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 24 2008, 11:07 PM
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#2
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Founder Group: Chairman Posts: 14434 Joined: 8-February 04 Member No.: 1 |
I'm writing emails to people to see what, if anything, can be done from a public voice perspective.
Not like this. Please not like this. |
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Mar 25 2008, 02:39 AM
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#3
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2542 Joined: 13-September 05 Member No.: 497 |
Not like this. Please not like this. At the risk of being virtually pilloried by this crowd, would you prefer that they killed a rover through miscommanding, like VL1 or MGS? This is a pretty obvious "Washington Monument" ploy, not worth being that upset about yet. That said, does anyone think much more good science is going to be coming out of Spirit? -------------------- Disclaimer: This post is based on public information only. Any opinions are my own.
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Mar 25 2008, 04:20 AM
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#4
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2530 Joined: 20-April 05 Member No.: 321 |
That said, does anyone think much more good science is going to be coming out of Spirit? There's definitely a spectrum along which missions fall according to how much more science a working craft can provide once it's done the once-over. Magellan obviously could have provided SOME science from additional radar mapping, but it was also obviously a diminishing return. Or a hail mary effort to dubious ends (like looking for mass movement). In principle, Spirit could do a number of things, over an arbitrarily long period of time, for scientific gain. We don't know how much more distance it can traverse without failing. It could perhaps do some things outside the expected, like survey thoroughly for meteorites, or set off on a quixotic drive towards some [very] far-off landmark on the off chance that it would survive the trek. Perhaps even a return to Bonneville on the off-chance that some layering exists that couldn't be seen from the perspectives gained early in the mission. This is, of course, all in the diminishing returns department. It's hard to say how much the science/dollar is, but then, that's hard to say with a newly minted mission as well. |
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