NASA space science chief Ed Weiler is losing patience with Gravity Probe B, the $400 million spacecraft that would test Einstein's theory of general relativity by measuring the space-time curvature caused by Earth. Mission planners say they need an extra 11 months and $30 million to fix problems with the probe, which was supposed to launch next October.
Weiler is ordering a technical review of the program, in the works for more than 2 decades, to determine what it will take to get the probe into orbit. "We've already spent hundreds of millions on this, and I don't want to spend hundreds of millions more," he says. If the review--due to be finished by the end of the year--concludes that $30 million is sufficient to get the program back on track, Weiler says he will find the money. If that is not enough, he says, he may discuss terminating the program at a senior NASA managers meeting in February.
Killing Gravity Probe B--the brainchild of Stanford University scientists--would pose political dangers for NASA, however, given the strong support for the program from California's congressional delegation. But Weiler waves off that threat. "My job is to do the right thing for American taxpayers; someone else can worry about the politics."
