Lockheed Gets $485M From NASA To Create MAVEN Craft 94
coondoggie writes to tell us that Lockheed Martin has landed a $485 million contract to create the spacecraft for NASA's MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN) project. "MAVEN is the second mission in NASA's Mars Scout Program — a series of small, low-cost, principal investigator-led missions to the Red Planet, NASA said. The Phoenix Mars Lander was the first mission under the program. Lockheed Martin is the industry partner on the Phoenix mission. It designed and built the spacecraft, and also provided flight operations and currently surface operations for the lander. The mission has been extended through Sept. 30, 2008."
mod parent up (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe take a couple seconds for just a smidge of proofreading, occasionally, before actually posting them articles.
Re:Low-cost (Score:4, Insightful)
It's in comparison to the older programs such as Viking, Galileo, and Cassini, which cost several billion each in current dollars (but which did their jobs incredibly well). The move to smaller, faster, cheaper followed the loss of the Mars Observer.
What NASA management didn't factor into smaller, faster, cheaper is that you can normally pick only two of the three.
Re:It's time to defund NASA (Score:3, Insightful)
It's irrational to consider that the United States, in its current condition, could or should operate a Mars mission.
It's irrational to criticize the pursuit of science and discovery, while being the co-founder of worthy initiatives which promote openness for the purposes of advancing mankind. Call me crazy, but I don't think America's "current condition" should derail established efforts towards these scientific goals.
If you want to argue that sending the money to Lockheed Martin is a mistake, then that's fine. I've heard much criticism of their organization from reputable associates and I tend to believe that there's is a bad work environment from these anecdotes. However, suggesting that NASA doesn't deserve the shoestring budgets that they receive then in the name of advancing mankind beyond the reaches of Earth's atmosphere, I have to humbly disagree.
Re:half a billion dollars for what exactly? (Score:3, Insightful)
Hey, space exploration is fine - that's actually advancing the state of humanity. What ISN'T fine is spending 20% of the budget JUST ON ONE TINY FUCKING COUNTRY, and that's in addition to the *regular* military spending!
Re:It's time to defund NASA (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh, there is none? Why, because nobody has been there for 40 years. The United States does not have the competence to operate space research.
Forty years ago the US proved humans could do it, and that it wasn't a complete freak accident. Who else has gone there? The russians? The europeans? The chinese? Anyone else? Oh that's right, nobody. Not because we're so primitive that we couldn't, but because we still haven't figured out a good reason for doing so, except to do so. He3 for the imaginary fusion reactor? Telescopes that do just fine in orbit or with advances in technology on earth's surface? The moon is pretty much a big rock, Mars is the interesting place to be though for now I think we're better off with probes. Supporting people up there would take a whole other level of resources than the robots that survive on next to nothing.