The Cosmic Year in Review

hephaist0s writes "Sure, lots of things have happened this year, but all we really care about is what happened in space! The Wire and NASA both have an interesting roundup of news from space" Relatedly an anonymous reader writes "MSNBC has compiled what they think are some of the most spectacular space images of 2005 and are asking for users to vote for their favorite."

Comments

A few things

[AsiNisiMasa]

1. I think that the best thing that could happen for the exploration of space at the moment would be the discovery of some fabulously lucrative resource on a planet or in comets, meteors, asteroids, etc. Nothing serious will get done in the private sector until some significant avenue of wealth opens up. There will, of course, be long term drawbacks in having corporations rule outer space (besides Earth), but I can't imagine the ball getting rolling in any other manner in my lifetime.

2. On that note, is anyone else profoundly upset about the fact that they will never visit a lush, colonized (or otherwise inhabited) planet?

3. With all the problems that plauge space agencies worldwide, they certainly do seem to hit big when they don't miss entirely. I wonder if they purposely underestimate their mission lengths in order to pad their portfolio.