In 1997, we aimed a rocket towards Saturn and sent a 13-foot-wide satellite off on a mission to explore the strange worlds in our own (relative) backyard.
This month, NASA announced plans to extend the Cassini space probe’s Saturn sojourn until 2017—nine years longer than its original end date of 2008. Read all about it at the special report at Boing Boing.
Thanks to friend-of-the-blog TheGothBunny for the link!
It’s great to see that so many NASA missions are extended, but it’s a little disappointing to see how few new and exciting missions NASA is launching.
The Cassini probe is over 10 years old, you have to believe that technology has vastly improved since then and if we sent out a new probe today, imagine how great it could be.
It’s a lot more than I’d like to get into here, but I’m saddened by what we have let happen to us. We basically bankrupted ourselves over the past 8 or 9 years, and now we can’t afford anything. Where do you cut first? Science is an early target, sadly. Meanwhile, the Chinese and Indians are going to the moon, and not just because of the view. They know that there’s energy in them thar hills.
But of course by the time the Chinese are bringing it home from the moon, we’ll be wondering what else we can burn to keep our oil-fueled lives going.
Oops. My politics are showing.