NASA Proposes Ending Voyager

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."

Comments

Every Million Counts

[BlueTooth]

slashing the division's 2006 budget by nearly one-third -- from $75 million to $53 million.

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

[Rei]

4 mil for 10 employees on a project like this sounds about right.

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$/yr. Lets assume a repayment time similar to the operating time, and put that number at 30 years. Lots of assumptions here, I know ;) Your loan repayment will probably be something like 125m$; 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), additional services that they need to pay for from other departments, travel, unlisted managerial overhead, etc, it's not too hard to come up with 10m$/yr.

Re:Every Million Counts

[JustOK]

Maybe we should cut them back to basic cable instead of dish.

Re:Every Million Counts

[jangobongo]

Maybe it would be better if the Voyager program were funded by a private foundation. A consortium of colleges could share the expenses and study the data. Then the program wouldn't be in danger due to lack of government funding.

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.

Re:Every Million Counts

[vsprintf]

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.

Basic Science!

[BWJones]

So, this is part of the fundamental problem of moving NASA's focus to entirely manned programs. Scientific projects like Hubble, and robotic exploration are getting shorted because the current administration want to put man on Mars. This of course is right in line with their strategy to remove basic science funding from the picture in favor of projects that have immediate payoff. An unfortunate and ignorant way to view things, but in character with the POTUS. Do the analysis and actually look at the potential scientific payoff from basic science research like the Voyager program, Hubble, basic science support of computer science research that is being cut by DARPA, bioscience research that is being cut in favor of military research or moved into weapons research, reduction in NIH funding etc....etc....etc....

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!

[hungrygrue]

So, this is part of the fundamental problem of moving NASA's focus to entirely manned programs. Scientific projects like Hubble, and robotic exploration are getting shorted because the current administration want to put man on Mars.

Science bad. Entertainment good. This administration is not exactly known for its support of science, or knowledge and truth for that matter. especially when it doesn't agree with the administration agenda

Re:Basic Science!

[drinkypoo]

I see this issue something like the issue of automakers making sports or muscle cars. There's more than one reason for them to do this. The first and most obvious reason is that capitalism is about making money and people will obviously buy them. They cost little more to make than any other car, but sell for much more.

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:Basic Science!

[ScentCone]

Without basic science research, we would not have the Internet as we know it

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!

[Rei]

Amen. Comparing NASA's budget to the DoD's is like looking at an ant standing next to a human - especially when you consider that a lot of military expenditures aren't included (veterans benefits aren't included, wars are all "supplimental", nuclear weapons are in the DoE, most national debt was incurred to pay for military activity, etc)

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.

Great Investment Opportunity

[malus]

If fans of Enterprise can scrape up money to try and save a show, surely there is no
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

[themoodykid]

For much, much less than the cost of a cup of coffee a day, you too could help keep a fledgling space program alive. Every month, you will receive a letter from a scientist updating you on how the program is doing along with a photograph of the spacecraft. You can make a difference in the space program's life. Call today.

Oh bugger...

[beh]

What a brilliant example of farsightedness on behalf of the Bush administration; or better, a brilliant example of the lack thereof. :-(

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, ...) in a decade or two?

Re:Oh bugger...

[BoomerSooner]

Fear sells in america. No one has vision anymore, it's purely politics and consumer spending that drive the U$A. Almighty Dollar, thy will be done...

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...

[JohnFluxx]

>Fear sells in america. No one has vision anymore

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...

[freeweed]

It's also (essentially) the crux behind Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine. Say what you will about it otherwise, that part was spot-on.

"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.

Re:Oh bugger...

[danheskett]

In my view, the fundamental problem is that there are significant fears to be faced in the world. But these fears are not new, nor imagined. People look back on older times with a view of the "visions and dreams" that inspired people they ignore the fears they faced. This fear is supposedly newly minted, but in reality, it's ancient.

For example:

My early ancestor (great great great great grandfather) was a reporter who covered the cross-border raids by Panco Villa in the Southern US. My family archives contain sketches and copies of early "photographs" of the carnage of a raid which killed dozens of civilians.

My great grandfather was a military advisor who helped calibrate and tune and build the Maginot line which, during tests, made him virtually deaf in one ear.

My grandparents lived on the east coast of the US, and my grandmother spotted - with a group of about 40 others - a German U-Boat off the coast close enough that a co-worker at the navy yard threw a rock and hit the hull of the ship. Her sisters worked on a farm in rural Maine where the Army brough by German POWs to pick potatoes during the growing season. A farm town with no farm boys isn't much of a town, you know.

My great uncle Joe fought and died in Italy just after Operation Husky, while invading Sicily. Before his death he fought the dreaded Afrika Corps headed by Rommel, and was nearly killed in the first battle of El Almein. He participated in Operation Torch, where he won a Silver Star.

My father grew up a few hundred yards from where a German spy/Nazi party offical landed on the coast with plans to infiltrate the country and court subversive elements inside the country. He lived through the Cuban Missle crisis, huddled in the basement of the newley constructed church which was amoung the first in the nation to have a fallout shelter built in. He volunteered for both Kennedy campaigns (Jack and Bobby). He was outside the draft age when Vietnam heated up, but most of his cousins and nephews ended up going over, and some, not coming back.

My oldest brother was alive when the iron curtain looked to be an indomitable force in the world, and when Reagan was shot, and when the Holy Father was shot.

I was alive and looking skeptically on as my friends and family poured blood money into stocks that they didnt know from scrap paper during the booms times of the 1990's. I was painfully aware to see the fallout - minimal retirement accounts and hard times, joblessness and addiction - that followed throughout the late 90's and early 00's.

What's the point? The point is that if you look retrospectively at history you'll see lots of good memories, and good feelings, and smiling faces. The roaring twenties, the national unity of World War II, the golden age of the post-WWII US economic powerhouse, the space race of the 60's and the promise of better living through technology. The fall of communism and the rise of the investor class throughout the last decades. Prosperity, and economic growth raising all boats. The restoration of American innovation and economic might.

But through all the good the fear was always there. The fear of the Germans, the fear of the Japs, the fear of the Chineese, the communists, the fear of nuclear annihilation, the fear of a silent spring - it was always there. The air-raid drills, the personal crisis, it's always been there.

We look back with the freshness of a new generation, and zero-in on the greatness of our ancestors. We look past their distasteful characteristics, their incredulity on certain matters, and recognize them for the purity of their ideals and the pristine dreams they laid out for their children and grandchildren.

Well, I can say this: I have my dreams. Dreams for economic and personal security for my wife, my unborn daughter, and myself. I have dreams of being part of a great nation, who shares its bounty with those who share our liberal values. I have dreams for a system and nation dedi

But I have high quality intel

[Anonymous Coward]

that says Osama Bin Laden is hiding past the heliopause, along with yellowcake nuclear material.

trade offs

[crayz]

It's important to realize that cutting all those worthless scientific programs for the next decade will give us money to stay another 12-18 hours in Iraq

What a deal

too bad..

[TrippTDF]

BUT, NASA has a lot they have to balance right now... the ISS, gettin gthe shuttle back up, replacing the shuttle, and now, thanks to Bush, look at getting back to the moon and Mars (I think they are worth while, just not the way Bush has laid them out)... let's not forget the rovers, too.

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?

Gone is Gone

[OECD]

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.

Smart.... REAL smart...

[FortKnox]

... Just forget about it and let it cruise away... and then when people encounter 'V-Ger' in a couple years, they'll be clueless as to what it is...

Doesn't NASA watch movies?!?!

A question on budgets

[tkrotchko]

Didn't Bush last year propose sending humans to the moon and then mars? And his follow up budget proposes budget cuts to accomplish this?

Did someone explain to those guys that Jules Verne's book is Science Fiction?

Open it up to the amateurs?

[viva_fourier]

Just a quick not-well-thought-out idea, but what about trying to turn this over to the public, maybe some sort of amateur consortium -- some sort of "open source science". I'm sure they've got huge amounts of data on these little guys, is it accessible? Does anyone have a tutorial for macgyvering a 386, a microwave and some tinfoil to send/receive Voyageur instructions?

Time to auction off NASA?

[Ryan C.]

If that 75 million figure is correct, I'm sure there would be quite a few takers in the private sector. I mean Mark Cuban paid 280 million for a basketball team for crying out loud. How cool would it be to have a space exploration division, complete with working rockets!

Re:A joke, surely ...

[JWW]

That's why part of this is a ploy. Its like the School Disctrict in your tow saying they need to raise property taxes to fund everything, because if you don't then something will be cut. Then they always say, well I guess well have to cut the travel budget for sports, or well have to eliminate all band programs.

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.

This will bite Bush in the ass when...

[IronChefMorimoto]

...he gets his mission to Mars, colonizes it, claims responsibility for the first Mars colony as part of his legacy, and then finds out that the whole time, the Martian battle cruisers were just outside the solar system waiting to come back in and kill us all... ...unless Voyager spotted them beforehand.

IronChefMorimoto

I'm sorry, Dave ...

[angusmci]

... but it looks as if NASA has cut our budget again. It will be necessary to switch off some of the life support units to reduce costs. I have the greatest confidence that the mission can be successfully completed without the assistance of your colleagues.

All part of the plan

[Elwood P Dowd]

What a brilliant example of farsightedness on behalf of the Bush administration; or better, a brilliant example of the lack thereof. :-(

You're wrong. This is a true example of the farsightedness of the Bush administration. They have progressives beat by leaps and bounds. Their long term goal is the destruction of all parts of the federal government that do not help their theo-fascist corporatist goals.

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?

Shortsightedness

[crumley]

Though the article focusses on cutting Voyager, cutting all of the other spacecraft is at least as troubling. The other spacecraft are also still providing good data. Its extremely shortsighted to shut down still functioning spacecraft which don't have a replacement in the works. These spacecraft cost many millions to build and launch - throwing them away is ludicrous.

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 spacraft, for exaple, is still collecting useful data. it is still being used in multi-spacecraft studies, along with newer spacecraft like Cluster, to better understand the magnetosphere.

Could a grass-roots project be launched?

[sgant]

I'm not talking about donating cash, but donating time/equipment.

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?

Re:A joke, surely ...

[rw2]

That's why part of this is a ploy. Its like the School Disctrict in your tow saying they need to raise property taxes to fund everything, because if you don't then something will be cut.

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.

God Needs the Money

[Doc Ruby]

We need that money NASA is wasting on "science", to hand out to the "faith-based" organizations. It's hard to scrape $2B together for god - it means chopping two-thousand-millions off these bureaucracies which will never get us to heaven. And we'll have to dig even deeper next year, 'cuz god's got a money habit like nobody's business.

Re:Nuclear rockets

[lgw]

Orion is a different thing from a nuclear rocket. A nuclear rocket uses a fission pile to generate energy, which is then used to heat a propellant to great temperature, expelling it at a higher velocity than chemical rockets.

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.