[extropy-chat] ASTRO: Hubble fate sealed

[Robert J. Bradbury]

On Mon, 19 Jan 2004, Alfio Puglisi wrote:

> Amara, is this bit about turning Cassini off just random talking, or do
> you have some information? Cassini already spent billions of $$, and it
> makes no sense to stop now that it's almost on target.

I very much doubt that Cassini would be canceled given the investment.
(After all they don't seem to be canceling the Mars rover efforts.)
There is also the ESA involvement in the Huygens probe that would make
any kind of downgrading very poor form (the visibility is too high).
I suspect that it will go through its 3(?) year mission but there may
be resistance to extending the mission as I believe was done with
Galileo (if the Cassini equipment and power supply lasts that long).

Robert