GAO: NASA DSN at near term risk...

I thought this was supposed to be the "lynch-pin" of the com infrastruture for all exploration... manned and otherwise. What gives?
link I hope this difficulty is only temporary; I want very much for America to succeed in space exploration for peaceful purposes. Why this, do they have better toys to deploy?

[edit on 22-5-2006 by V Kaminski]

Interesting read so far.

Perhaps a unified / global effort should be made, to get this thing on track.

I didn't realize that they are still using 40 year old equipment / tech.
5% downtime is tolerated and over a 5 month period in 2005, 6 missions lost a total of 241 minutes of coverage due to old & failing equipment..

You'd think comms are one of the most integral facets of future space travels.
I hope this gets sorted.

thanks for the link ..

Yeah, this is not what I expected. I sort of wonder whether this would be let to slide, which might make sense if the capability were already redundant... who knows what techno-jazz may be up there under different auspices. The fact that the GAO says there's a problem now means this potential deficit is "outted". Imagine the GAO catching NASA short? Something's up... Dale and Griffin in beancounter mode again?

I'm glad that brought it to the mainstream, which should help Nasa get money for an update from congress.....after all, why would congress support missions to other planets that costs billions if we cant even get the data.