While in the grand scheme of things, a temporary government shutdown is not the worst thing that has ever happened in the good ol' U-S-of-A, but the implications of the dysfunction behind it is enormous. For those of you excited for NASA to get back to what they do best and continue to explore the stars, the government shutdown over budgetary issues will delay a $650 million NASA mission to 2016. Science and technology programs already took a massive hit overall in the budget cuts, but the MAVEN program, the latest from NASA in exploring the potential of Mars, may take the biggest budget hit of all.
This may be one giant step backwards for mankind, who could pretty heavily use all of this extra information about Mars – that is if the budget government shutdown is any indication of how well things are functioning here on Earth.
In other news, Craigslist has received a stream of personal ads that—while not related directly to the budget fiasco—use the event as a catalyst to get down and dirty. Some of these ads, which call for "a nice distraction to kiss the worries away,” could potentially be kind of fun (if you're into that sort of thing), but at the very least, they won't help anyone “fuck over the Republicans in the house.”
At the very least, they provide some welcome humor from the seriousness of the situation, which could set back many science and technology programs, such as the National Science Foundation, the Smithsonian, and the Center for Disease Control, to name a few.
'Murica.
[via CNN and NY Mag]
