Keith’s note: Those of you in the space community know that NASA Science is facing an immense budget cut. Dozens of missions have been cancelled and many missions that are still returning valuable data are being shut off – in many cases to save a few million dollars – a tiny fraction of what it took to mount the missions in the first place. This data will be lost. In the case of New Horizons which is currently traversing the outer solar system, NASA is going to knowingly forfeit a third interstellar mission (after the twin Voyagers). This latest interstellar mission would be done with a healthy spacecraft outfitted with 21st century instrumentation. The Voyagers are minimally functional and will soon fade all together. We could continue to expand America’s pre-eminent exploration of interstellar space until the middle of this century. And that lead will last unchallenged for a generation or more to come. As I noted last month “This is not the way for America to lead the way out into the cosmos. Hopefully Congress will wake up and notice. Let’s ‘Keep America Great In Space’ — not abandon our lead.” More: Stellar Cartography: A Demonstration Of Interstellar Navigation Using New Horizons.

Keith’s note: I just did an interview on BBC World Service’s program “Outside Source” a few minutes ago about the stunning new imagery from Euclid. I used the stellar cartography scene from “Star Trek Generations” as my illustrative image (on radio). They’ll be playing this during the day and posting it online to a weekly audience of 364+ million. I emphasized how this is the sort of mission that has applicability to everyone everywhere – scientist or non-scientist alike. Meanwhile here is my [Audio] of the interview. I’ll post the BBC’s link later.