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Interstellar Pioneers Facing Termination

Posted by samzenpus on from the throw-that-old-thing-out dept.

marcel-jan.nl writes "There are plans to terminate the interstellar missions Voyager 1 and 2 and the solar mission Ulysses in October to save money. The Voyagers alone need $4.2 million a year for daily operation and data analysis. Scientist say this cut is "an extremely foolish thing to do": the Voyagers are approaching the edge of the Solar System and Ulysses is observing the Sun coming to the end of a 22-year magnetic cycle."

4 of 581 comments (clear)

  1. This is horrible... by Peaked · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This is insane. Sure some money will be saved, but nearly 30 years of funds will have been wasted. Do the math.

  2. Re:$166M a Day In Iraq Vs. $4.2M A Year For Voyage by bman08 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    That money's needed for faith based initiatives, abstinence-only education and 'my-granpappy-ain't-no-monkey' stickers for textbooks. Question; can they save money by shutting down the analysis portion and just collecting raw data until more generous hands are on the budgetary purse strings?

  3. expect the unexpected by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Gee, we would have missed out on Anomalous acceleration if we had pulled the plug the first time they wanted to. (Have they adequately explained that yet?)

  4. Ex-insider's rant, from Voyager Mission Planning by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I am Jonathan Vos Post, formerly Mission Planning Engineer on Voyager 2, for the the part of the mission called "VUIM": Voyager Uranus Interstellar Mission.

    I worked for Charlie Kolhaase, Mission Planning Director, and Ed Stone, Chief Scientist.

    So far as I'm concerned, NASA is telling me that I wasted my time (except for those nice screensavers of Miranda, which was a part of mission under my responsibility). Now they want to kill me, bury me, and desecrate my grave.

    That's what this feels like, anyhow.

    The interstellar part of the mision is extremely serious science, as others have said. We only have 4 interstellar probes right now, two Voyagers and two Pioneers.

    Kill the still-working half of the fleet, and we're back to square one.

    Who cares how the sun interacts with interstellar medium? Who cares if anomalous acceleration of the Voyagers tells us something about Dark Energy?

    Let's go invade Iran, or shoot another Italian journalist, or detain a few hundred more people at Gitmo. Yeah, that's what our wonderful government wants to do with the money saved.

    The gentleman from the Voyager Navigation team with whom I worked most closely still at JPL (promoted to management) -- I won't mention his name to spare him retribution from above -- correctly described himself as "The other interstellar navigator, besides Sulu."

    My credentials on the subject are at
    http://www.magicdragon.com/ComputerFutures/Spa cePu blications/210Ways.html