[kach22i]

NASA Budget Moves To Ground Sofia Telescope, Punts Crew Competition To Congress
By Frank Morring, Jr. morring@aviationweek.com
Source: AWIN First
News In Details Of NASA

Officials say operating costs for Sofia — a large, infrared telescope mounted in a specially modified Boeing 747 — are second only to the Hubble Space Telescope. In a trade-off against other science programs deemed more productive, NASA plans to put the flying observatory in storage beginning in fiscal 2015 unless its partner — the German Aerospace Center DLR — or perhaps the European Space Agency can add some funding for continued operations.

I didn't even know that we had a flying telescope.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratospheric_Observatory_for_Infrared_Astronomy



Pictures: NASA Guts 747, Adds 17-Ton Telescope
Published June 2, 2010
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/05/photogalleries/100602-sofia-science-space-telescope-observatory-pictures/

"From its stratospheric perch, SOFIA is able to fly above 99 percent of the infrared-blocking water vapor in Earth's atmosphere," said Erick Young, SOFIA science mission operations director for the Universities Space Research Association (USRA).