[extropy-chat] Nasa Reinstates Dawn Mission

[Amara Graps]

>>Looks like good news for Amara.  : )

Good news for my Italian group. It does make it harder for me to leave
because I think that it's a very cool mission. My savings is almost run
out though, and I don't have a choice. Wherever I find myself after this
summer, I hope I can be involved in some aspect of this mission.

Keith Henson:
>It will be interesting to see what she says when she gets back.  It could
>be that the embarrassment from the possibility of a project being completed
>on private money was a motivating factor for NASA management.

I doubt it was me that had any role. My private funding information
remained in the hands of the primary science team member as a backup,
third-choice solution if their first-choice (NASA) and second choice
(ESA,DLR,ASI) solutions failed. I didn't press the idea, since I
suspect the mission manager thought my idea was a little bit crazy,
anyway. I think more likely why it was reinstated was pressure from, and
saving face to, the other government space agencies. If I thought NASA
was rational, then perhaps, in addition, the reason was someone at the
higher levels listened to the logical arguments against the
much-publicized technical and financial 'problems' that were shown to be
not 'problems', after all. (But I don't think that NASA is very
rational.)


Amara

P.S. The private funding information is going to be useful for
another unfunded space project for which I heard recently, so
it is not wasted effort.

P.S.S.
The solar eclipse was **GLORIOUS** **SPLENDID** **FANTASTIC**

Surely there are more superlatives I can use, but none will do it
justice. It was the best experience of my life. It took my breath away!

-- 

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Amara Graps, PhD          email: amara at amara.com
Computational Physics     vita:  ftp://ftp.amara.com/pub/resume.txt
Multiplex Answers         URL:   http://www.amara.com/
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"Looking up gives light, although at first it makes you dizzy."
        --Mevlana Rumi