NASA Dawn asteroid mission told to ‘stand down’ |
NASA Dawn asteroid mission told to ‘stand down’ |
Nov 7 2005, 03:55 PM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 370 Joined: 12-September 05 From: France Member No.: 495 |
NASA Dawn Asteroid Mission Told To ‘Stand Down’ .
The decision to stand down, according to SPACE.com sources, appears related to budget-related measures and workforce cutbacks at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/051107_dawn_qown.html Rakhir |
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Nov 20 2005, 08:16 AM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 220 Joined: 13-October 05 Member No.: 528 |
A bit of history here. NASA tried in the 1980s to get a Planetary Observer (if I recall the name correctly) program going, which resembled the Discovery program in scope and budget. But at that time Congress just didn't trust NASA on it's planetary missions... they had a way of growing bigger and bigger after approval.
Somehow NASA managed to convince Congress to go with the Discovery Program in about 1993. There were several aspects of Discovery that we all know so well: cost constraints (150 million for the spacecraft and mission in those days, exclusive of the launch vehicle cost if I recall). Plus the missions were competitively selected. And thirdly, something we don't discuss much these days, individual Discovery missions essentially were not approved by Congressional action. Congress gave NASA essentially a line item, an annual budget, and left it up to NASA to figure out how to spend it. This was unprecedented for planetary missions. Previously each mission was a hard fought battle to gain approval. And two things had happened about the same time in the 70s. Each mission was approved furthur and furthur apart (so we were getting fewer missions) and each mission was tending to grow larger in size. This occured largely because the powers that be felt that since there were few missions, it was best to get as much as possilbe out of each one. The second factor was that after Viking a lot of the scientific community had it in their heads that from here on out missions should all be like Viking in scope. Or such was the feeling of Robert Kraemer, directory of planetary missions in the 70s. So Congress gave NASA permission to shape their own destiny on Discovery. And since Discovery worked so well, we now have New Fronteirs. But if Discovery missions start to revert to the old ways of "oops, the cost just went up 25%" I'd think there was a serious risk that Congress would start to question the wisdom of it all and start to take away some of the authoirty NASA gained in Discovery and New Fronteirs. So.... I'm hoping Dawn flies. I really like that mission. But I can see NASA getting worried about forgiving two missions in a row on cost over runs. There is a risk here. |
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