Hopefully Caltech has a nice endowment that can help them operate GALEX, because it will not be cheap. Maybe they can help train students to be future satellite operators, and save costs that way.

I was involved in a recent decommissioning of a NASA satellite. We tried to look for a privitization route, but the private funds and the timing just didn't come together in time. Kudos to Caltech for putting this together for GALEX.

You make it sound like NASA's investment was for naught, but that's not true. GALEX operated for many years and provided great benefit to the scientific community, and to the advancement of our nation's scientific endeavors.

Caltech is already operating GALEX, and they operate the GALEX data archive. I'm not privy to the details of the agreement, but I imagine one of the stipulations is that Caltech will archive the new data just like the old data. Even if they don't, the existing data will remain in the archive forever as a legacy. It's not gone.

Probably because nobody else stepped up to the plate to operate the thing.

There is no "waiting." NASA is going to de-fund this satellite, and the choices are either to decomission it or transfer it to someone else.

Um try again....

"We’re going to the standards bodies, starting tomorrow, and we’re going to make FaceTime an open industry standard.” (Steve Jobs, July 2010)

Guess what hasn't happened since July 2010?

I would also like to add that over the past ten years, "security" has gotten much much tighter at NASA. NASA has many roles that involve interfacing with the industrial community, the scientific community, and the public community at large. It is often difficult to reconcile those roles with the additional goal of "more security!" In fact, in the interests of blanket security, I would say that NASA's ability to interact with communities, and lead through good example, have been partially stifled in the name of security.

Another thing to mention is that often-times, large institutions like NASA are dealing with legacy systems that do not have the latest security. The common knee-jerk reaction is to say, "just upgrade it!" But the reality is that there can be knock-on effects that prevent upgrading or make it cost-prohibitive. Critical systems that have been running for years often do not have the funds or staff expertise to execute a major upgrade. But as I said, this is a problem with most large institutions, it's just that "NASA" in the title of an article makes it higher profile.

This post has my personal opinions only.

Never states?

"December 29, 2010: Response from MSRC confirms that these crashes are reproductible with the July 29 fuzzer; unclear why they were unable to replicate them earlier, or follow up on the case."

From someone who has worked inside of NASA for more than ten years (not manned space flight): you are right and you are wrong.

I think if you look at the portfolio of projects that NASA is doing now, including manned, earth science, space science, planetary science, robotics, aeronautics, and so on, NASA is doing way more than it did in the 1960s. The taxpayer is definitely getting more for the money now than they did then.

On the other hand, yes, the bureaucracy has grown larger as well. Basically, every time there is a mishap or accident, NASA adds another review process. So the result is that the projects are top-heavy with managers who spend all their time, either presenting "status" at various reviews, or pestering the people who actually do the work for some powerpoint slides for their next meeting. It can definitely be a drag.

But overall, it can be fun and cool!

It's quite possible they replaced the small auxiliary battery and not the main hybrid battery. It's similar to a regular car battery, and has a similar lifetime. Completely separate from the main hybrid battery.

Markets are more efficient when information flows freely and is accurate.

Cell phone companies apparently obscure the terms of service and costs, and consumers end up being less than ideally informed. Competition in the cell phone industry is also limited since spectrum is a limited resource, and the barriers to entry are high.

For contract phones, the companies tend to compete on features rather than costs, for example number of minutes, "friends and family." For the market segment of consumers that are conscious cost, companies do offer prepaid phones.