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Next-Gen Mars Rover In Danger of Cancellation

Posted by timothy on from the infinite-possibilities-finite-taxpayers dept.

OriginalArlen writes "NASA's next-generation rover, the nuclear-powered, laser-equipped Mars Science Laboratory is reported to be at a serious risk of cancellation due to budget and schedule overruns, including non-delivery of vital parts by a subcontractor. Costs are running over $2B so far, and the already thin schedule of Mars missions planned for the next decade — with budget ring-fenced for an outer-planets flagship mission — is in danger of further cuts."

29 of 210 comments (clear)

  1. Love space, but... by copponex · · Score: 1, Insightful

    It may be time to put NASA brains on some more immediate problems, like alternative energy, and studying the causes of the continuing decline of every ecosystem on earth. Visiting Mars may be a lot nicer knowing that the astronauts have a habitable planet to return to.

    1. Re:Love space, but... by R2.0 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "It may be time to put NASA brains on some more immediate problems, like alternative energy, and studying the causes of the continuing decline of every ecosystem on earth. Visiting Mars may be a lot nicer knowing that the astronauts have a habitable planet to return to."

      2 comments:

      1) Neither alternative energy or biodiversity is in Nasa's purview. we can debate whether it should be the business of the Federal Government at all, but NASA's not the place for it.

      2) Per Larry Niven, "The dinosaurs went extinct because they didn't have a space program". If one views the survival of the human species as important, rather than the survival of the ecosystem per se, then having an escape plan is ALWAYS good policy.

      --
      "As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
    2. Re:Love space, but... by Mortiss · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Sheesh.... why every time there is a NASA/LHC (circle the appropriate) story there is always someone who yells: "forget space, forget LHC, forget any difficult research (circle the appropriate) and think of children/poor/3rd world nations (circle the appropriate)

      How many times does it have to be repeated...."you never know what kind of benefits this research may bring! It needs to be diverse!"

    3. Re:Love space, but... by CopaceticOpus · · Score: 5, Insightful

      There have been major problems on Earth ever since there has been civilization. If we waited to go exploring and discovering until we eliminated war, poverty, crime, and pollution, we would never go anywhere. We'd also miss out on the chance to learn things which could help us to deal with those problems more effectively.

      Besides, this is a false dichotomy. We don't need to visit Mars OR save Earth. Earth is more essential, but if we are able we should do both.

    4. Re:Love space, but... by Arthur+B. · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Than banking industry is NOT free market, the rent of money is set by the Federal reserve, you need a license to do banking... where do I start ?

      Most environmental problems can be traced back to state intervention and lack of property rights. Not all, but most.

      As for space colonization, it's the best bet against catastrophic events. Redundant systems are good.

      --
      \u262D = \u5350
    5. Re:Love space, but... by MyLongNickName · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I would be in favor of temporarily suspending the NASA program, utilizing those resources to come up with new energy technology, and then licensing that technology to help fund the resurrected space program.

      Sorry, but this sounds like a classic bad management decision. Take folks off Project A in favor of Project B. Here is the problem... the folks who do Project A might not be the right people for project B. Some will. Some won't. Now, all those smart folks without a job. What do they do? They are smart, they find other jobs. Now, open Project A back up. Those folks just jump at the opportunity to go back to that project, right? If you think so, you know little about human behavior. Those folks will be settled in to a new life, fund a different way of being happy and making a living. You have just lost decades of wisdom and knowledge about a very specialized area of knowledge.

      And subcontractors. Think about them. There are a lot of businesses that give NASA what it needs in terms of components. Some, this is their only (or main) job. Some it is a division of a larger corporation. cancel all NASA projects for a while. Now reopen in a decade. You are going to have to rebuild that supply system again. It doesn't happen quickly or cheaply.

      Now is research into cleaner energy important? Yes. But don't destroy another system because of it. There are more intelligent ways of going about it.

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      See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
    6. Re:Love space, but... by wilder_card · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Not to mention that it's not an either/or choice. We could do both. Space really doesn't cost much money in the big picture; you'd get way more money for children/poor/etc. by getting people to spend less on cosmetics.

    7. Re:Love space, but... by R2.0 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "We don't need all the people on earth to escape. I think we can safely leave all the lawyers and politicians behind."

      My strategy is to divide the populace into 3 categories - the most important, the breeders, and the non-breeders. That's also the priority for launches.

      The "most important" category will be filled with those who have the power to influence the system to get themselves rescued - politicians, lawyers, Hollywood types. We load them all onto a ship and launch them first, to prepare society for the future colonists.

      Then, right after launch, we blow the fucker up.

      Then send up the breeders. They'll make it OK. As for the non-breeders, they really wouldn't relevant at such a point in human history.

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      "As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
    8. Re:Love space, but... by gstoddart · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Right. Let the free market do for the environment what it's done for the banking industry.

      Well, remember, the people at NASA might not have the skillset we need to look at issues like biodiversity and alternate energy. The engineering and aerospace skills the people have may not translate. MBAs might look at people as fungible goods, but the guy who has been doing extensive research into orbital mechanics might not actually know much about things which are applicable.

      I would be in favor of temporarily suspending the NASA program, utilizing those resources to come up with new energy technology, and then licensing that technology to help fund the resurrected space program.

      The problem with that is, if you suspend it, and you ever wanted it back ... there's a huge ramp-up time to get your space program back on line. There's also a lot of stuff that you need a space program for -- we've become highly dependent on communications satellites and the like. You don't want to give up on that.

      I think governments (or anyone) should avoid looking at is as "either we invest in space" or "we invest in alternate energies". We should continue to invest in both, because there is a need for both.

      If you're really looking to save money, I bet there's an awful lot of defense and other spending you could look at.

      "Per Larry Niven, "The dinosaurs went extinct because they didn't have a space program"."

      Strange. I thought the dinosaurs died because they were unable to adapt to a changing environment.

      Well, as much as it's a fairly glib quote from Niven, it's not really that opposite to what you said.

      In a lot of ways, investing in a space program and investing money in basic scientific research can be looked at as trying to learn how you'd adapt to a changing environment. Only, it's what you do when you have opposable thumbs and frontal lobes instead of waiting for evolution to sort it out for you.

      Cheers

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      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    9. Re:Love space, but... by ka8zrt · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Right. Let the free market do for the environment what it's done for the banking industry.

      I would be in favor of temporarily suspending the NASA program, utilizing those resources to come up with new energy technology, and then licensing that technology to help fund the resurrected space program.

      Well, frankly, it does not matter if we are talking free market or not. Humanity has a horrible record at killing the environment, with to the behavior of corporations and governments being the worst offenders because of the scale.

      As for suspending NASA...besides the "bad management decision" reply later in this thread, people seem to forget that all the research that NASA does shows up in other beneficial ways. It shows up in medicine in better diagnostic tools and items like the IEDs which are showing up in public locations everywhere (and which some of us may unfortunately need some day). It is showing up in ways which improve our crop yields in more sustainable ways, so that more people may be fed per acre, and so that less productive locations can even grow food on a limited basis. It goes towards energy efficiency of devices (be they lights or engines on a jumbo jet). And then it also shows up in understanding how the environment works, in part by providing access to other environments to compare our own against. This means that we can better understand things such as global warming, which should be treated just like a gun pointed to your head. Loaded or not, it deserves respect, because if it is loaded, there is no redo, second chance or what ever... Pfft... you are history. (A lesson many on this planet should learn and remember.)

      One other important fact to consider...the reality check of just how much is really spent on NASA. $17.3B for 2008, which is less than 2.5% of the bailout just passed, and about 0.6% of the $2.9T budget for FY2008. Far down from the historical percentage of 5% during the Apollo project. Yes, every little bit would help reduce the budget deficit, but with removing money from NASA's budget, you are really just hurting things in the both the short and long run.

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      Helping build UN*X and the Internet since 1981. :)
    10. Re:Love space, but... by R2.0 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "items like the IEDs which are showing up in public locations everywhere (and which some of us may unfortunately need some day)."

      Given the state of the financial system, the ever increasing presence of the government in our lives, and the ever lessening regard citizens have for the wellbeing of their community, that may well be the most insightful typo in the history of Slashdot.

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      "As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
    11. Re:Love space, but... by Sarutobi · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I am not sure what you are arguing. Are you for or against government control in those issues? It's that most of the problems you name were in part caused by companies and in part by lax government control.

      That fishing example you gave. You seem to be saying that removing those quotas will somehow solve overfishing? And that trusting companies that only care about short term profits will work better? Or that letting fishermen who can barely make a living because there is too many of them handle this problem will work better than actual strict quotas?

      For the amazon forest problem, short term lease is indeed a problem, but it's not all there is to it. How are you supposed to make money with a patch of forest covered land? Owners of those fields will see that the value goes up, you are right about that, by cutting down the forest and growing soy.

      Let's add another, just for the sake of it. Do you think that the companies who created CFC cared about the ozone hole? They only started looking into new products because it would be more damaging for them to break the law by using more cfc rather than changing to something less damaging.

      So, I hardly see how having absolute property rights actually help reduce pollution.

      --
      Think about this: Axe and Dove are actually the same company. Vincent L.B.
    12. Re:Love space, but... by PachmanP · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Chris Columbus would probably had trouble setting up any sort of permanent self-sustaining colony the first time out. Incidentally, there were a few more voyages and a couple of failed colony attempts, but wouldn't you know there's a damn lot of people over here who didn't descend from the natives.

      --
      You're thinking small. Why miniaturize the laser, when we could instead enlarge the sharks? -John Searle
  2. iraq war is killing the USA by Coraon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    you know if they shifted the budget for 1 week of the iraq war to this project that probe would already be, well probing things...

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    -Ours is the wisdom of Solomon, the magic of Merlyn, the fall of Icaris.
    1. Re:iraq war is killing the USA by MyLongNickName · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The Iraq war is just a small part of it. We are currently 11 Trillion in debt when you include our bailout of the financial system. I am a fiscal conservative who voted for Bush in 2000, and regretted it by 2002. I believe in a small government, but I also understand that the feds do have important roles to play. Given the option of low taxes and deficits versus higher taxes and a balanced budget I will go balanced all the way.

      The fact is the debt costs us every day. The last I check, we spend over $1Billion per day just to finance the debt. That could very well double in the next decade as our credit worthiness goes down, and our debt goes up.

      The fact is, no matter how much we earn, we will every satisfy every want that we have. However, when your paycheck goes to debtors, you have to go without more. Space exploration and scientific investment is very important to me... as close to a need as you can get while technically still being a want. However, it must invariably be and has already been curtailed because of our debt.

      Iraq will eventually end. Our expenses there will drop. But our debt will hang around our neck like a lead weight. Future generations will have to dig themselves out from under it before investing in the important things, or they will continue to let it balloon as my generation has.

      I am truly ashamed that my generation will be the first to leave the country in a worse state than what they received.

      --
      See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
    2. Re:iraq war is killing the USA by MyLongNickName · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I am 35. I am a few years younger than the baby boomer generation. However, you can really view the problems that I see from 1965-today, with a recent spiral in the past 15 years. Some might define the dates differently. The fact is, someone has to stand up, take responsibility and do something to correct. Instead of pointing elsewhere, i would rather point the finger in the mirror and say to those around my age that they need to view leadership much differently.

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      See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
    3. Re:iraq war is killing the USA by crmarvin42 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I completely agree. My parents are from the tail end of the baby boom and while they raised us to believe that personal accountability is paramount, most of their friends raised children that believe the world owes them a living. If I wrecked my car it was my problem and I had to pay for it (both originally and to fix it). I had friends who's parents bought them brand new cars 3 times in less than 5 years because the kept crashing them while drunk or high. Their parents did everything to help their child avoid the consequences of their actions, while mine made me pay for my own lawyer and court fee's when I got busted for underage drinking.

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      Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
    4. Re:iraq war is killing the USA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      And your parents should be commended for it...there is nothing worse than allowing youth to believe their consequences have no repercussions - it leads to several fold increase of 'bad behavior' in the future, which hurts everyone.

      /soap_box_off

  3. The Bush Legacy by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Anyone else notice that Bush's term is leaving the US space program without a Space Shuttle or alternative for staffing or servicing the Space Station that we paid more than our share to build, and actually devastating the manned missions to Mars that would keep our lead among our global competitors? Remember when Bush ran for reelection in 2004 promising us a Mars mission, though everyone knew he was "kidding"?

    What we'll have left, after Bush's term is done (in which he put Star Wars scientist and CIA venture capitalist Michael Griffin in charge of NASA) is a space program that mainly launches spy satellites and promotes "space supremacy" for the Pentagon and the CIA. Military satellites now used to spy on Americans.

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    1. Re:The Bush Legacy by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Will he? Funny how you extrapolate Obama, a Democrat, from Bush and Nixon, the two most partisan Republicans in history. Despite the records of Kennedy, Johnson, and even financially crippled (by the Nixon/Ford legacy) Carter, and Clinton, too, which show that NASA is a Democratic programme that Republicans lie about and steal from.

      I didn't say that Bush was alone. But we can have high expectations of Obama, despite the knowledge (that I'm offering here) that Bush is leaving Obama with a crippled NASA and a devastated budget and economy to fund it from.

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  4. Re:iraq war maybe killing NASA by ichigo+2.0 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    But deficit spending is killing the USA.

  5. Where the hell by jayhawk88 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Are the pork barrel last minute additions to the $700 billion buyout package for this kind of stuff? NASA doesn't have lobbyists? No congressmen from Florida or Alabama have this kind of pull?

  6. NASA Already Leading Those Projects by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The time to start putting NASA brains on alternative energy solutions, and studying the causes of global ecosystem decline was in the 1960s.

    Good thing we did just that. Fuelcells, solar PV, and pushing mechanical efficiencies to their theoretical limits has been among the best Return on Investment from our NASA budgets ever since the Apollo Program. Global ecology might not even exist without NASA satellites both inspiring the public and gushing data to scientists. Innovation in energy engineering and ecology science has been falling back to Earth for about as long as NASA has been lauching devices off of it.

    In fact, the R&D for visiting Mars has lots of "dual use" in delivering "survival tech" here on Earth long before we ever get to Mars. And of course the systems on Mars will need efficiencies and exploitation systems that will work here on Earth, Mars' sister planet. Plus, studying Mars' "parallel evolution" more directly, especially after its climate has evidently catastrophically changed from one more like ours today, is an unequaled opportunity to study what looks like our possible future, without either waiting or having to guess.

    These are the main reasons to love space, and NASA's exploration of it. Because Earth is in space, too. What NASA teaches us about space, we learn about ourself. And since NASA primarily teaches us about machines for living in space with extremely limited resources, while we push ours at home to the brink, we need more of exactly what NASA has already given us now more than ever.

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  7. Not $2B Over by CopaceticOpus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Just to clarify, the rover is not $2 billion over budget, which is the impression I got from the summary. It is $500 million over its $1.5 billion budget, and part of that is due to inflation.

    If we try to delay the launch, the delay will cost us an extra $300 million. If we cancel the launch, we just spent $2 billion on nothing, and the science it was meant to do remains undone. This shouldn't be a hard decision:

    1. Pony up and get this thing launched.
    2. Investigate how this happened so we can avoid overruns like this in the future.

  8. Why not more MERs? by Minimum_Wage · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Given how well the two MER rovers are working, why not just build a couple more of them and send them to different locations on Mars? Seems like right now it would be better to explore more areas and get a better overall view of the martian geology. Better to have a limited (from a science standpoint) presence on Mars than put all your eggs in a $2B basket, IMHO.

  9. Overspending by speroni · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'd rather over spend a little on a space program than on a war.

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    Eschew Obfuscation
    1. Re:Overspending by ddelmonte · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Please all, remember that the total NASA budget - that is manned and robotic exploration - is 0.1% of the current military budget. Even with overspending and tardiness. It's hard to build these spacecraft. NASA is involved in more than 70 ongoing projects, most of which are focused on Earth science. Think what we could find and use if the budget was just 0.2%. My humble advice is to get involved, volunteer to learn about earth and space science, volunteer in schools and inform your families and friends of NASA activities. Make part of your life's work to keep our children and grandchildren smart, curious, and away from the rubbish fed to them by the media, their games and their temptations. David DelMonte http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/ambassador/

  10. 700 billion by nexttech · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The government does not like a $2 billion cost overrun and yet it give's $700 billion dollars to a bunch of morons who can't keep their business afloat.

  11. Re:This is why I'll be voting McCain! by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yeah, Bush had a "decent policy on our space program" too, like a manned Mars mission. But, like McCain is on anything else he's saying this campaign season, he's going to continue the Bush policies he voted with over 90% of the time this decade, and just bait & switch us to some Pentagon/CIA boondoggles instead of NASA's space mission.

    You're voting for McCain because you're a Republican. You voted for Bush twice, too. It's not rocket science to see that you're a bad decider. Vote McCain if you want to see him "take up space" in the White House the way that Bush did: get in the way without doing anything useful.

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    make install -not war