WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 27 May 05 Washington, DC

1. SPACE: VOYAGER 1 REACHES THE LIMIT OF BUSH'S ATTENTION SPAN.

It's been traveling for 28 years and is now 8.7 billion miles
from Earth. It just reported that it has entered the region of
the heliosheath, where the solar wind begins to dissipate. It
may be in this region another 10 years. Its Pt-238 radioisotope
thermoelectric generator (RTG) should keep operating until about
2020. When Voyager 1 crosses that final boundary, becoming the
first human artifact to enter interstellar space, Earth won't
know. Communications with Voyager will be cut off to save $4.5M
of NASA's $16.5B budget (.025%), for Bush's Moon/Mars "vision."

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