Mars Rover Opportunity Faces New Threat: Budget Ax

astroengine writes "NASA's baseline budget for the year beginning Oct. 1 pulls the plug on the 10-year-old Mars rover Opportunity, newly released details of the agency's fiscal 2015 spending plan show. The plan, which requires Congressional approval, also anticipates ending the orbiting Mars Odyssey mission on Sept. 30, 2016. 'There are pressures all over the place,' NASA's planetary science division director Jim Green said during an advisory council committee teleconference call on Wednesday."

Comments

90 day budget

[Anonymous Coward]

It really overran the original 90 day budget.

Re:90 day budget

[MrBingoBoingo]

Sure, but... Continuing a legacy like that is cheaper than launching anything else. It's almost like the Airforce retiring the A-10 and supposing a vaporware F-35 can replace it, the F-35 being both Vaporware and an abortion because someone insisted the bulk of the US's future airplanes must take off and land like helicopters. Seriously, Fund NASA, axe the F-35 and just buy some French Raphaels already.

Re:90 day budget

[hax4bux]

You had me until "buy French Raphaels"

Give control to the internet

[JesseJMH]

For a monthly fee, they should allow commoners to send commands to the rover. Lets see how fast the internet can break it! Bonus points for getting to the scale of twitch plays Pokemon.

open source it

[globaljustin]

I think the whole "budget crisis on infinite earth's" is all fiscal voodoo...however if this has to happen, we should turn it over "to the community"

NASA should open the project to screened volunteers who maintain the basic mission functions.

NASA could set up an API & a simple prototyping program & let people download it for free. Best ideas get kicked up the ladder...eventually to NASA staff who could approve it.

This should be happening now...it would cost virtually nothing (on NASA $ scales) and get thousands interested & involved in space.

Re:open source it

[Concerned Onlooker]

I realize it probably sounds like a good idea, but screening and training volunteers is likely to be even more expensive than keeping the minimal crew they have operating the rover now.

Ditto on the API and "simple prototyping program," although I'm not even sure what that second thing even it supposed to be. Just writing the software would be expensive, not to mention you now have to have NASA people reviewing what comes in.

Driving rovers probably sounds a lot easier than it is. Commands are strung together in sequences. Sequences have to be checked to make sure they don't have conflicting commands. Instruments have to be taken into account; it's not just driving around that is being done.

And then there is the intense analysis and investigation that has to be done if something goes wrong. Reports have to be written explaining everything down to the bit level.

On top of that there is planning to be done to even decide where to drive, which involves a whole lot of people.

There is not only no money to be saved by handing operations over to "the community," there is also the probability that if you did the rover would be ruined within a few days.

Re:open source it

[DerekLyons]

This should be happening now...it would cost virtually nothing (on NASA $ scales)

And it accomplishes virtually nothing to boot! Seriously, there's a hell of a lot more to running the rover than just steering and driving. There's also a whole hell of a lot of engineering support. Then there's the whole science team, who also are on the NASA payroll...

Re:open source it

[necro81]

on NASA budgetary scales

You say that as though it is supposed to bolster your argument. NASA's budget is somewhere around $15bn/year, or about 0.5% of the total federal spending. That covers everything from advanced research to planetary exploration to human space flight. The line item for the Mars Exploration Rover program (i.e., Opportunity) is $13 million. I suspect a lot of that goes to personnel costs, some of which might be reduced through volunteer efforts. It also costs a lot to maintain the control center and the program infrastructure, which cannot be replicated through an "API and 'simple prototyping program' ". The costs associated with people coding instructions for the rover is really a small part of the program budget. The cost to create and administer some sort of volunteer program might be small compared to $15bn, but it would be quite expensive relative to costs it is trying to replace.

Re:Thanks, Obama.

[Concerned Onlooker]

Well, you got the wrong president's name, but you do have a point.

That's what killed skylab

[dbIII]

An expensive project with huge potential that died due to not putting up the funds to transport and fuel up the vehicle already built that could have both brought people there for a mission and nudge it into a higher orbit.

Why does it need money?

[Karmashock]

What is the expense of this thing at this point?

Everything being used is likely fixed and in use on or orbiting mars. The only things beyond that would be the transmitter/receiver on/above earth, the control room, and whatever you're paying the engineers to run it.

So of that, the only thing that should really cost money is the engineer's time... and I would think at this point you could get volunteers to do it.

Sorry, NASA's budget has no room for fat. These little projects add up to being a significant portion of a budget. I think the project should be maintained. But all the fat needs to be trimmed. Additionally, solicit donations and consider relocating the control room somewhere cheaper. Possibly a university somewhere would be happy to have graduate students control it and would pay most of the costs associated with maintaining it. After all, all the expensive stuff was already completed.

Farm it out to someone with room in their budget.

Re:Why does it need money?

[Mr D from 63]

Nobody seems to be asking the most important question: What more can we expect in return for the continued operation? That answer should drive the decision. It may not cost much to keep it going, but if we've pretty much exhausted any meaningful return, then what is the point of putting more $$ into it. OTOH, if they think there is a lot more information we can gain beyond what we already have, then extend the operation appropriately.

Re:Typical government stupidity

[anubi]

I keep seeing the argument of what we get for a dollar funded to NASA. I ask what we get for a dollar funded to professional sports. I get to see some grown man chase all over some field trying to snare a ball.

I admit a lot of kids see this and dream of becoming a sports star or rock star. Is this a productive use of a human lifetime? Some say it is, some say it isn't, and I am not qualified to state. All I know is advancement of science is a dream to me. As far as I am concerned, Space Exploration is to science like programming games is to computer science. Its the stepping stone, the common basis of knowledge, from which we spring off whatever comes up.

NASA has always been an icon for me - an entity who is actually doing something that has never been done before. Will I benefit from a romp on the moon? Probably not. Would I benefit from stronger alloys, higher energy density batteries, more sophisticated CAD systems, and legions of kids which were motivated by the Scientists at NASA. I believe I will.

Our society seems to be quickly succumbing to what the economists refer to as "tragedy of the commons", where everybody is in it for themselves regardless of the cost to others. Our government is passing all sorts of laws encouraging "rent seeking" ( ownership benefits ) at the expense of production ( job creation ), leading us into a welfare state. I see big social problems ahead with this leadership model, as the ownership faction will run amok, leading to enormous wealth disparities between those who labor and those who own. We are setting ourselves up for a civil war between the worker and the politician/banker classes.

We seem to have no problem funding enormous salaries for someone to hit a ball with a stick. Here we have fostered an intelligence great enough to have placed a part of ourselves on another planet, and we bicker over whether we can even fund manning the operation? I am quite sad over this whole affair. It seems the only idols we are given is all this bread and circus crap. No more Spock, Scotty, or Steve Squyres.

Re:Typical government stupidity

[distilate]

Still only a tiny fraction of what the government spends blowing up civilians in other countries.

Re:Typical government stupidity

[Lumpy]

then they can pay for their own fricking stadiums.

lol

[Charliemopps]

For those that are not aware how this works... Every time there is a new budget proposal, NASA first suggests axing its most popular projects... usually Hubble, but sometimes other things... and they send that up to the hill... Congress panics "They can't shut down Hubble! It's the only sciencey thing we do anymore!!!" and they give NASA a bit more money. It's all part of the game. BTW, you're supposed to write into your congressman angry about how NASA doesn't get enough money right about now. I'm not saying you shouldn't... they really don't get enough money... but you should at least know the game that's getting played.

Re:Sounds like the rover needs a Kick Starter

[bob_super]

Dude, people are lining up to pay $150k for five minutes in "space" on Virgin Galactic...

New idea: Get rich idiots to pay Nasa $150k for one hour of "driving" Opportunity, complete with "I drove on Mars last week-end" NASA-certified bumper sticker.