XPost: sci.space.policy, sci.astro   
   From: schillin@spock.usc.edu   
      
   "Rodney Kelp"  writes:   
      
   >So what's Cassini going to do now? Just orbit Saturn forever? Keep sending   
   >pictures?   
      
   So, in a thread lamenting the fact that Huygens had to die so young, we   
   get a lament that Cassini isn't going to crawl off and die now that we   
   are tired of it.   
      
   NASA is wise in the ways of such matters, and will find an excuse as to   
   why the Glorious Cause of Science! requires that we crash Cassini into   
   something, or at least dive through a ring or a radiation belt or some   
   other suitably suicidal exploit.  Probably about the time Cassini's   
   operations budget runs out.   
      
   You may have noticed that NASA has done this before, more than once.   
      
   And probably now wishes that they had designed Hubble with such an   
   ending in mind :-)   
      
      
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