Google and Galileo

How's this for a coincidence? Apparently, Galileo developed an advanced telescope on this day in history over five hundred years ago. Yesterday, news reports around the world announced that Google Earth was adding another feature to its program. Now, you can enter an address and click the Google Sky button to see the night sky above you. What is mind-boggling is that you can zoom in, pivot your camera and move the mouse around to your heart's delight. Galileo was thrown in jail for refusing to refute (initially) his writings. For looking at the rings of Saturn he was tortured. Just the mere act of peering through a telescope challenged the institutional power of the Catholic Church at the time. Pope John Paul II formally forgave Galileo only recently too. Now comes Google. Is it possible that Google destroyed the telescope for amatuer nightwatchers? The night sky is as available as an interstate highway. But is it closer or farther away? In the coming year, the Japanese are going to expand the International Space Station with an addition, called Kibo. Moon bases are being planned, as is a US mission to Mars. The Pentagon is even eyeing the weaponization of space. Maybe as technology, like Google, makes space more accessible and corporations and nations see investment in space as profitable and strategically adventageous, we will move ultimately up and out. But at what cost? More or less than what Galileo paid?