NASA Pulling Out of ESA-led ExoMars Mission? 144
astroengine writes "It's a strange irony that to afford the expense of space exploration, international collaboration is often sought after — spreading the cost across several international partners means the biggest space missions may be accomplished. And yet in times of austerity, national budgets balk at the prospect of investing in international projects like ExoMars. Sadly, that's exactly what could be facing the ambitious ESA-led Mars rover/satellite mission if NASA's Science Mission Directorate budget is slashed in the next financial year. NASA may pull out of the project, leaving ExoMars with no rockets or a means to actually land on Mars. Could Russia help out? Possibly, but it will still lead to ESA taking on more cost than it has budgeted for."
Hugely misplaced priorities in US budgets (Score:5, Informative)
This is quite outrageous these cuts, and the mission is a good is a very good value. It is simply a terrible state of affairs that high value and relatively low cost probe programs are being cut when we have politicians talking about a much more expensive manned mars mission, if we can't afford unmanned probes we have no business contemplating a much more expensive and much worse cost-benefit wise manned mission,. Ask scientists and they will say unmanned probes are the best value, give us the most data for least money and have best scientific value compared to manned missions, which are vastly more expensive. It is indeed almost a twighlight zone insanity and backwardsness when we have people talking about spending massive amounts of money on a hugely expensive (hundreds of billions) human mars mission programme, which has terrible comparative value and return on investment to unmanned probes, and we face this kind of cuts to real science probe programs.
Unfortunately, US space exploration policy is driven more by buzzwards and hype than it is by real science. A human mission to mars would be very expensive and would, considering we can get a lot of data from unmanned probes, have very little additional value. For many people an manned mission is for entertainment value, it would be a very expensive and entertaining stunt. There is room for entertainment but spending hundreds of billions for this really way over the top.
It has mostly been Republican politicians who threaten huge cuts to the space probe programs and to NASAs science missions but then they see to have these crackpot ideas of sending a manned mission to mars just after they have attacked much higher value probes. ThIs i think speaks to the immaturity of them and the lack of understanding of science and the finer points of what are actually the most cost effective ways to obtain data. Republicans are simple minded, they are too ignorant to understand the value of a probe mission and satellites and unfortunately it takes a glitzy circus like manned mars mission stunt which has comparatively little science value, it is because they dont understand the science and what the probes are doing. It is similar to how they view foreign policy, they don't have any like of anything that requires the use of the mind rather than muscle,. such as diplomacy, the only thing that stimulates the Republicans is outright aggression, bombs, missiles, fighting etc, so GOP foreign policy is full of wars and plans for wars but with very little room for diplomacy.
The US clearly needs better leadership that is scientifically acute, that will continue to fully fund satellites, space probes and so on and is less aroused by stunts and entertainment that woujld be a manned mars mission,.
Re:But the military... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:They probably don't see the value in it (Score:5, Informative)
Parent comment is plain wrong. NASA is desperate for funds, happy to work with any capable and trustworthy collaborators. Cassini-Huygens is an example of a working collaboration.
Re:Amounts to sacrificing the mission - (Score:5, Informative)
One of the articles talks about rumors [nasawatch.com] of MAJOR cuts forthcoming at NASA (in the 50+% range) for the 2013 budget. If that's true, it explains why they've been gutting so many programs recently. It's likely that the administration has had this in the works for at least the last year or two. And with cuts like that, it's not like NASA is going to have much choice. They've already cut the shuttle program and taken a big hit on the Webb telescope. It's likely they'll cut a bunch of other stuff before they're done (wouldn't even surprise me if they abandon ISS ahead of schedule).
Re:US Pulling Out - Lions and Tigers, Oh No! (Score:5, Informative)
Comments like the parent here just drive me nuts! I should give up even reading much less replying to any space-related items here. "NASA is great at viewgraphs and theme parks, but as far as science goes, they're rapidly falling behind." Where does this kind of sentiment come from? Is it in any way bounded by reality? NASA's recent track record for planetary science is pretty good, held up to that of other national space programs (not to disparage those other programs, but just as a point of comparison);
- JAXA's Akatsuki-Venus mission failed to enter orbit around Venus last year
- Russia's Phobos-Grunt mission to Martian satellites failed to escape Earth's orbit
- ESA's Mars Express mission lost it's Beagle-2 lander (crashed?)
- Cassini's Huygens probe had a fair number of problems, including, at one point, its spinning in the opposite to intended direction during descent
- India's Chandrayaan lunar probe operated for 312 days before failing , rather than its nominal 2-year mission (probably for thermal reasons)
Compare with
- NASA's MESSENGER, in orbit around Mercury for a year and producing a ream of science data
- NASA's Kepler mission, boosting our count of exoplanets by something like an order of magnitude
- NASA's Mars Rovers, 8 years into a nominal 30-day mission
- NASA's Juno probe, on its way to Jupiter
- NASA's Cassini flagship mission, far into extended mission already and aiming to keep working through 2017
- NASA's MSL, over budget but successfully on its way to Mars
- NASA's New Horizons, now closer to Pluto than any other man-made object, and moreso every day
For the record, other current missions up for extensions include EPOXI, GRAIL, MRO, Mars Odyssey Orbiter, and LRO.
Yes I'm cherry-picking a bit here, but overlooking dozens of other programs also. It's not my job to document all this - but before posting snide little "NASA's good at viewgraphs" comments, maybe do a minimal amount of search.
Re:Stating the OTHER obvious comment (Score:5, Informative)
NASA/JPL have already solved most of the problems that this project is trying to replicate, launch, descent, landing and roving.
The Curiosity Rover [nasa.gov] is already en-route to mars.
NASA and JPL will have a full plate managing this rover along with the existing rovers over the next few years. The rover was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. NASA's Launch Services Program at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida managed the launch. NASA's Space Network provided space communication services for the launch vehicle, and the rover.
Dealing with yet another program would be a huge distraction, entail a large resource drain bringing ESA up to speed, and transferring a lot of technology to them in the process, and being asked to pay for the privileged of doing so.
Re:US Pulling Out - Lions and Tigers, Oh No! (Score:5, Informative)
For anybody with a real interest, here is a link to each of NASA's current missions;
http://www.nasa.gov/missions/current/index.html [nasa.gov]