While reading the XKCD for today, I read on the mouseover that NASA pretty much threw in the towel on the Mars rover Spirit. My best understanding of what has happened is that Spirit got stuck and has been immobile for some time. NASA now calls it a "stationary research station" and expects dust buildup on the solar panels to eventually force a final shutdown. Of course, this little rover has been active for 5 years more that it was supposed to be so big kudos to the design gang. Wanting to get the full story though, I performed a search for 'NASA news' and the first thing to pop up was this. Obama is canceling the Constellation program!? I am so pissed right now. First Bush cans the shuttle program thereby removing any independent method for the US to get people into space, and then this guy cancels funding for the next generation of space-faring craft. Instead the government will outsource ISS trips to other governments and encourage funding for private sectors to develop spacecraft or some crap like that. I can understand canceling the shuttles; they're old and we need something new. But scrapping the new plan is stupid. Also don't misunderstand me in that I think it's great that other countries are getting to develop their own manned missions. I'm just angry that we (the US) won't have one anymore. The article also says that NASA will be encouraged to focus on Earth-based science like "monitoring climate change." Huh? Doesn't the government already have somebody (who is already getting funding) doing that? I suppose the next step would be to shut down satellites that do silly non-climate-change-sciency things. What does 1/4 of NASA stand for again? Space.
**Disclaimer after the fact: I apologize for my poorly researched rant. Should anything I've said not be true, please inform me nicely.
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