http://dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/ap/science/story.html?s=v/ap/199906
28/sc/comet_lander_1.html
28 June 1999: NASA Nixes Mission To Land on Comet, AP, Yahoo
"What we're trying to do is solve our own
problems,'' said [Code S AA]
Weiler, who added the canceled project was
still in its early development
phase. "Nobody is coming to our rescue from
somewhere else in the
government.''
Editor's note: This is sickening, if true. But
it certainly
smells of Code L scare tactics.
Still, Dan Goldin happily trots around telling
people how
proud he is that NASA's budget is being cut -
since it
shows that NASA can do more and more with less
and
less. What can we all expect when NASA's
Administrator
won't even stand up for his own agency's
budget.
Alas, Dan will find some way to blame Congress
for all of
this, just you watch. The truth is the White
House cuts
NASA's budget year after year and Dan simply
hasn't the
courage - or the inclination - to fight back -
unless it has to
do with saving Al Gore's pet Triana satellite
or protecting
the Clinton Administration's Russian foreign
aid (ISS)
program - at the expense of everything else at
NASA.
Is this to be your legacy, Dan? After 7 years
you now
preside over an agency with a budget riding
along on a
multi-year, non-stop decline such that new
projects have to
be sacrificed to provide money for
contingencies and cost
overruns - while research at other agencies is
flourishing
amidst budget increases.
Well done.