I know that Bush's space initiative is basically a PR stunt and a bunch of hot air blowing from his imperial anus, and unlikely to come to pass, and awfully short on real details or plan-ness anyhow, and on those grounds it's not worth getting myself too upset about. But it's gone too far now.
It seems that NASA has cancelled the next mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope, replace failing gyroscopes, and install new instruments. In the light of the Columbia disaster, before sending shuttles to Hubble, NASA would have to install some new safety features, so they could inspect themselves in orbit if something went wrong. NASA had already budgeted in that money, but now the HST is not in keeping with the 'new direction' given to NASA by our Fearless Leader. So there will not be any further servicing missions. And the telescope will in all probability cease functioning several years earlier than planned.
Science is now PR's bitch. Which, I suppose, should come as no surprise.
(UPDATE: The Toronto Star also reports on this. The mini-paragraph on the 'dark force' is just embarassingly poorly done, and I apologise for asking you to read it.)
Posted by aloysius at January 16, 2004 09:26 PM | TrackBack |