[Moonman62]

Errr... no. Right now, our robot explorers are goign hither and yon with no set purpose... we're looking at Mars just to look at Mars, essentially. But under the revised policy, we'll have robots that are going to various targets to do various things for a specific end goal. And Hubble is getting old and creaky, and maintenance is very expensive (about half a billion for a Shuttle flight); feel free to BUY Hubble, and maintain it.

And what would that end goal be? According to the new policy they must support future manned missions. Currently scientists use them to increase our knowledge about the planets and their history. While that may not be all that worthwhile, the knowledge we get from space telescopes have a bearing on physics, and our ability now and especially in the future to control our environment.

I would rather not maintain Hubble. However we could launch a brand new one for much less than the cost of one maintenance mission.

>And you really think it's a good idea for GWB to tell them what type of spacecraft to build? Nothing like that has occured, so far as is known.

He's already told them to build an Apollo type capsule.

[orionblamblam]

> And what would that end goal be?

Manifest destiny.

> the knowledge we get from
space telescopes have a bearing on physics, and our ability now and especially in the future
to control our environment.

Then imagine the knowledge we'll gain by actually *going,* rather than staying home and looking at pictures and strip charts...

On Earth, our ability to fundamentally alter the weather is limited. nto because we *couldn't*, but because we'd be unsure jsut what the results would be. But on Mars... we can *make* the weather. What better way to figure out climatology than by creating a climate? Hell, we could terraform the moon if we wanted to...

> He's already told them to build an Apollo type capsule.

Ummm... I don't see that. The Apollo-type capsule was the preferred options of both Lockheed and Boeing in the now-oddly-named Orbital Space Plane project, which is beign transformed into the CEV. Basically, Bush was *told* what sort of people mover was coming along.