New Horizons Adjusts Course

Pretty exciting mission , cant wait to see Pluto in detail.

Damn the Politics!

There were some political factors behind the mission to Pluto, at the time of launch the only unprobed planet. [It's still unprobed, but no longer a planet.] But by and large the science missions have been chosen by open debate and consensus among a committee of scientists, and the choices have been reasonable. The costs of the missions have to be justified by the scientific value, an abstract but still measurable return. There has been little of the completely arbitrary choices in goals based on what one administration or another pulls out of the air seen in human spaceflight. Unmanned systems also avoid the convoluted and very expensive safety review process of human spaceflight. MSL had a lot of mission creep, but that seems to be an exception.

After helping in the design of the arcjet system at Aerojet (formerly Rocket Research) I always get amused when journalists (and sometimes scientists) say something like, "getting a spaceship near Pluto from earth is like shooting a rifle and hitting a 1 inch target 10 miles away."
NO.
A bullet does not have mid-course correction.
So please, I can tolerate journalists saying things like "kilowatts per year", but scientists should not make public statements showing such mathematical ignorance.

I concur with all you say. I might add that there may be no definite dividing line between science and politics. Science is funded predominantly by non-scientists. Research is a competition for resources, not only against other research but against all human endeavors. Apply this to the case of an advising scientist choosing between two exploration missions. One has great scientific potential, the other has compelling social relevance. He selects the socially relevant mission on scientific, not political, grounds: a "social scientist" has convinced him that the un-scientific mission will inspire the public to spend more on science in the distant future. Maybe that's politics. Or maybe it's a scientific procedure for eventually finding answers to very difficult (and expensive) questions.

NASA does an excellent job with their unmanned probes. Sure, they've had a few failures but they've more than made up for them. Two active rovers on Mars after SEVEN years? Incredible.

However, NASA has been shafted on the HSF front. After Apollo Congress screwed with the Shuttle funding, which turned out to be so catastrophic it still reverberates to this day.

I'm very grateful for New Horizons, Mars rovers, Cassini, LRO, Kepler etc. I think NASA should stick to this successful formula and give up on HSF. There's just not enough political will to give NASA the freedom it needs for HSF to succeed. Goodbye Shuttle, Welcome MSL!

PS: Carl Sagan was right, we're stuck in Low Earth Orbit..and he died over 13 years ago!

JedL, I think most of us can except choices based on "compelling social relevance," so long as projects of "great scientific potential" are not ignored.

What I do think (I hope) most people would object to, is when political choices are made, not for the good of science or the good society, but to funnel or keep funneling money to specific companies. Because said companies are large financial contributors or by keeping the status quo helps certain politicians to get reelected, even if said program is detrimental to the overall space program.

Also, ego driven choices can cause great damage, while producing few results, for the monies spent.

And this was a program that Clinton and Bush canceled, but Congress restored and continued.