Deep Space One Mission Comes To An End

jfoust writes "NASA's Deep Space One mission will officially end this week, according to published reports. The spacecraft was launched over three years ago to test advanced technologies like ion drives and, despite the failure of its star tracker, was able to make a successful flyby of the comet Borrelly in September. The project tried to extend the mission by several months to fly by an asteroid, but could not coax the funding needed for the mission extension out of NASA. There's a short summary about the mission's end at spacetoday.net, and more details from the AP and the JPL Universe employee newspaper."

Comments

Success

[quantaman]

I think it is easy to rate this mission as a great success. If I recall correctly it used something like 9 new technologies including the ion drive and AI. Considering the fact that it continued for 2 years longer than it was designed for (and probably could have gone for longer if they'd gotten the additional funding) says great things about the advancements in space exploration and lends the possibility to deep space exploration on a level significantly higher than what we could previously achieve.

This is socialism in action

[CommunistTroll]

The end of this successful mission should bring our minds back to the fact that this was only possible through government funding and control.

Pure capitalism would never be able to make these bold steps into the future.

If we were to spend more time organising ourselves rationally through our government, and less time irrationally competing to produce slightly differently branded soft drinks, we would by now have a colony on Mars...

Re:This is socialism in action

[Capsaicin]

Pure capitalism would never be able to make these bold steps into the future.

Well pure capitalism might not, but the American model in place in the 1960s, of capitalism mixed with a highly funded governmental research program, would seem to have out-performed the pure communist approach of the other side.

Re:This is socialism in action

[Corgha]

If people wanted to do that, we could easily finance a private (or government funded) space program, under any system of government.

It is worth noting that there are some important differences between private and government-funded space programs (read: "allow me to rant in a half-asleep stupor for a while"). While I happily contribute whatever small percentage of my income taxes goes to NASA, and wish that percentage were greater, I'm not sure if I'd feel the same way about giving that same amount of money to some private space program.

First of all, at least NASA is to some degree accountable and is unlikely to go out of business, taking my money with it. When I look around at Excite and Enron and all sorts of other companies starting with 'E' that have flushed their shareholders' money down the toilet over the past few years in (relatively) down-to-earth businesses, I'm not sure I'd be comfortable giving money to some firm whose business plan consisted of space exploration. NASA may not do everything exactly how I would like them to, but at least they get something up into space every once in a while (which is more than can be said for, say, the Rotary Rocket corporation).

Second, were I to give some money to a private space exploration initiative, it would be a necessarily individual act. If no one else contributed, I'd feel like a sucker, and might even feel a little resentment about the affair. Have you ever been the first one to step forward out of a line and volunteer for some unpleasant task? It's a real scary feeling that quickly becomes less scary if others start stepping up. For public initiatives, there is none of that anxiety, and there is something good about knowing that we're all in it together (darn pesky emotions). Now, tax policy is a matter for another time, but at least I know that most people are contributing something, even if it's not the same amount.

The things that NASA does are things that we can all be proud of, because they are things we, the public, were all involved. I, for one, would like to see them keep doing them (and more of them), because people will, years from now, probably remember what Neil Armstrong said when he landed on the Moon a lot better than they will remember all the other crap we worry about.

That's about all I can think up at this hour, but I guess what I'm trying to say is this: For some things (and for now I think space exploration is one of them), public initiatives are a good thing precisely because they are public. Space exploration might not happen as much without NASA, and in my mind, that would suck.

Sometimes government-funded initiatives are not a bad thing -- those who feel otherwise can build their own rockets and launch themselves somewhere where they won't have to worry about the Man anymore. ;)

Re:This is socialism in action

[Zspdude]

Well, you can't really give socialism all the credit: One could argue that under pure capitalism, we would already have a moon shuttle service underway, several lunar hotels, AND a colony on Mars. It could be said that if the government had not forcibly dominated the space sector, and had left the development of space technology completely to the private sector, the promise of $20 million paying customers would have induced entrepreneurs to invest there. Big profits and growth would have made it a flourishing branch of the economy.

No matter how successful and unsung socialism may be in this day and age, there will always be an excuse to be capitalist.

Re:Funding?

[Waffle Iron]

...but that's just the tip of the iceberg. You've got to worry about the costs of securing antenna time (not cheap), the costs of computing time (also not cheap), and the costs of maintaining the facilities that could be used for other purposes...

But most importantly, you have to worry about the cost of decades of mismanaging a white elephant manned space station project and its associated fleet of hyper-expensive shuttles. It's hard to come up with a couple of million dollars after you've poured 100 Billion down the shit hole.

Re:Question about XIPS engines

[Jburkholder]

Exactly the way I understood this as well. The propulsion provided on the DS1 probe was suited to continuous operation over a long period of time, resulting in gradual, continuous acceleration of a very small craft using a very small amount of thrust.

http://nmp.jpl.nasa.gov/ds1/tech/ionpropfaq.html

Under the circumstances for which ion propulsion is appropriate, it can push a spacecraft up to about ten times as fast as chemical propulsion. Because the ion propulsion system, although highly efficient, is very gentle in its thrust, it cannot be used for any application in which a rapid acceleration is required. With patience, the ion propulsion system on DS1 imparts about 3.6 km/s to the spacecraft. To undertake the same mission with a chemical propulsion system would require a more expensive launch vehicle and a larger spacecraft to accommodate a large tank for the chemical propellants.

You need the opposite to boost the ISS - a large amount of thrust in a short period of time to move a very large object.

Re: why does it cost money?

[Izmunuti]

While I have no particular wish to defend NASA, they are not entirely at fault here. There're two reasons that NASA spacecraft cost so much:

The big reason is that the Internation Space Station, way over budget, is sucking money out of other programs like a black hole.

It's sad that the political boondogle (ISS) to explore the most boring place in the Solar System (low-Earth orbit, been there done that)is killing off other, more interesting and cost-effective projects.

--Iz