On 30 Sep 2008, at 19:01, Robert Taylor wrote:
The Hubble is down, the Shuttles are due to retire and we'll be hitching rides from the Russians to get to the IIS that the US taxpayer has had to primarily pick up the tab for...
In case misery loves company, here's something that appears in the current issue of "Planetary Report": +++++ The problems with the NASA budget pale in comparison with those being experienced in Russia. Despite similar scope and some recent increases to the Russian space program, its annual budget is less than 10 percent of that of the United States: $1.3 billion compared with about $17 billion. An article in Pravda bitterly commented, "Russia, the world's first space power, lags behind not only the USA, but such newcomers to the industry as the European SPace Agency, China, Japan, and France. The space agencies of these countries spend about $3.5 billion a year on space exploration. India currently invests a little less than $1 billion in its space programs. It is not ruled out that the Asian country will outstrip Russia soon." +++++