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Triana Mothballed
jessemckinney writes "Apparently, the US congress of last year cut the funding of this great satellite project after it was finished. It will now take millions of dollars (us) to refuel and recalibrate the instruments. Why do politicians have to kill great science projects for their own political vandettas?"
Triana was originally built as a political favor. I won't mention to whom, but you might guess by the nickname it was given of "Goresat".
There was originally no science planned. Only when scrutiny increased to it were some basic instruments added to make the excuse of it being a research tool float.
Just a heads up, the only thing Triana would have really done was take pictures of the earth for posting on a website to 'make people feel better about the earth'. For a working alternative, please visit the NOAA website where legions of weather satellites already do this 24x7.
Triana was a waste of a rocket launch. Hopefully the chassis can be adapted to perform some real science.
...because those pesky scientists would most likely use it to gather evidence about inconvenient issues like global warming and pollution. In the mean time, the money is much better spent on that trillion dollar orbiting erector set.