NASA Dawn asteroid mission told to ‘stand down’ Options

[Rakhir]

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

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

I just hope they did it for the right reasons (I missed the teleconference), and not because of political pressure.

[mars loon]

I just hope they did it for the right reasons (I missed the teleconference), and not because of political pressure.

Of course its for the right reasons. technical issues have been addressed. killing it was political and economic nonsense

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

Of course its for the right reasons. technical issues have been addressed. killing it was political and economic nonsense

Of course, reasonable people may disagree with your absolutist position. From what I gather, there were very good reasons to kill Dawn, not the least of which was the trend in science descopes, and today's news might contain more than a little CYA spin. And don't underestimate the effect of Elachi's/JPL's lobbying, either.

No doubt today's decision is good news for the Dawn team but it may be bad news for the Discovery Program in the long run.

[JRehling]

Of course, reasonable people may disagree with your absolutist position. From what I gather, there were very good reasons to kill Dawn, not the least of which was the trend in science descopes, and today's news might contain more than a little CYA spin. And don't underestimate the effect of Elachi's/JPL's lobbying, either.

No doubt today's decision is good news for the Dawn team but it may be bad news for the Discovery Program in the long run.

I am slightly glum over the reversal myself. I look forward to science from those asteroids, but I wonder about what we'll be losing. I worked for NASA. It was always clear that people made their moves, small and large, according to the past behavior of the capricious funding beast.

What is going to stop the next Discovery selection from being an "arms race" between teams trying to be the one to most egregiously underestimate future costs (and to draw up a plan that encourages reviewers to do the same)? The goalpost has shifted from accomplishing a mission under the cap to initially convincing the review that you will be under the cap -- when you blow it, the money will come through anyway. Suppose then the Dawn go-ahead kills another year's selection, and the next selection has an overrun that kills another mission -- that's not good for the program in the long run.

[gpurcell]

I am slightly glum over the reversal myself. I look forward to science from those asteroids, but I wonder about what we'll be losing. I worked for NASA. It was always clear that people made their moves, small and large, according to the past behavior of the capricious funding beast.

What is going to stop the next Discovery selection from being an "arms race" between teams trying to be the one to most egregiously underestimate future costs (and to draw up a plan that encourages reviewers to do the same)? The goalpost has shifted from accomplishing a mission under the cap to initially convincing the review that you will be under the cap -- when you blow it, the money will come through anyway. Suppose then the Dawn go-ahead kills another year's selection, and the next selection has an overrun that kills another mission -- that's not good for the program in the long run.

Well, one answer is to DQ proposals during the 2006 AO that are really stretching the envelope. Pick a good, solid, modest mission. Maybe refly CONTOUR, for example. A Deep Impact visit to an asteroid. See where the gaps are in Venus Express (particularly with the lopss of the PFS instrument) and have an orbiter that fills those gaps. Or (and I'm sure I'll have Bruce chasing me around with a pitchfork for this), use the 2006 Discovery slot for a modest, focused Mars mission in the 2011 launch window (e.g., methane detection or Netlander Mk. II).

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

Well, one answer is to DQ proposals during the 2006 AO that are really stretching the envelope. Pick a good, solid, modest mission. Maybe refly CONTOUR, for example. A Deep Impact visit to an asteroid. See where the gaps are in Venus Express (particularly with the loss of the PFS instrument) and have an orbiter that fills those gaps. Or (and I'm sure I'll have Bruce chasing me around with a pitchfork for this), use the 2006 Discovery slot for a modest, focused Mars mission in the 2011 launch window (e.g., methane detection or Netlander Mk. II).

Heavens, no, you wouldn't have me chasing you around for that -- except that the Mars Scout program has now officially subsumed all of the Mars-directed Discovery-type mission proposals. (It's also subsumed those directed at the moons of Mars, like Aladdin -- which Alex and I both think was a mistake.) Since the curent US Mars plan calls for only two more Mars Scout missions through 2024, I think it's possible that Mars (or Phobos-Deimos) missions may become permissible for Discovery again in the future. (A Netlander-type Mars network mission would almost certainly be too expensive to fit into Discovery -- after all, the US intends to fly that as its one and only Mars mission in 2020 -- but there is already great interest in collaborating with Europe on it. After all, the French have already done a great deal of development work on it.)

As for methane detection, though: it's now very likely that the larger atmosphere-directed 2013 Mars orbiter will handle that -- which may free up the 2011 Mars Scout for other types of missions. (I have a sneaking suspicion -- based on nothing more than intuition -- that this, combined with the continuing delays in a full-fledged Mars sample return, may improve the chances of SCIM being picked in 2011; but as yet I can't even find out whether it will be proposed again.)

As for Venus: it's too early to know whether PFS HAS been lost yet. But also keep in mind Tom Campbell's already-existing proposal for a Venus orbiter carrying a subsurface radar sounder, which he thinks may be the only way to really settle the question of the planet's overall geological history and whether it really did undergo catastrophic resurfacing. As for small-body missions, I pretty much take for granted that both a CONTOUR-type mission and the HERA near-Earth asteroid sample-return mission will be among the front-running proposals. And, given the continuing delays in SIM, I don't think we can even quite rule out the possibility of another extrasolar-planet detection mission of a different sort being flown (although, if so, I hope to God it doesn't emulate Kepler's cost overruns).

And as for Dawn: as far as I can tell, none of us really knows enough yet to tell whether or not this mission's reinstatement was properly justified. Who know what evil lurks in the hearts of NASA administrators? (Although one thing's for sure: a lot does.)