Is Europa really the "highest priority" of the community?, Cleave said it was at LPSC? |
Is Europa really the "highest priority" of the community?, Cleave said it was at LPSC? |
Mar 15 2006, 05:50 PM
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2542 Joined: 13-September 05 Member No.: 497 |
From Emily's LPSC blog: "Bob Pappalardo would not sit down until he got Cleave to acknowledge that Europa is the consensus highest priority of the planetary science community."
Cleave was obviously poorly prepared for this session, but I don't see that this acknowledgement is either meaningful or particularly accurate. If Europa were the "highest priority" of the PS community as a whole, then one might wonder why we were spending all this money on Mars. I could easily imagine that Europa is the highest priority of the outer planets community, but frankly I was surprised when Europa Orbiter appeared in the '07 budget (presumably the result of some serious lobbying on someone's part.) It was pretty obvious to me then that there would be no money for it, especially in the aftermath of JPL running the old EO project into the ground with cost overruns and engineering upscopes. (And JIMO is best forgotten.) Don't get me wrong, I would love to be involved with a Europa mission (we did what I think was a good proposal design for EO) but I don't see either the money or the political support being there in the near term. I know it's frustrating, but one has to be realistic, and it might help to avoid the aura of entitlement that I perceive is building in some parts of the community (not referring to you, Bob). Of course, I am just a lowly engineer. -------------------- Disclaimer: This post is based on public information only. Any opinions are my own.
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Mar 20 2006, 04:29 PM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 220 Joined: 13-October 05 Member No.: 528 |
Is one Europa orbiter more cost effective than 3 lower cost missions? Yes it is, I'll admit it.
In fact, there are some things (like laser altimetry measuring the tidal flex of the moon) that are just not going to happen unless you go into orbit. So It wouldn't be 3 lower cost missions, more like 1-2 lower cost missions and you end up eventually coughing up the dough for the Europa Orbiter anyway. And the argument "the missions are so few and far between we have to have the largest ship we can manage in each mission" .... remember my point about MSR in the late 70s early 80s? Well, the "get the most out of each mission" argument was bandied about a lot in those days. The result was (with the growing Shuttle budget helping) no launches for over 10 years. With CEV swallowing everything in sight, we could push for Europa for years, and end up always just teetering on the brink of a new start, then loosing it in the next budget crunch. So in my mind, another JUNO in the hand is worth 2 Flagships in the bush. |
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