Couple of interesting snippets on NASAwatch
- SOFIA is back. SIM is slipped, which apparently saves everything. WISE, GLAST, JWST, even HST.
Who knew you could do so much by slipping a $100 million item...
Uh, oh, if you click through to the New Scientist story, we learn SIM is being "refocused". That can't be good. - Yee-Haw!!! - for True Space Cadets Only.
- Bigelow launched and deployed successfully the "Genesis" 1/3 scale model of their inflatable space habitat. Full scale version is decent sized and planned to accommodate ~ half dozen people. Possible ISS add-ons if I read correctly, and also free floaters. Concept similar to the TransHab NASA looked at a decade ago
- Vision for Space Exploration now projected to have a $10 billion or more cost overrun. Each lunar mission is projected to cost ~ $5 billion (about the entire ISS and Shuttle budget per year) with a total cost over the projected project lifetime (of 13 years) of about $100 billion. Hey, you do the math.
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I am impressed that slipping SIM saved, well, everything else. But cost overruns on vaporware are even more impressive.