[FPSPACE] NASA recycling of space assets

[David Anderman]

A fundamental reason why NASA chooses to *not* recycle spacecraft after 
their nominal end of mission is that a primary focus of space science 
programs is the development of new technology. Once that technology has 
been proven out during a nominal mission, much of the institutional 
interest in the spacecraft and the program disappears.  In fact, the 
existence of the spacecraft may be a barrier to funding of the next phase 
of the program, an enhanced or second generation version.

A cynical observer might observe that the actual science is simply an 
excuse to develop the new technology, especially since the budgets for 
processing science data is often 1 percent of the program cost.