NASA Proposes Ending Voyager 541
darylb writes "NASA is proposing ending the 28-year old Voyager program, which costs a paltry $4mil per year to operate. One of the two Voyager probes is approaching the edge of what can be thought of as the sun's atmosphere (where the solar wind bumps up against interstellar wind), a place where no probe has gone before. Canceling this project means saving almost nothing compared to the hundreds of millions of dollars spent so far. The craft will be out of juice by 2015 in any case, so the marginal cost for the extra, invaluable, data would be minimal." From the article: "NASA officials said the possibility of cutting Voyager and several other long-running missions in the Earth-Sun Exploration Division arose in February, when the Bush administration proposed slashing the division's 2006 budget by nearly one-third -- from $75 million to $53 million."
Every Million Counts (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, I guess every million counts. I wonder how that $4 million per year is spent? Could they go into a cost saving
mode (below the 10 full time staff they have working with the probe now) where they basically just collected data from the probe and stashed it for later study or does this thing need
to be actively managed to remain useful?
Re:Every Million Counts (Score:2, Funny)
Contributions:
Both spacecraft are still going strong and are returning valuable science data. Each Voyagers' cosmic ray detector, magnetometer, plasma wave detector and low-energy charged particle detector all still operational. In addition, the Ultraviolet Spectrometer on Voyager 1 and the Plasma Science instrument on Voyager 2 continue to return data. Both spacecraft are expected to continue to operate and send back valuable data until at least the year 2020.
The mission curr
Re:Every Million Counts (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Every Million Counts (Score:5, Interesting)
10 employees, all likely with PhDs, underpaid (like NASA tends to), would be perhaps 65k/yr each ->650k$. Benefits and personel costs will at least double this, probably pushing up somewhere around 1.5m$. IT costs, office rent, power, and other "basics" will put this somewhere around 2.5 m$, possibly more.
Of course, I'd suspect that the most expensive part will be rent on their comm equipment. Here's where I wish I had my partner, who is studying to be an actuary, with me. Your communications hardware will probably cost somewhere around 50m$ in terms of capital costs, with operating costs of perhaps 1m$/yr. Lets assume a repayment time similar to the operating time, and put that number at 30 years. Lots of assumptions here, I know
Re:Every Million Counts (Score:4, Informative)
what you could do instead (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Every Million Counts (Score:5, Interesting)
Your communications hardware will probably cost somewhere around 50m$ in terms of capital costs, with operating costs of perhaps 1m$/yr. Lets assume a repayment time similar to the operating time, and put that number at 30 years. Lots of assumptions here, I know ;) Your loan repayment will probably be something like 125m$; that'd be around 5m$/yr for total comm hardware costs. We're up to 7.5m$. Add in any other hardware costs they might encounter (for example, rent on supercomputing work to process the data, or whatnot) . . .
What on Earth (or not on Earth) are you talking about? NASA does not take out loans for comm equipment - it is paid for up front through appropriated funds or budgeted yearly as a cost for payments to foreign ground stations. Nor do they use rented supercomputers to process telemetry. Landsat data is processed by commodity Linux hardware/software. EO-1 data is processed to Level 0 on a freakin' DEC Alpha box.
Despite the stereotype that some people like to present, NASA does not generally throw money around like a drunken sailor. Once the data is captured, processing can be done on anything with enough bits. The missing monetary piece is mostly the cost of data capture and storage/archival of the raw and processed data - it's not free, especially when you take the mandated backups into account. This is a subject that is going to bite us more often in the future. How much effort and cost are we willing to expend to protect data, especially historic data? The archives are growing every year, and the cost goes up, generally borne by federal agencies, including NASA.
Re:Every Million Counts (Score:4, Insightful)
A joke, surely ... (Score:3, Insightful)
$22 million is pocket change for a huge number of private americans, let alone for thousands of corporations. I just cannot believe that a project with such a huge public profile (even non-nerds have heard of Voyager) could be axed to save crumbs.
Re:A joke, surely ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Its an attempt to pull at people's emotions to try to get the extra money. And don't get me wrong its not misleading or untrue that cuts would need to be made, but the programs used to illistrate the debate are always the most popular ones. Just like right here.
Re:A joke, surely ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Call that bluff at your childrens educational peril. My town did, we lost 24 teachers. We're voting on another one today which will cost us another 36 if it doesn't pass. Oh, and our "ignorance is bliss" town is also refusing to replace the forty year old (when the town at 12,000 people) library with a facility capable of serving the 40K that live here now.
Maybe sometimes it is hard to figure out if the boy is crying wolf, but sometimes it's worth it to find out before assuming that it's just a cheap ploy by a bunch of whiny teachers who want to buy another vacation house in Aruba.
Re:A joke, surely ... (Score:4, Funny)
At least they seemed to learn some chemistry...
Re:A joke, surely ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:A joke, surely ... (Score:3, Interesting)
$22 million is pocket change for a huge number of private americans, let alone for thousands of corporations. I just cannot believe that a project with such a huge public profile (even non-nerds have heard of Voyager) could be axed to save crumbs.
NASA does not have much discretion over how to spend allocated funds. Congress pretty much tells them how to spend it because it is all earmarked by our nasty pork-for-my-district budget process, and if the President convinces Congress to follow his budget guid
Re:Every Million Counts (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Every Million Counts (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Every Million Counts (Score:3, Insightful)
The war in Iraq costs us 5.8 BILLION every MONTH [military.com]
The overall defense spending is 511 billion a year.
TO keep this project alive for another decade would cost only 40 million. That's like a half day of war.
Bill Gates could come up with that money by checking all his couches and jacket pockets for gods sake.
Man our nation sure has messed up priorities.
Re:Every Million Counts (Score:3, Insightful)
Screw Enterprise!
Re:Every Million Counts (Score:5, Insightful)
This whole issue reminds me of a dilemma that I suffer when I go to a store to pick up a few things. The next thing I know, my cart is full and I think, "I'm spending too much." So, what do I do? Do I put back the less expensive, "on sale" items (which probably won't be there the next time I go back to the store) or the more expensive I-want-it-even-though-I-don't-need-it stuff.
The funny thing is, I usually want to put back the bargains first, saving myself only small percentage of the total.
I find that cutting out the nickel-and-dime stuff doesn't really save you a whole lot in the long run.
Basic Science! (Score:5, Insightful)
This crowd especially will appreciate the payoffs that basic science research provides. Without basic science research, we would not have the Internet as we know it, we would not have personal computers, and for those that like the games, we most certainly would not have computer graphics as much of the pretty graphics you rely on arose out of basic science mathematical research.
It worries me because in many places in American society (including Slashdot), I see an movement away from intellectual pursuit and a devaluation of those who we have relied on to make the United States a pre-eminent force in international science.
Re:Basic Science! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Basic Science! (Score:5, Insightful)
However, there is a second reason to make really fast cars; if you have some really fantastic vehicles, it makes people think all your vehicles must be better because you're capable of making a race car.
There is also a third reason, which is that the knowledge gained while doing the flashy stuff trickles down to your practical applications. In racing this tendency is caused by competition. We haven't had competition for so long we have become slackers.
Basically I think that we cannot abandon manned space travel and exploration, not even temporarily, in order to hold the public's interest and get them to give money to NASA. On the other hand, can we abandon the shuttle already, and go back to using rockets? Given that it would be cheaper, it seems stupid to do anything else. Also, can we build nuclear rockets please? They are probably at least as safe and environmentally friendly overall as burning several tons of rocket fuel and would be able to lift useful payloads so that we can begin the development of space.
Re:Nuclear rockets (Score:5, Informative)
The Russians had a very clever nuclear rocket (liquid metal IIRC) which used the same material for moderator, coolant, and propellant.
This in turn is different from ion drives, which (to oversimplify) use a particle accellerator for thrust. Ion drives have the best ISP of anything (most acceleration per wieght of fuel) but a poor thrust-to-mass ratio, so good for interplanetary travel but you can't get off the ground with one. Nuclear rockets don't have the ISP of ion drives, but they can be better than chemical roclets and still get off the ground.
Re:Basic Science! (Score:2)
Re:Basic Science! (Score:3, Interesting)
Everything is sacrificed on the altar of Mars. There was no Pioneer, no Voyager, no Hubble, etc...
Re:Basic Science! (Score:5, Insightful)
Lest we forget, that was basic research in military/defense-oriented vein. Or, really, technological development to better facilitate the researchers in that area. A lot of people at the time protested every dollar spent in that area as being philosophically bankrupt. Still, here we are publicly using it to have largely the same conversation.
For what it's worth: I think they should find a happy medium and spend more for a couple of years to automate some of the Voyager data collection, and thus be able to throttle back that human time through 2015. Whatever tools they develop or adapt for that purpose would probably help out in other areas, too. That's definately better than pulling the plug, and we have a better chance of being aware of when Voyager becomes Veeger.
Re:Basic Science! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Basic Science! (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course we need a military. I'd say "of course we need a strong military" as well. But spending almost half of the world's total, while our nation's scientific organizations get the scraps? That's wrong.
Re:Basic Science! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Basic Science! (Score:3, Insightful)
Over the past forty years 'social' spending has historically been from three to five times larger than 'military' spending. (Even the current costs of the Iraq war only
Re:Basic Science! (Score:3, Insightful)
Why would you think so? The Adminstration doesn
Following in Dad's footsteps (Score:3, Informative)
During Bush Sr.'s tenure, we also lost the Superconducting Super Collider [hep.net] in Waxahachie, Texas. Another Basic Science project that just wasn't sexy enough to fund.
Could a grass-roots project be launched? (Score:5, Interesting)
I mean, Voyager is out there right, it's still sending data back no matter what. If NASA cancels the project, the data will still be coming back...I mean, they don't send a janitor out there to switch it off.
So is it so out of the question that people get together some dishes...probably cheap ones laying around that the small digital dishes put out to pasture...and grid them together to get the signal. THEN collect the data? Is that at all possible?
Maybe (Score:3, Interesting)
Such an array would give you enough resolution for the job. The collecting area wouldn't be so hot, but provided you had the resolution AND provided there wasn't much else in that direction, it might be doable.
The probe that landed on Titan was designed to broadcast only as far as the Cassini probe. The signal wasn't pointed at Earth, was inten
Re:Basic Science! (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, we've come up with a slightly better space probe. Let's dump the one that's out there working now, and our shiny new probe will be on the scene to take over the job in just 25 short years. It'll be worth the wait, I promise!
Re:Basic Science! (Score:3, Insightful)
Great Investment Opportunity (Score:5, Interesting)
problem getting a few thousand geeks to "buy" Voyager from NASA.
GWB talks about this great "Ownership Society", well, here we go!
I, for one, would pay a few bucks to own a peice of history.
My great-great-great grandkids will be safe when Vger comes back because
they own it. Vger wouldn't kill it's owners, would it??
Re:Great Investment Opportunity (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Great Investment Opportunity (Score:2)
See that number next to your name? That's your userid. Those userids *are* sequential, and started at (wait for it...) 1. With that in mind, run around and find the highest userid you can (I've see over 800,000 myself) and then you'll have a "very approximate" idea of how large the Slashdot crowd is.
Re:Great Investment Opportunity (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Great Investment Opportunity (Score:3, Interesting)
If every active member contributed, it'd cost people $20/year to keep the Voyager.
If only 10% contributed, you're up to $200/yr. Maybe it could be made more palatable by saying $16 month. Hey! That really IS "for the cost of a cup of coffee a day..."
I think a 1% enrollment rate is more likely than 10%--people aren't that generous, but it's not worth doing every calculation
Re:Great Investment Opportunity (Score:3, Insightful)
The question becomes, how is the 4 million being spent? I can't see there being a lot of equipment upkeep involved, just some receiving equipment. I wonder how much course correction if any is being done. I guess what I'm getting at, is could this be something that could be run like open source with the exception of the receiving equipment? If there is no data being sent to voyager, then maintenance of the receiving equipment could be the only cost. Suppose this equipment could be maintained, and setup
Re:Great Investment Opportunity (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Great Investment Opportunity (Score:3, Funny)
Or turn you into this [borec.cz], but that only happened once.
Re:Great Investment Opportunity (Score:2)
You may be interested in this [navy.mil]then. It's about how the country's youth saved the USS Constitution. Sounds like you're proposing the same thing. Here's a quick summary:
School-aged children from all 50 states contributed their pennies to buy the sails that will be used during the July sail. The "Old Ironsides Pennies Campaign" led the nationwide effort tha
Re:Great Investment Opportunity (Score:3, Interesting)
let's see - if the Voyager is out of power in 2015, then there are about 10 yrs (x $4M = $40M in operating costs).
Isn't there a group of Universities (US and abroad) who would be able to fund 10 yrs of space probe research?
Between grants, endowments, and gifts from Alumni in scientific fields, four univiersities would have to (1) fund $1M each for ten years and (2) convince NASA and Congress to sell the project.
Why NOT?
Oh bugger... (Score:5, Interesting)
We want to have a manned mission to Mars, but we don't want any exploration of what else is out there in our solar system...
Spending billions of Dollars in the hunt for non-existent WMDs, instead of spending a couple of millions on the exploration of something that DOES exist. (I would think that all the extra congressional and presidential work in the Schiavo case probably cost more than what Voyager would cost for a year)
On the other hand - being European, I would wish ESA *had* funds like for the number of projects that NASA still has the money for...
I wish, someone would try and clue in politicians on both sides of the Atlantic!
I think, the Indians might be the ones doing it right - they are trying their first space missions, but unlike the others before, they are from the start trying to keep them on a tight budget (given that the country has a huge growth, but not too much "left-over" money for things like space programs). In a couple of decades, when India might be in a position to seriously fund space programs, their "budget" experience might really come in handy to make the most of their money for the space projects... Will they be the next big space nation and out-do the "modern" world (US, Europe, Russia,
Re:Oh bugger... (Score:4, Insightful)
Sad really, who knows if we would have become the world leader we (sort of) are today if previous administrations had been so blatant in repaying the people that put them in office (corporations, not the rural boobs that are losing their farm subsidies as we speak).
Re:Oh bugger... (Score:5, Interesting)
This is what the BBC documentary "Power of Nightmares" said. To butcher a 5 hour documentary to a few lines, it said that governments used to have power by giving people visions and dreams. This was the liberal way. That failed however and now governments are using fear. The future will be a constant switch between the 2.
You can get the documentary on bittorrent. I highly recommend it.
Re:Oh bugger... (Score:5, Insightful)
"The Power of Nightmares" was an excellent documentary, btw. Some of it seems almost Davinci-Code-ish (ie: tinfoil hat), but let's face it:
When exactly will these "terror alerts" end? Or has the USA resigned itself to living in a perpetual state of terror forever? I guess my rock DOES keep tigers away...
No neo-con has ever been able to explain this to me - and sadly, this sort of thinking is moving into my country (Canada) as well. If we ever have our own 9/11, I shudder to think what this country will do. We've traditionally allowed our governments far more control of our lives than the USA as it is.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Oh bugger... (Score:3, Interesting)
NO. China will. They already have plans for a Moon Mission. They are using technology and know how they stole from the US and Russians. They have the money and they have the "national pride" factor as well. How far along they are in the program is questionable as it is run by the Chinese military and thus is off limits to reporters. If China does it India won't be far behind.
Everyone bitches
All part of the plan (Score:4, Insightful)
What do you think they were hoping for when they gave us tax breaks and massive budget deficits? This. This is what they were hoping for. Now we have a fiscal problem where none existed before, and must destroy valuable federal programs. This is their long term plan coming to fruition. Social security, medicare, and welfare are all going to die, and it's not because they're too expensive.
They also have a long term plan to stop individuals from using the court system. They do this for two reasons. One, they want less accountability for corporations, and second, because the lawyers that work for these individuals are some of the most significant donors to the Democratic party in Texas. So they can simultaneously destroy corporate accountability and the Democratic party in Texas.
The Bush administration is way, way more farsighted than you think. They just have different goals than you do. You want a stronger America. What do they want?
Re:Wow. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:All part of the plan (Score:4, Informative)
Re:All part of the plan (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Oh bugger... (Score:3, Informative)
Just a little [nasa.gov].
The Deep Space Network's 63 meter dishes were actually upgraded to 70 meter dishes specifically for the Voyager spacecraft around 1980. Access to the 70 meter dishes is hotly contested and likely ends up being more than a small fraction of that $4 million per year.
But I have high quality intel (Score:5, Funny)
Star Trek can't be wrong (Score:3, Funny)
The bluffing game (Score:3, Interesting)
NASA threatens to cut good programs to call his bluff.
Unfortunately, the Bushies have no sense of proportion and will be quite happy to carry thru with their cuts. It will be up to Congress to save these programs, but again, the Bushies are just stupid enough to let the program sink to show who's who.
trade offs (Score:4, Funny)
What a deal
Re:trade offs (Score:2, Insightful)
Space? What about the war? (Score:2, Insightful)
I've stopped trying to understand these decisions at the gvt. level. They're just not logical.
Perfectly logical (Score:2, Insightful)
Why the war? Not just to finish dadd
Re:Perfectly logical (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Space? What about the war? (Score:2)
I think most here would rather engage in a lifelong love fest with NASA than to consider starting a business that turns space into a tourist destination like Burt Ruttan has.
To someone in the middle, the left's rejection of the theory of economics is just as disturbing as the right's rejection o
Push em out, shove em out (Score:3, Interesting)
I'd like to see Congress draft a few bills canceling the old laws on the books that prevent private companies from spending their dollars finding new ways to space.
Virgin Galactic, anyone?
Re:Push em out, shove em out (Score:4, Interesting)
Closest thing I can think of is the whole X-prize thing, which succeeded in launching one person to the boundary of our atmosphere for a few seconds. That would put private industry about, oh, 40 years behind NASA
And don't even kid yourself into thinking that private industry will do dick for pure science -- everything private industry does has to have a dollar sign at the end of it. Launching a probe to the borders of our solarsystem to learn more about how everything works? No profit involved -- you'll never see a private company doing that. The companies trying to launch people into space? They're not doing it for the hell of it, or for scientific discovery; they're looking to be on the leading edge of "space tourism".
Re:Push em out, shove em out (Score:3, Informative)
Bringing down the cost of space flight will do "dick" for pure science? Giving NASA, or other independent research agencies, the ability to loft cargo into orbit for a fraction of the cost -- how does that not benefit us all? Not to mention all the other side-benefits that might arise.
Do you believe that Integrated Circiut technology should have been kept within NASA, instead of letting IBM, Motorola, Intel, e
too bad.. (Score:5, Insightful)
There is some amazing data that might get lost, but you pick some programs to cut from that budget, while being expected to further new programs...
Or maybe we could sell it to the ESA, or even GIVE it to them?
Re:too bad.. (Score:4, Interesting)
Easy: cancel the ISS, cancel the entire shuttle program, and cancel manned trips to moon and Mars. NASA would then have plenty of money to do real science and to work in peace on better propulsion systems.
Revisit manned space travel in another decade or two, when we have the technology to do a good job at it, developed as part of unmanned space travel and advances in other fields.
Gone is Gone (Score:5, Interesting)
Canceling this project means saving almost nothing compared to the hundreds of millions of dollars spent so far.
The amount of money spent so far has nothing to do with whether we should spend more money. Spent money is gone, no matter what we do. New expenditures should be evaluated on their own merits.
I would agree, however, that this seems like a project worth continuing.
Re:Gone is Gone (Score:3, Interesting)
Sunk Cost Fallacy (Score:3, Informative)
Sounds like you're actually agreeing with him.
BTW, this is known as the sunk [wikipedia.org] cost [skepdic.com] fallacy [bplans.com].
Re:Gone is Gone (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes and no.
The hundreds of millions already spent got us a half-decent probe out to the heliopause. A small amount of money more might bring us some pretty cool data. If NASA cancels this, and we ever again want to explore the heliopause, we're looking at hundreds of millions *more*, and decades of waiting, just to get another probe out there.
Smart.... REAL smart... (Score:5, Funny)
Doesn't NASA watch movies?!?!
Mars? (Score:2)
I thought we were going to Mars [msn.com]! Time for NASA to work that "better and cheaper" policy into overdrive, I'd say.
Are we getting any good science from voyager? (Score:2, Interesting)
A question on budgets (Score:5, Interesting)
Did someone explain to those guys that Jules Verne's book is Science Fiction?
Re:A question on budgets (Score:3, Funny)
Bush: "Who's Jules Verne?"
Why not auction this off on ebay? (Score:4, Interesting)
Following Paramount's Example... (Score:2, Funny)
First Voyager, then Enterprise, now Voyager again.
sigh...
kulakovich
Open it up to the amateurs? (Score:4, Interesting)
Typical Bureaucratic Games (Score:3, Informative)
Bureaucracies are inherently dumb. But don't take my word for it - read "Bureaucracy" by Ludvig von Mises. [mises.org]
Right thing to do for the wrong reasons (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem is that we're not going to build anything newer and better. We know where this $4m is going - to help cut the deficit caused by a two-year Iraq occupation and trillion dollar tax cut.
Re:Right thing to do for the wrong reasons (Score:4, Informative)
Can the Voyager project go "open source" ? (Score:2, Interesting)
Outsource Voyager. (Score:2, Interesting)
Time to auction off NASA? (Score:5, Interesting)
That's just the Earth-Sun Exploration Division! (Score:3, Insightful)
No offense to you, but how did your post get modded +5 Interesting? I guess the Washington Post does cause illiteracy.
Not going all the way? (Score:2, Insightful)
Thinking of a future date when we all have to bite our knuckles and wonder what we all could have discovered if we'd gone a bit farther is a bitter thou
This will bite Bush in the ass when... (Score:5, Funny)
IronChefMorimoto
I'm sorry, Dave ... (Score:5, Funny)
If NASA had used kittens instead of chimps.... (Score:3, Funny)
Shortsightedness (Score:5, Interesting)
Its particularly sad turn-off the magnetospheric spacecraft, since the magnetospheric is such a complex system and being able to collect data from mulitple spacraft is so vital to understanding the system. Though the instruments on spacecraft do degrade over time, I know that the Polar [nasa.gov] spacraft, for exaple, is still collecting useful data. it is still being used in multi-spacecraft studies, along with newer spacecraft like Cluster [unh.edu], to better understand the magnetosphere.
It's not faith based... (Score:3, Funny)
God Needs the Money (Score:4, Funny)
Dup (Score:3, Informative)
Bad argument (Score:3, Insightful)
So? Priorities have to be established, and by whatever criteria were used, this was a low one. It happens all the time.
I bet this thread was submitted by one of those sci-fi fans
Re:Beethoven's Greatest work: Dupe, dupe, dupe,duu (Score:2, Funny)