[extropy-chat] Bush's Schedule for NASA

[John K Clark]

There had been much debate within NASA if there should be more visits to the
Hubble Space Telescope to maintain it after the one scheduled for next year.
Because it is one of the few NASA programs that actually produces science
the astronomical community had been lobbying hard for an extra visit in
about 2008 that would extend its useful life well beyond the end of the
decade. Yesterday NASA announced its decision, not only would be no extra
flight in 2008 but the scheduled one in 2005 was canceled too, this despite
the fact that they already spent  $200,000,000 developing new instruments
that were to be installed on Hubble next year.  NASA said it would cost
$500,000,000 to launch the shuttle to the Hubble and that's just too
expensive; instead NASA will develop an unmanned probe that would latch onto
Hubble, the probe would then fire its rocket to change its orbit so Hubble
would crash into the sea. To add insult to injury the $300,000,000 needed to
develop this assassin will come from NASA's astronomy budget.

Meanwhile NASA will continue to support the much much more expensive Space
Station so astronauts can perform science fair level experiments designed by
junior high school kids.

  John K Clark      jonkc at att.net