MSL "Heat shield woes" Options

[Stu]

"MSL Heat Shield Woes" - Aviation Week

Anyone else see this?

[Steve G]

NASA is always reinventing the wheel. Every spacecraft for Mars is a new and expensive design. MSL has a brand new landing concept, and that's just the beginning. Would it not be prudent for NASA to say, okay, here is the design we'll be using for the next decade. So rather than moving towards a sample return mission, (more billions) just build four of five addional MSL's over the next fifteen years and make it the cornerstone of your Mars exploration strategy? I don't expect assembly line econiomics, but certainly the cost of the sixth spacecraft will be a lot less than the first. We have also learned from the MERs that Solar Panels are feasible for long duration missions, simply have a cleaning and better pointing mechanisms for them and you won't have to worry about pluotonium production shortfalls and save them for outter planet missions.

[djellison]

Every spacecraft for Mars is a new and expensive design.

MER was Pathfinder heritage. Odyssey was MCO heritage. Phoenix is MPL heritage. I can see the point you're trying to make, but it's not entirely true. The one major problem - we can barely afford one MSL. Where is the money to build several more? There isn't any. More often than not, you want to fly a specific payload, and that specific payload has specific accommodation requirements and landing site challenges and thus requires a unique solution. I'm sure, if successful, the MSl decent profile will be re-flown several times in the future, but there isn't the money to fly many MSL sized vehicles, nor are there many interesting places where you could safely send MER clones.

Doug

[brellis]

NASA doesn't want to waste a lot of $$ in new R&D, so even if a design is technically 'new', it's not a complete reinvention of the wheel.
Innocent opinion: MSL looks like a big MER; they didn't start entirely from scratch. Also, some new landing methods are the result of investments in R&D from years past. Why not enjoy the fruits of that labor?

That said, I really wish we could make several copies of successful rovers and spacecraft. It would be great to have several Cassini's and several MER's/MSL's. Maybe they find gold on Mars and Titan, and private investors will pony up!