NASA has confirmed that it has canceled the Dawn mission to study two of the largest known asteroids in the solar system. The mission had been in development for four years, and was already 20% over budget, with major technical problems yet to be solved.

 

This comes as a major setback to scientists, as NASA has no other asteroid-studying missions planned (though one proposal is due on April 5th). However, NASA hopes to salvage parts out of the half-completed spacecraft for other missions, so it is not a total waste. Scientists, however, will have to wait even longer to get their asteroid mission.

 

http://www.newscientistspace.com/article.ns?id=dn8805

That's just stupid. We need the information as soon as possible, it can save us in the future.

 

Also, even though they are taking parts from the canceled mission, NASA has probably lost a lot of money that could have [inderectly] helped make our technology more advanced, making our lives easier.