Mars Rover Opportunity Faces New Threat: Budget Ax 185
astroengine writes "NASA's baseline budget for the year beginning Oct. 1 pulls the plug on the 10-year-old Mars rover Opportunity, newly released details of the agency's fiscal 2015 spending plan show. The plan, which requires Congressional approval, also anticipates ending the orbiting Mars Odyssey mission on Sept. 30, 2016. 'There are pressures all over the place,' NASA's planetary science division director Jim Green said during an advisory council committee teleconference call on Wednesday."
90 day budget (Score:3, Insightful)
It really overran the original 90 day budget.
Re:90 day budget (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Thanks, Obama. (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, you got the wrong president's name, but you do have a point.
Re:open source it (Score:5, Insightful)
I realize it probably sounds like a good idea, but screening and training volunteers is likely to be even more expensive than keeping the minimal crew they have operating the rover now.
Ditto on the API and "simple prototyping program," although I'm not even sure what that second thing even it supposed to be. Just writing the software would be expensive, not to mention you now have to have NASA people reviewing what comes in.
Driving rovers probably sounds a lot easier than it is. Commands are strung together in sequences. Sequences have to be checked to make sure they don't have conflicting commands. Instruments have to be taken into account; it's not just driving around that is being done.
And then there is the intense analysis and investigation that has to be done if something goes wrong. Reports have to be written explaining everything down to the bit level.
On top of that there is planning to be done to even decide where to drive, which involves a whole lot of people.
There is not only no money to be saved by handing operations over to "the community," there is also the probability that if you did the rover would be ruined within a few days.
If NASA can't afford to explore with robots... (Score:2, Insightful)
If NASA can't afford to explore space with robots, then what's the point of funding NASA at all? That's certainly what some probably want, but I think it's utterly ridiculous that NASA can't afford to continue to use resources they've already developed and launched.
Why does it need money? (Score:5, Insightful)
What is the expense of this thing at this point?
Everything being used is likely fixed and in use on or orbiting mars. The only things beyond that would be the transmitter/receiver on/above earth, the control room, and whatever you're paying the engineers to run it.
So of that, the only thing that should really cost money is the engineer's time... and I would think at this point you could get volunteers to do it.
Sorry, NASA's budget has no room for fat. These little projects add up to being a significant portion of a budget. I think the project should be maintained. But all the fat needs to be trimmed. Additionally, solicit donations and consider relocating the control room somewhere cheaper. Possibly a university somewhere would be happy to have graduate students control it and would pay most of the costs associated with maintaining it. After all, all the expensive stuff was already completed.
Farm it out to someone with room in their budget.
Re:open source it (Score:4, Insightful)
And it accomplishes virtually nothing to boot! Seriously, there's a hell of a lot more to running the rover than just steering and driving. There's also a whole hell of a lot of engineering support. Then there's the whole science team, who also are on the NASA payroll...
Re:Typical government stupidity (Score:5, Insightful)
I admit a lot of kids see this and dream of becoming a sports star or rock star. Is this a productive use of a human lifetime? Some say it is, some say it isn't, and I am not qualified to state. All I know is advancement of science is a dream to me. As far as I am concerned, Space Exploration is to science like programming games is to computer science. Its the stepping stone, the common basis of knowledge, from which we spring off whatever comes up.
NASA has always been an icon for me - an entity who is actually doing something that has never been done before. Will I benefit from a romp on the moon? Probably not. Would I benefit from stronger alloys, higher energy density batteries, more sophisticated CAD systems, and legions of kids which were motivated by the Scientists at NASA. I believe I will.
Our society seems to be quickly succumbing to what the economists refer to as "tragedy of the commons", where everybody is in it for themselves regardless of the cost to others. Our government is passing all sorts of laws encouraging "rent seeking" ( ownership benefits ) at the expense of production ( job creation ), leading us into a welfare state. I see big social problems ahead with this leadership model, as the ownership faction will run amok, leading to enormous wealth disparities between those who labor and those who own. We are setting ourselves up for a civil war between the worker and the politician/banker classes.
We seem to have no problem funding enormous salaries for someone to hit a ball with a stick. Here we have fostered an intelligence great enough to have placed a part of ourselves on another planet, and we bicker over whether we can even fund manning the operation? I am quite sad over this whole affair. It seems the only idols we are given is all this bread and circus crap. No more Spock, Scotty, or Steve Squyres.
Re:Typical government stupidity (Score:5, Insightful)
Congressional Idiots (Score:3, Insightful)
less than 1% of the Defense budget can run NASA at higher levels. WTF is wrong with the complete MORONS that were elected to be in Congress?
They want to save money, call all the troops home and end the frigging police actions.
Re:Typical government stupidity (Score:4, Insightful)
then they can pay for their own fricking stadiums.
Re:Typical government stupidity (Score:2, Insightful)
NASA projects involve basic science.
The ROI on basic science is so enormous it's difficult to quantify because it's hard to know where to stop. How do you even try to attach a dollar value to the entire Internet and everything it has created and touch in order to answer "What was the ROI of the DoD's investment in ARPANET?" With the corporate sector having, in the last 50 years, become utterly blind to everything more than 3 months out, it's up to the government and associated entities (national labs, universities) to keep funding and doing basic research.
Re:Why does it need money? (Score:5, Insightful)
lol (Score:5, Insightful)
For those that are not aware how this works... Every time there is a new budget proposal, NASA first suggests axing its most popular projects... usually Hubble, but sometimes other things... and they send that up to the hill... Congress panics "They can't shut down Hubble! It's the only sciencey thing we do anymore!!!" and they give NASA a bit more money. It's all part of the game. BTW, you're supposed to write into your congressman angry about how NASA doesn't get enough money right about now. I'm not saying you shouldn't... they really don't get enough money... but you should at least know the game that's getting played.
Re:Sounds like the rover needs a Kick Starter (Score:4, Insightful)
Dude, people are lining up to pay $150k for five minutes in "space" on Virgin Galactic...
New idea: Get rich idiots to pay Nasa $150k for one hour of "driving" Opportunity, complete with "I drove on Mars last week-end" NASA-certified bumper sticker.