Mars Rovers Facing Budget Cuts [Updated]

BUL2294 notes a CNN article reporting that the Mars Rovers program at NASA is facing budget cuts of $4 million for this year and $8 million for fiscal 2009. This will mean job cuts; and in all likelihood Spirit will be put in "hibernation mode," to be reactivated when or if future funding becomes available."

Update: 03/29 20:02 GMT by KD : NASA has rescinded the memo to the JPL threatening budget cuts, and is now saying that no rovers will be shut down.

Comments

Call your Congressman

[kramer2718]

I just called mine and told them to fund the rover.

Get their info here.

Selling one is more feasible than you might think.

[Tackhead]

They should sell one of the rovers to any institution willing to pay for it rather than let it die a slow death of neglect. A deployed rover with a proven track record is better than an $800 million shot that might arrive and land successfully.

The Planetary Society immediately comes to mind as a serious buyer. They launched the Cosmos 1 Solar Sail on an all-private budget of $4M. The mission failed due to hardware problem (hey, it really is rocket science), but it proved that private charitable organizations are quite capable of raising $4M for space exploration.

The Planetary Society was also instrumental in getting the word out (and raising funds to rescue the data) regarding the Pioneer Anomaly.

More important than the funding angle is the political one, but the Planetary Society has worked extremely closely with NASA over the past 30 years. The collaboration has been sufficiently close that they've actually flown hardware on the ill-fated) Mars Polar Lander. The Society's work with NASA on Spirit and Opportunity goes all the way back to when the rovers were named in the first place, as well as the calibration target" for the rovers' cameras.

In other words, $4M isn't just a business possibility, the handover of a rover from NASA to the Planetary Society is a political possibility too.

Re:Sad day

[tomhudson]

Don't you love people who purposefully don't quote your stuff, then present arguments in an attempt to sidetrack you?

Original statement by poster and my reply:

Maybe it's just me but I'd rather see the quality of life improve for millions of people rather than look at another boring shot of a red rocky destitute landscape. I could just drive to Utah if I was that needy.

Offshoots from the space program improve the lives of billions of people.

Now notice the deception:

Please explain to me how the mars rovers have improved the lives of billions of people.

Never made that claim.

However, I will be happy to demonstrate just one way that the space program (specifically remote sensing - you know, the stuff that the Mars Rovers are an extension of) has improved the lives of 6.5 billion people:

Without decent remote sensing capabilities (spy satellites) allowing real-time verification, the cold war would have turned into a hot war. Glowing in the dark might be "cool", but it sucks when your half-life is cut down to hours.

Remember - some of the shuttle missions were military spy satellites. These missions helped end the cold war, since the USSR couldn't keep spending at the same pace, and ultimately lost the "militarization of space race."

Continuing to develop rovers into semi-autonomous or even autonomous vehicles would be one step towards workable von Neumann machines. There are lots of practical uses for a working von Neumann machine right here on earth

Re:Simple solutions for NASA

[NeverVotedBush]

We might still be screwed but certainly not to the extent that we are now. Estimates of what this war will end up costing - if it is ended soon with a complete withdrawal of US forces - are in the $3 Trillion dollar range. That used to be over half of our National debt.

No more. The US National debt is now $9.4 Trillion. Our debt is increasing by $1.6 Billion dollars every single day. http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/

The National debt was around $5 Trillion when Bush took office. As noted above, it's now approaching $10 Trillion. He has basically doubled it during his two terms. So, yeah, we would still be screwed without the war but we are especially screwed with it.

And 4,000 Americans are really screwed - they're dead. And another 30-40,000 suffer from various levels of injuries up to missing limbs, missing eyes, missing parts of their brains, extreme disfigurement, etc.

Any other comments are superfluous.

Re:Simple solutions for NASA

[Harmonious Botch]

*notes that the previous administration had budget surpluses* TEMPORARY budget surpluses. The yearly debt is built into programs that we are committed to. Occasionally we will have budget surplusses, but we still, as GP says, are screwed in the long run.

Re:Maybe Next Year?

[tomhudson]

As someone above you pointed out, Bush is the president to enact a plan for getting men to Mars. Perhaps you need to actually look at budgets, because as someone else pointed out, NASA's budget has grown by a billion dollars this year. Spew elsewhere.

Perhaps YOU should look at NASA's budgets:

NASA budget: 1997: 14.358 Billion
NASA budget: 2007: 16.250 Billion

This is not an "inflation-adjusted" figure. Over the last 10 years, NASA's budget has grown by a total of 13.177%. Over those same 10 years, inflation totalled 27.23%. (and that's only using the "core inflation" figures that don't take into account housing, food, or energy).

Adding a billion still leaves it short by $2.017 Billion.

Re:Sad day

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd love to see where you got that "real" inflation is 10%-12% (which is a huge, useless range, btw). Second, the CPI is calculated by Ph.D Economists - if you think you know better than them, go prove them they're wrong, otherwise, keep your crackpot "facts" to yourself.

As an actual economist, I can't stand people that pull numbers out of their asses and talk like they're some kind of "authority" or that some crap they read is an "authority." Anyone that ACTUALLY understands economics would know that there is no such thing as "knowing" the "real" rate of inflation and that the CPI is the best indicator of inflation we have; there are versions of the CPI that DO include energy expenditures.
The reason that the traditional CPI does not include energy is because of the speculative nature of energy prices and 1) they change too often to be measurable with accuracy (on a monthly basis) and 2) it is assumed that the cost of energy will be picked up by cost increases in all other goods, thus energy costs would have a multiplicative effect on the CPI, which will make it less accurate and less useful.

Thanks for playing. Go home.

Re:Sad day

[tomhudson]

Price of gasoline 10 years ago: $1.04.
Price of gasoline now: $3.27

They exclude energy from the inflation calculations for just that reason - it affects the cost of everything, and it's HUGE.

Then there's housing: http://therealreturns.blogspot.com/2007/06/median-and-average-house-prices-in-usa.html

The average house price in January of 2000 was at $200,300 and in April of 2007 the average house price stood at $299,100. The average house prices grew about 50% from January 2000 to April of 2007.

It was a lot worse on the coasts, where price increases of 15 to 30% per YEAR were the norm.

http://www.financialsense.com/stormwatch/2005/0624.html

One way to lower entitlements would be to bring the inflation rates down, which would translate into lower Cost of Living Adjustments (COLA). The way to do this was to bring down the rate of inflation. However, this was not done by natural means, but artificially through statistical manipulation. The supply of money and credit began to go parabolic in the 1990s as shown in the graph of M3. The rise in money and credit would mean higher inflation rates. Higher inflation rates would mean higher COLA adjustments, which would lead to bigger deficits.

As for the "it is assumed that the cost of energy will be picked up by cost increases in all other goods" - when calculating the CPI, they substitute goods preferentially so as to lower the calculation, as well as "adjusting" the price of a good downward!!! if it's better than last year's model...

Hedonics

The manipulation didnt stop there. The bureau also began to adjust prices for quality. This practice became known as hedonics. Hedonics adjusts the prices of goods as a result of the increased pleasure a consumer derives from a product. A few examples will illustrate how removed the index has moved away from reality. Tim LaFleur is a commodity specialist for televisions at the BLS. In December last year he adjusted the price of a 27-inch television set for quality improvements. The 27-inch television set had a retail cost of $329.99. However, he decided the new model, which still sold for $329.99, had a better screen. After putting this improvement through the governments complex hedonic adjustment model he determined the improvement in the picture was worth at least $135! Taking in this improvement he adjusted the price of the TV by $135, concluding that the price of the TV had actually fallen by 29%! [1] The price reflected in the CPI was not the actual retail store cost of $329.99, but $194.99. The only problem for we consumers is that if we went to Best Buy or Circuit City to buy that TV, we would still pay $329.99.

Another example of hedonics at work is the way the BLS treats rising automobile prices. Mr. Reese, a specialist for autos, took a 2005 model car, which went from $17,890 in 2004 to $18,490 in 2005. After adjusting for quality items and making antilock disc brakes standard, the bureau adjusted the actual $600 price increase down by $225. The problem for we consumers is that the price of the car in dealer showrooms was still $18,490.

and

Instead of using new car prices, which were going up each year, the BLS substituted used car prices, which were falling. In place of exploding real estate prices, the Bureau gave more weight to the price of rents, which were falling as more households bought homes. Rents were given more weight even though 69% of households own a home versus the 31% that rent.

Real inflation has been understated since 1986, when they changed the way it was calculated. Anyone who says they believe the "official" CPI is a fool or a liar.