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NASA Panel Finds Fault WIth Curiosity Rover Project's Focus
The Curiosity Rover that's been exploring the surface of Mars for more than two years now has a lot of fans (and quite a few headlines here on Slashdot), but not everyone feels positively toward the project. Tech Times reports that NASA revealed on Wednesday that it has renewed the funding of seven ongoing planetary exploration missions but of these, the space agency's Planetary Mission Senior Review panel, which reviewed and rated these planetary missions, was particularly critical of the Curiosity, which also happens to be the newest and the second costliest of the seven missions. The panel is disappointed that given the capabilities of the Curiosity rover, the team behind it only intends to take and analyze eight samples in two years, which translates to two samples from each of the four units it will visit during its extended mission. The Curiosity is the only NASA tool with the capabilities to detect carbon, do in situ age analysis, and measure ionizing particle flux.
By the way, here's a somewhat more detailed article:
http://spaceflightnow.com/news...
It seems the complaining panel may be trying to "force science" when it's really an exploration or survey mission. Example:
You don't "prove hypotheses", you collect evidence first. If you find something really interesting, then either spend more time at that place, or drive back to it if oddities are found after-the-fact and are big enough to justify it.
It seems they are asking for premature regimentation. You have to react to circumstances. Essentially, its mission plan should be "drive around and sniff at interesting or odd things".
Table-ized A.I.
Can we please retitle this story to "Armchair Quarterbacks Randomly Decide They Don't Like Curiosity"? Because, in all seriousness, do you think a that a bunch of rocket-scientists and engineers are like "nah.... let's just point the camera at clouds and do nothing with this huge multi-million dollar rover". Far more likely that the engineers behind the project are doing everything they physically can with curiosity, but this review panel doesn't like the reality of what can be done. I can think of a great Dilbert comic or two that cover this.
dorks don't want anyone else to play with their expensive toys...that's one way to look at this...
NASA is awesome...because they are the institution that goes to space...their **task** is awesome
**execution** has always been an area for improvement...NASA can be awesome and still have major problems!!!
it comes down to bean counters vs explorers...aka ***risk analysis***
the prototypical example of this is the Mercury astronauts and their crusade to include the human in the mission
the old saying goes "paralysis by analysis"
however you contextualize the problem, the root cause is faulty risk assessment...the entire notion of risk assessment in project management has become a clusterfuck of cause/effect errors & voodoo quantification of non-quant factors
NASA isn't alone in this, of course...**every beauracracy** tends to have these problems...
i'm not anti-NASA...I'm pro human spaceflight and human space exploration...i love these rovers too...let's put them to work and not be afraid to break them!
Thank you Dave Raggett
The biggest problem the scientific community has had is that the Rover does only science that has been done all before; It could easily be detecting life or past life or dead life from a thousand years ago.. but they refuse to do that sort of science even when they have outfitted the rover with the tools to do it, due in part to various political factions putting pressure on them NOT to do the science; Science is literately being censored and hats the most terrible thing.