NASA announcement - Wednesday, May 14

More interesting was the posted comments at the bottom of the article. I can imagine NASA blushing over this one and if they don't, they should.

My sentiments as well, go NASA...

I suppose they want to look busy, maybe they are worried about more funding cuts.

If you're gonna make a big deal about something it needs to be a lot bigger a deal than this when you finally announce it!

It's cool, but the general public are gonna feel really let down.

Bart.

I suppose they want to look busy, maybe they are worried about more funding cuts.

They are going to get them (cuts that is) if this is the best they can show for their efforts. Cool science, but an anticlimax given the announcement about an announcement...

It's cool, but the general public are gonna feel really let down.

If we're so badly let down as amateurs with some sort of a clue to the wow factor (or not) of this announcement, I'd say Jo/Josephine public will think NASA are a bunch of muppets.

I seriously think this announcement is quite harmful for NASA from a public perception point-of-view - and that ultimately might lead to funding cuts or at least harm their chances of big increases...

$0.02

I suppose they want to look busy, maybe they are worried about more funding cuts.

They are going to get them (cuts that is) if this is the best they can show for their efforts. Cool science, but an anticlimax given the announcement about an announcement...

I agree - cuts in NASA, and right across US science are inevitable if the US economy (and thereby world economy) is to be turned around. It may have been a last ditch effort (by NASA PR) to bolster it's case against cuts, but its backfired (apalling PR gaff).

To be fair it is a big announcement - science wise. We now know that the last SN in our Galaxy was a lot more recent than previously thought, and it will statistically push out our expectations for the next. Beware statistics, though, nature couldn't care less for statisticians or their trade, the Bell curve is fine in the lab but Nature deals in Black Swans (so we haven't really learned much more than we already knew, though there is one more piece of sky which will be getting a lot more scope time).

Expect Bush's conquest of Mars to fade rapidly into obscurity, and serious cuts right across all NASA's projects in the near future. Manned moon missions (colonies?) will be first to be shelved. The US plebian is more concerned about $250 barrels of oil and what that means to all prices and lifestyle.