In message , Gary Heston
writes
In article ,
Bryan Derksen wrote:
[ ... ]
The thing that really burns me is that the probe itself is 98%
finished. They just need to stick it on a rocket and push the "go"
button. The guy who runs NASA Watch says would cost $40 million
dollars to finish the project, and the shutdown costs will be $10
million, so NASA saves a grand total of $30 million on the deal. Bah.
[ ... ]

Well, heck, if they'd actually only need another $30 million, call
Bill Gates and ask him to dip into his petty cash fund to bail out
the program. He'll probably throw in a copy of Windows Server 2003
to run on the probe for free.

In which case "success is not an option" :-)
FWIW, I posted a rather bitter comment on alt.sci.planetary about the
cancellation and got a response from Henry Spencer saying it was
probably the right thing to do
http://groups.google.co.uk/group/alt...thread/thread/
9038b0abc18c2024/06bd202e0d76e0df?lnk=st&q=%22troubled+asteroid+mis sion%2
2&rnum=1&hl=en#06bd202e0d76e0df