Launch Delayed of Unmanned Satellite to Test Einstein Predictions

[demdave]

LOS ANGELES (AP) - NASA scrubbed the launch Monday of a satellite designed to test two of Albert Einstein's fundamental predictions about the universe.

NASA called off the launch of Gravity Probe B just minutes before it was to leave Vandenberg Air Force Base atop a Delta II rocket.

The mission was postponed for nearly 24 hours because officials were unable to verify whether some last-minute data had been loaded aboard the rocket, launch director Chuck Dovale said.


http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGA5ARWT8TD.html

[ewagner]

1. Too bad

I'm looking forward to this.

According to news reports, it is supposed to determine if gravity can indeed bend space and time. Although I thought the bending of light has been confirmed for some time. The experiment of measuring the position of a star in relation to the sun.....etc...thought that just about proved Einstein was right.

At any rate, I'm anxious for this mission to get under way.

[Name removed]

2. Deleted message

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[DrWeird]

3. Nah, cut defense spending.

This is more important then slaughtering a bunch of civilians.

[Salviati]

4. The money that went into this is chump-change

compared to tons of military boondoggles that are never used or don't even work. (i.e. missle defense). The cost of gravity probe B is just over $500 milion, which puts it at about half the cost of a B2 bomber. Personally I'd rather spend the money to try to find out a bit more about the universe.

Any talk about cutting "waste" or "corporate wellfare" is just wanking unless you're also talking about SERIOUS cuts in military spending...

[NMDemocraticRep]

5. Cut it all.

Cut all of it out.

NASA is just friendly R&D for the pentagon.


John Kerry 204!

[DS1]

7. You're not just saying this because NASA has no plans to move to NM?

Because if you really think NASA is just a pretty public face for the Pentagon, you're seriously delusional.

[reprobate]

8. Sure, cut it all. And education. And infrastructure.

Oh, wait. That's what the neocons are doing right now.

Sure, that's the answer. We'll all become neocons. That'll teach them. Solve all our problems that way.

[Salviati]

9. The pentegon has lost more money in its sofas

than NASA's entire budget.

NASA's budget for 2003 ~15.5 billion

DOD budget for 2003 ~400 billion

Amount of money that the pentagon spent but can't account for: 2.3 trillion

[NickB79]

10. You do realize how much the space program has given us, right?

Many of our innovations in plastics, metal alloys, MRI and other medical imaging techniques, more advanced computers, chemical coatings (teflon), etc, were all developed based on programs and research carried out by the space program. The space program has paid for itself many times over in medical, chemical, and metallurgical break-throughs. The puny amount we spend on it right now is well worth it by any measure. Cutting spending to NASA is about as backwards as you can get when it comes to saving money.

[DS1]

6. So he was wrong, it's Government that distorts time, not Gravity