NASA gets two military spy telescopes for astronom

The U.S. government's secret space program has decided to give NASA two telescopes as big as, and even more powerful than, the Hubble Space Telescope. Designed for surveillance, the telescopes from the National Reconnaissance Office were no longer needed for spy missions and can now be used to study the heavens.

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/12/06/hey-brother-can-you-spare-a-hubble-dod-sure-have-two/258061/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/nasa-gets-two-military-spy-telescopes-for-astronomy/2012/06/04/gJQAsT6UDV_story.html

From the movie, "Contact",
"The first rule of government spending: why have one when you can have two at twice the price?"...

There are some hidden gotcha's in this "gift". These are not fully functional telescopes in space. Rather they are mostly completed scopes here on the ground. If NASA were going to use these, they would need to find a LOT of money from a rapidly shrinking budget to finish them off, add detectors to them and launch them into space.

Yet if NASA does nothing with them, how will that make NASA look?

Cheers,

Maurice