IN SPACE, it seems, you get what you pay for. If you have $3 billion, you get Cassini, a sophisticated interplanetary craft that after a journey of 3.5 billion kilometres has now reached Saturn, the most distant planet ever to be orbited by a man-made probe.
Cassini is working astonishingly well. On 1 July, the spacecraft timed the firing of its main engine so precisely that it hit the required orbit spot-on, without any need for a planned trajectory adjustment.
The spacecraft, a joint mission put together by NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Italian space agency, has…
