Johns Hopkins’ Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland.

As for Hubble, NASA officials stressed Thursday that the observatory launched 32 years ago is in good shape and might have another decade of life left.

Hubble’s orbit constantly is decaying, but the telescope could have even more years ahead if it were boosted from its current 335 miles (540 kilometers) above Earth to 375 miles (600 kilometers) or more. The six-month technical feasibility study also will consider whether any parts could be replaced, presumably by a crew.

Jared Isaacman, a Pennsylvania tech entrepreneur who bankrolled his own SpaceX flight last year with contest winners, said a Hubble mission, if approved, would fit nicely into his planned series of spaceflights. But he stopped short of saying whether he was volunteering.

“We’re working on crazy ideas all the time,” NASA’s science mission chief, Thomas Zurbuchen, told reporters. “Frankly, that’s what we’re supposed to do.”
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