[ExI] NASA Mars Mission Delay

[BillK]

<http://www.theonion.com/content/news/nasa_embarks_on_epic_delay>

NASA Embarks On Epic Delay
April 17, 2009

WASHINGTON—Top officials at the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration unveiled plans this week for a comprehensive,
multibillion-dollar delay—the agency's most ambitious postponement of
cosmic exploration ever.

The unprecedented delay has reportedly brought together the nation's
foremost aerospace engineers, whose combined efforts have already
added 18 months of rescheduled meetings to the daring mission.

While he could not lock down any specifics regarding completion dates
or construction deadlines, NASA associate administrator Christopher
Scolese said this latest endeavor will be on a scale and time frame
greater than anything the agency has attempted to put off before.

"Delays of this magnitude were once the stuff of science fiction,"
Scolese told reporters during a noon press conference Monday that
actually started around 3:15 p.m. "But now, thanks to a number of
long-overdue technological advances, this historic delay will stretch
the very limits of what humankind can push back indefinitely."

According to NASA officials, the epic postponement will occur in three
progressively longer stages. The first, predicted to last anywhere
from three to five years and cost an estimated $13.8 billion, is
tentatively scheduled to begin in late 2012. The second stage—which
will ultimately be broken up into 14 smaller stages—will comprise a
series of advanced timetable adjustments that, if successful, could
delay human beings from exploring the outmost reaches of the known
galaxy for decades to come.

The third stage is largely theoretical at this point.

And so on...............



BillK