Posted on 03/24/2008 5:33:37 PM PDT by Names Ash Housewares
The Mars Exploration Rover (MER) folks that operate the Spirit and Opportunity robots on the red planet have gotten some bad news. A directive has come from NASA Headquarters to take a 40 percent financial cut in their program — some $4 million in the remaining months of fiscal year 2008. It all comes down to a financial stun gun for one of the rovers, both still busy at work doing science. Cost to run the Mars twins is $20 million per year. They've been on the red planet since January 2004 and are long past their 90-day mission plan. Steve Squyres, the MER principal investigator at Cornell University, said the 40 percent cut is huge. "We're rapidly coming to the conclusion that if we have to implement this cut, it's going to mean essentially shutting off science activities for one of the vehicles," Squyres told SPACE.com.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Pure insanity.
Those rovers are WORKING HARDWARE on Mars.
You do NOT turn your back on that kind of science asset. An asset that is unique to the entire human race.
I hope this gets reverersed. I suspect it will.
There is one remedy to this problem: privatize!
How incredibly stupid.
They still work. They still work WELL. They’ve been around for over 4 years.
Indeed it does sound crazy - is this one of those things politicians and bureaucrats like to do when faced with budget pressures, announce deep cuts in some highly visible and popular program(s) so that the public backlash will provide support for higher budgets overall?
robbing hj48yerughf to pay o823ny27weihn
Why does it cost so much to operate them?
But hey, the ISS is still....going around and around for billions of dollars.
I defy anyone to name one discovery of the ISS without doing a google search.
Important that they dig up more dirt?
Seriously, these are among the most successful unmanned space missions of all time.
Hey! Bear Stearns bailouts aren’t cheap!
Ping.
Sadly I’ve been working for the military long enough that $20M a year sounds like pocket change to me, not “so much.”
You’ve got the salaries of the people involved, the commo network, etc. Adds up fast.
If you privatize them right now they'll be shut down in 6 months. Who would spend 20 million of their own money each year with no hope of recouping it in our lifetime?
“Seriously, these are among the most successful unmanned space missions of all time.”
STRONGLY AGREED.
Even the greatest critics of NASA cannot disagree with this and be taken seriously.
I am a member of National Space Society and The Planetary Society.
I WILL make my voice heard on this.
Hand the controls over to some 6th graders and tell them its a video game. They’ll work for free and be more adept than the adults.
The Discovery channel could pay the salaries of the scientists, and get the rights to the scientific work done + all of the publicity of the endeavor. A "reality" show on another planet.
Don’t want them gettin data on de-bunkin global warming now,do we..
Then when we cry "You can't cut that", they take it to mean they don't have to cut anything.
They can then go back to their tax and spend and borrow ways.
Then the government would need to provide “incentives” (loopholes, corporate welfare) since there is no return on the investment, I hope my 401K is not there.
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