Battleangel

According to Nature, NASA officials told seven mission managers (Voyager, Ulysses, Polar, Wind, Geotail, FAST (Fast Auroral SnapshoT) and TRACE (Transition Region and Coronal Explorer)) that there is now no money to keep their projects operating after the current fiscal year ends in October.

Every few years a review by scientists outside NASA ranks the science value of operating missions to help the agency plan which ones should be extended and which ones terminated. But the panel never suggested that the missions marked as low-ranking in the most recent review should be shut down this year.

For example, Ulysses, launched in 1990 to explore the Sun’s polar regions for the first time, was recommended to continue until 2008, and Wind until 2007.

Launched in 1977, Voyagers 1 and 2 are now more than 14 billion and 11 billion kilometres from Earth, respectively. Having visited all the outer planets except Pluto, they are on their final quest – to locate the unknown boundary between the Sun’s domain and the realm where interstellar space begins.

Source: Space Travel

Doesn’t that just get on your nerves? I got more than a little upset when I saw the Nature report. What NASA will probably do is save a few millions that will later disappear into a billion dollar manned space mission. Because someone turned space science into a neo-con agenda for uniting the masses. “Penny-wise and pound-foolish”, pretty much says it all.

Background: BBC, Space Travel.