That is as it should be. The President can score a victory for accountability over acceleration, and that alone would justify the billions already spent on Cassini. But the benefits of the innovations that went into the Cassini probe will still be with us. In addition, future technological projects will be improved by the awareness that large expenditures do not in themselves make project completion inevitable. And Saturn will be explored, in good time, by smaller, cheaper, better machines that do not threaten our conception of the skies and of ourselves.
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First placed online October 5th, 1997. Last modified October 5th, 1997.