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NASA Pulling Out of ESA-led ExoMars Mission?
astroengine writes "It's a strange irony that to afford the expense of space exploration, international collaboration is often sought after — spreading the cost across several international partners means the biggest space missions may be accomplished. And yet in times of austerity, national budgets balk at the prospect of investing in international projects like ExoMars. Sadly, that's exactly what could be facing the ambitious ESA-led Mars rover/satellite mission if NASA's Science Mission Directorate budget is slashed in the next financial year. NASA may pull out of the project, leaving ExoMars with no rockets or a means to actually land on Mars. Could Russia help out? Possibly, but it will still lead to ESA taking on more cost than it has budgeted for."
Russian tech and systems seem to have a hard time achieving a safe Martian landing, so the program may really be screwed.
Space X has some ideas on how to land a rocket on Mars, and is already testing some design principles, like the SuperDrago rockets for landing its Dragon capsules.
If I were the Europeans, I would be contacting them. The cheapest and best original thinking in the space race is currently at Space/X.
I think it's disingenuous to say to ESA "hey, we can't cover this, hope you can find another partner" this far in. Maybe one can look at the overruns for MSL and JSWT and say that this is the responsible thing to do, to allow those two programs to finish, but in the middle and long term, this is going to prevent any further NASA-ESA collaboration. Where is the big dividend from having shut down the shuttle program?
Practical issues like the availability of rockets are in the end just a matter of finances, both Russia and Europe have rockets large enough to support a Mars mission, because the US has more expertise they have a better chance of success.
The biggest problem for all participants is public interest, without it politicians take the easy road and cancel science missions.
With the present status of education in many EU countries and the US there is little chance to get the population interested, science loses from real time trash TV.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
"annual $5 Billion budget"
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! You fucking WISH the number was that low! $5 billion per year is NOTHING compared to the actual military budget.
Wow, thanks for that. I really needed a good laugh.
Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.
This is quite outrageous these cuts, and the mission is a good is a very good value. It is simply a terrible state of affairs that high value and relatively low cost probe programs are being cut when we have politicians talking about a much more expensive manned mars mission, if we can't afford unmanned probes we have no business contemplating a much more expensive and much worse cost-benefit wise manned mission,. Ask scientists and they will say unmanned probes are the best value, give us the most data for least money and have best scientific value compared to manned missions, which are vastly more expensive. It is indeed almost a twighlight zone insanity and backwardsness when we have people talking about spending massive amounts of money on a hugely expensive (hundreds of billions) human mars mission programme, which has terrible comparative value and return on investment to unmanned probes, and we face this kind of cuts to real science probe programs.
Unfortunately, US space exploration policy is driven more by buzzwards and hype than it is by real science. A human mission to mars would be very expensive and would, considering we can get a lot of data from unmanned probes, have very little additional value. For many people an manned mission is for entertainment value, it would be a very expensive and entertaining stunt. There is room for entertainment but spending hundreds of billions for this really way over the top.
It has mostly been Republican politicians who threaten huge cuts to the space probe programs and to NASAs science missions but then they see to have these crackpot ideas of sending a manned mission to mars just after they have attacked much higher value probes. ThIs i think speaks to the immaturity of them and the lack of understanding of science and the finer points of what are actually the most cost effective ways to obtain data. Republicans are simple minded, they are too ignorant to understand the value of a probe mission and satellites and unfortunately it takes a glitzy circus like manned mars mission stunt which has comparatively little science value, it is because they dont understand the science and what the probes are doing. It is similar to how they view foreign policy, they don't have any like of anything that requires the use of the mind rather than muscle,. such as diplomacy, the only thing that stimulates the Republicans is outright aggression, bombs, missiles, fighting etc, so GOP foreign policy is full of wars and plans for wars but with very little room for diplomacy.
The US clearly needs better leadership that is scientifically acute, that will continue to fully fund satellites, space probes and so on and is less aroused by stunts and entertainment that woujld be a manned mars mission,.
And if that doesn't work, they'll stop coming back with bigger probes. Something's gotta work...
Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.
Parent comment is plain wrong. NASA is desperate for funds, happy to work with any capable and trustworthy collaborators. Cassini-Huygens is an example of a working collaboration.
If disease, global warming, nuclear proliferation or political catastrophes manage to destroy humanity, we will see what a sound investment space travel would have been.
Having only one planet for our species means we're only one disaster away from extinction. No other species (on earth) has this ability.
If our scientists agree that our best efforts will not stop global warming, only lessen it, we might consider transferring that money into space programs. That way even if we destroy our climate here, our species will persist.
As the United States tries to get their out-of-control spending more in-line with the rest of the world, what seems to be first on the chopping block? Basic research and science. Meanwhile, the government is doing everything is can to limit the freedoms of citizens and making it more difficult to enter or leave the country.
It looks as though America is on a fast-track to going from superpower to third-world nation. Oh yeah, it'll still be the bully of the globe militarily, but that will be at the cost of the entire middle class, and frankly, that enormous military will be turned against it's own citizens when the riots start.
With religious zealots running the show, it won't be long before we're talking about how great it was when the USA had electricity, and the Middle Class enjoyed a lifestyle that was the envy of the world. You guys are turning into Romania, but with nuclear weapons.
I fear for our planet.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
The Defense budget hasn't been a mere 5 billion since, oh, 1948, IIRC. The current 3 wars we're involved in (Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya) each suck up about 5 billion a day thereabouts.
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
JPL is responsible for many successful planetary robotic mission including collaborationsas happened with Cassini and MSL. JPL has executed a many highly successful missions such as Voyager and MER2 (Opportunity) while never killing anyone or blowing huge budgets. Do not confuse JPL with the manned scapeflight porkbarrel in Houston. JPL does science; Houston does hugely expensive stunts and kills people. Unfortunately NASA is run by ex-pilots and astronauts; when robotic missions are cut, which happens all the time, Houston is usually behind it. The amount of money spent (wasted) on the spacestation and the shuttle dwarf the amount of money spent on Mars missions.
Comments like the parent here just drive me nuts! I should give up even reading much less replying to any space-related items here. "NASA is great at viewgraphs and theme parks, but as far as science goes, they're rapidly falling behind." Where does this kind of sentiment come from? Is it in any way bounded by reality? NASA's recent track record for planetary science is pretty good, held up to that of other national space programs (not to disparage those other programs, but just as a point of comparison);
- JAXA's Akatsuki-Venus mission failed to enter orbit around Venus last year
- Russia's Phobos-Grunt mission to Martian satellites failed to escape Earth's orbit
- ESA's Mars Express mission lost it's Beagle-2 lander (crashed?)
- Cassini's Huygens probe had a fair number of problems, including, at one point, its spinning in the opposite to intended direction during descent
- India's Chandrayaan lunar probe operated for 312 days before failing , rather than its nominal 2-year mission (probably for thermal reasons)
Compare with
- NASA's MESSENGER, in orbit around Mercury for a year and producing a ream of science data
- NASA's Kepler mission, boosting our count of exoplanets by something like an order of magnitude
- NASA's Mars Rovers, 8 years into a nominal 30-day mission
- NASA's Juno probe, on its way to Jupiter
- NASA's Cassini flagship mission, far into extended mission already and aiming to keep working through 2017
- NASA's MSL, over budget but successfully on its way to Mars
- NASA's New Horizons, now closer to Pluto than any other man-made object, and moreso every day
For the record, other current missions up for extensions include EPOXI, GRAIL, MRO, Mars Odyssey Orbiter, and LRO.
Yes I'm cherry-picking a bit here, but overlooking dozens of other programs also. It's not my job to document all this - but before posting snide little "NASA's good at viewgraphs" comments, maybe do a minimal amount of search.
I don't think ExoMars' defunding, if the rumor is true, would be an example of a choice NASA has made, but rather a budget choice coming down from higher levels in the administration. If all that is true, it's really unfortunate, because, in the long term, its in America's interests to engage with other competent space programs, and to prove ourselves to be a trustworthy partner.
NASA/JPL have already solved most of the problems that this project is trying to replicate, launch, descent, landing and roving.
The Curiosity Rover is already en-route to mars.
NASA and JPL will have a full plate managing this rover along with the existing rovers over the next few years. The rover was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. NASA's Launch Services Program at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida managed the launch. NASA's Space Network provided space communication services for the launch vehicle, and the rover.
Dealing with yet another program would be a huge distraction, entail a large resource drain bringing ESA up to speed, and transferring a lot of technology to them in the process, and being asked to pay for the privileged of doing so.
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Why does every discussion of a space program devolve rapidly into people calling every space program that isn't their favorite a bunch of incompetent jerks. Guys. Space travel is fucking HARD. There is no agency with any kind of pedigree that doesn't also have a lot of embarrassing screwups. SpaceX is just as bad as any of them: if it has fewer failures, it's because it has fewer successes.
Everyone working in any kind of aerospace program is very intelligent. They are doing something very difficult, with very little room for error, in a room with a lot of different people. I think it's safe to say that space travel has a fairly consistent success rate across agencies, at least up to a reasonable error.
Assuming there is any competency worth engaging. We have landers and rovers on mars and another one (Curiosity) enroute.
Why isn't ESA buying into our program instead of relying on us to fund theirs?
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For anybody with a real interest, here is a link to each of NASA's current missions;
http://www.nasa.gov/missions/current/index.html
Or we could have them both without taxing anybody. NASA funding is trivial. If you look at a pie chart of government spending, you'll see all the science/roads/infrastructure/etc spending - all the funding that actually does something - in the "other" slice. Check my sig for the 6 biggest expenses, you might be surprised.
It's a good thing the defense department does research spending - it probably funds more research than the rest of the government.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.