Odyssey and MER Budgets Cut |
Odyssey and MER Budgets Cut |
Mar 24 2008, 09:11 PM
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#1
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Newbie Group: Members Posts: 3 Joined: 12-March 08 Member No.: 4062 |
Just found out today at a MER all-hands meeting that both MER and Odyssey will each be suffering an immediate $4 million budget cut to help defray the cost of MSL. Read more here: http://martianchronicles.wordpress.com/200...rs-budget-cuts/
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Mar 25 2008, 01:46 AM
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#2
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Merciless Robot Group: Admin Posts: 8785 Joined: 8-December 05 From: Los Angeles Member No.: 602 |
Thanks for the words of encouragement, O Poet Laureate! Certainly in this community sanity and unity will prevail; I do cringe a bit at the thought of what others might be doing even as we speak, though...
Brellis, I hear ya; that's actually not the option I had in mind (but, gotta tell ya, at this point wouldn't mind seeing the MERs and Odyssey sponsored by Google, though never renamed. Hell, $8M is like the price of sixteen Super Bowl ads, maybe less!) What I was thinking of was finding other Federal funding that could be reapportioned. Again, NASA's in a bit of a spot for this sort of thing because it's administratively not affiliated with any other agencies with lateral disbursing authority for operations & maintenance funding (AKA 3400 money), AFAIK. Still, it seems that some sort of arrangement should be possible, and I sure hope that any such options are being thoroughly explored. -------------------- A few will take this knowledge and use this power of a dream realized as a force for change, an impetus for further discovery to make less ancient dreams real.
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Mar 25 2008, 02:15 AM
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#3
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Member Group: Members Posts: 754 Joined: 9-February 07 Member No.: 1700 |
A while back I wondered if due to budget constraints, operators would be inclined to attempt ever more suicidal stunts with their maneuvers, knowing that there would be no funding for further operations. How dangerous is hibernation? At what point would it be worth it purely for budgetary reasons to test the navigational limits of Spirit's abilities, as opposed to putting the baby to sleep and risking further budget cuts?
However this plays out, it is a great measure of success for the MER missions that the rovers have survived so far beyond expectations. |
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