I'd say I don't see a benefit to officially deciding that the United States will be withdrawing from the field of astronomy for half a generation. Not to mention that it's not that this is a proposed thing being cut, the majority of the telescope has been built already, so scraping it now ignores that we've invested a lot of money already that gets thrown away if we abandon it. It's not as though we have a robust space program that's getting pruned down, we have a battered space program that's seen it's share of funding go from over 5% in the 1960s to a fair bit under 1% now.
That's some of the best trivia I've heard in ages. Happy Birthday Neptune... orbit... discovery... err.
Yeah, it is pretty cool. What about land-based telescopes? Government cancels things we're already invested in all the time, unfortunately. But maybe cancelling the telescope could free up funds for other NASA projects. Or encourage the private sector to step up. I think NASA as a whole needs to be reformed, given a new mission. Scientists have for years wondered if we could have space-based solar power... put huge satellites in orbit that collect solar energy, that is then beamed down to Earth using microwave transmissions for use as electricity. Instead of continuing to speculate about it, let's put NASA to work in figuring out how to do it, and get it done within 10-15 years. Then NASA could actually make a small profit, for providing energy needs to the United States and other countries, and with that profit they could fund research-based initiatives like the Webb Space Telescope, missions to explore the Solar System, maybe even get a small base on the Moon and a man on Mars.
On the first part.... with the current technology, and barring some breakthroughs on AO, the James Webb would be a better telescope than any earth-based telescopes I'm aware of. There's hopes to improve earth-based tech enough for that, but nothing certain to my knowledge. On the second part, I'm not sure how one would expect universities to afford the access being suggested there with private sector involvement. Particularly public universities.
This is pretty cool, a huge mass of water floating around in outer space has been discovered, 34 billion times the mass of Earth. [image=http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2011/images/07/25/t1larg.quasar.nasa.jpg]
Apparently there's now the possibility of flowing liquid water on Mars during the planet's springtime...
5 years to Jupiter? Isn't that like better than any previous mission to Jupiter? Earth's might not need a big ol' Moon for stability
Astronomers have announced a whole new passel of planets orbiting stars near the Sun: 50 more, the single largest group ever announced at one time*. It?s an indication of just how good we?re getting at finding these things. Even better: many of these planets are at the upper end of what we might call Earth-like. Cool.
I say we fire up the Jupiter 2 and send the Robinson family there! (Unless they get lost on the way.....)
On Tuesday, November 8, at 6:28 p.m. EST, an asteroid the size of an aircraft carrier will soar past our planet at a distance closer than the Moon? and NASA scientists will be watching! C-type. A big rock.
EUROPA I wonder what the pressure would be like at the bottom of a 100 mile deep ocean on a small world like this.
Meet Curiosity [image=http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/8/2011/11/9c1b38d62f0280455dfcc3d6c4233ab9.jpg] 2,000 pounds on its way to Mars today. [image=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0d/Mars_Science_Laboratory_wheels.jpg/799px-Mars_Science_Laboratory_wheels.jpg]
NASA Confirms Discovery of the most Earth-like Planet Yet [image=http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/8/2011/12/f004089fe86d626a133f84299e31ceb4.jpg] 2.4 times the mass of the Earth. Maybe. Not bad.
2 EARTH SIZED WORLDS FOUND The smaller of the two is stil 1.7 times the mass of the Earth but one of them is actually smaller in size.
There are probably billions/trillions of Earth-sized worlds in the Milky Way. It's not really news to discover extrasolar planets anymore, unless they're in the habitable zone for liquid water, and not too too far away. Even then, we have a few of those now.
