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To remain in orbit the spacecraft zooms along at nearly five miles per second. So Hubble's actual odometer mileage is approximately 2.72 billion miles, the equivalent of 5,700 round trips to the Moon. It's also the number of miles Americans will drive today in less than 3 hours. That's not bad considering Hubble doesn't use fuel of any kind, only Earth's gravity to maintain it in a circular orbit.

Hubble's odometer turns over at 7:42 a.m. EDT on August 11. At that time Hubble will be moving northward as it crosses the intersection point where its orbit passes directly over Earth's equator.

In celebration of the telescope's tireless star trekking, the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) will release to the news media and public a commemorative image taken less than a day before the milestone. The image will be released to the media at 1:00 a.m. EDT on August 11, and Hubble telescope scientists will be available for commentary in the morning news hour.

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"I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me." -- Sir Isaac Newton

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HOUSTON -- NASA Television will air interviews with each of the seven astronauts who will fly to the Hubble Space Telescope beginning at 8 a.m. EDT, on Monday, Aug. 11.

The crew includes Commander Scott Altman, Pilot Gregory C. Johnson, and mission specialists Michael Good, Megan McArthur, John Grunsfeld, Mike Massimino and Andrew Feustel.

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For transcripts of the interviews, and more information on the space shuttle and the mission to Hubble, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/shuttlemissions/hst_sm4

The interviews will run repeatedly on NASA TV prior to launch. For information on when and for the complete NASA TV schedule and training footage, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/ntv

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It will be interesting to see if any of the national morning news programs pick this up. I'm hoping some of them take the opportunity to do a live interview with Hubble scientists tomorrow morning -- as is referred to in the first release on the "odometer" story. We'll see ...

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"I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me." -- Sir Isaac Newton

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It is interesting that such a milestone goes unnoticed by many but if they had to reboot a computer it would be on the national evening news.

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