Meanwhile Curiosity, the Mars Rover, isn't moving. Thankfully, there aren't any spacecraft scheduled for mission-critical operations (orbital insertion, for ex

Meanwhile Curiosity, the Mars Rover, isn't moving. Thankfully, there aren't any spacecraft scheduled for mission-critical operations (orbital insertion, for example), or those would go unsupervised, too. Most all NASA is on furlough, as if people didn't need the money. A colleague is waiting for word on his grant application from the NIH. Ordinarily his panel (~ 20 people) would converge on Washington this Friday and decide on who gets funded. That is going to be postponed, and it's hard to settle on a date when all 20 are available. Everyone has bought their plane tickets already and cannot use them now; they will have to buy new tickets- again on Federal funds. Since the application is in already he cannot submit the same to the NSF, as he would have done in case it got turned down. The immediate cost, and the knock-on cost is immense.