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March OPAG presentations available
centsworth_II
post Apr 18 2008, 05:26 PM
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QUOTE (Greg Hullender @ Apr 18 2008, 11:26 AM) *
I don't suppose the Euro being worth twice as much now as it was a few years ago helps? I'd like to think
that means the Europeans could contribute twice as much, but somehow I think it doesn't work that way. :-)

In a way it does work that way. All the Europeans need to do is convert their contribution from Euros to
dollars and it would be twice as much (dollars) as it would have been a few years ago. Now if the Europeans
cut their contribution in Euros to keep the dollar amount the same as it would have been a few years ago,
now THAT would be CHEAP! Of course everything costs twice what it did a few years ago.
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djellison
post Apr 18 2008, 06:16 PM
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Again - you're talking as if ESA's going to write a big fat cheque to NASA. That's not how it can work - politically, that's an unacceptable thing to do. You do things like 'we'll do the launch vehicle, if we can have two instruments onboard' or 'you do the orbiter, we'll do the lander' but not ' here's a billion dollars, can we have in please?'

Doug
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JRehling
post Apr 18 2008, 07:05 PM
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vjkane
post Apr 19 2008, 02:29 AM
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QUOTE (JRehling @ Apr 18 2008, 07:05 PM) *
Here's a policy question. If two space agencies are collaborating on a mission, what's the marginal incentive for one to pay more/less for the mission?

I believe there is usually some attempt to balance the number of instruments and membership on the science teams based on relative contributions. This isn't always followed. I don't believe that the German space agency is helping to pay for MER or Dawn even though they have instruments on both craft. In this case, I believe that foreign contribution is based on

What will be interesting with this Flagship decision. NASA will decide on its mission in the next year, and ESA will decide in 2011 (as I remember) whether or not they will participate. So NASA will have to decide on the mission without being able to count on ESA contributing a complementary craft (Jovian orbiter or Titan in situ). Yet the cost of the instruments will be a major factor in deciding what kind of mission can be flown to either target.

This also makes the choice of mission interesting. If NASA cannot depend on ESA, then it has to decide based only on the orbiter science. So the decision has to be made on:

Europa science plus Jovian, Io (possibly), and Ganymede observations

Titan orbital science plus Enceladus observations

(I discount other Saturn observations in the belief that this craft is unlikely to improve on Cassini observations.)

I believe that Titan orbiter + in situ craft from ESA + Enceladus observations as better science than Europa science plus the ESA contribution of a Jupiter/Ganymede observer. However, if the in situ Titan craft cannot be counted on, then I think that the Europa mission gets the nod on science.

This process will be very interesting to watch unfold.


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Mariner9
post Apr 19 2008, 05:14 AM
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QUOTE (JRehling @ Apr 18 2008, 12:05 PM) *
Here's a policy question. If two space agencies are collaborating on a mission, what's the marginal incentive for one to pay more/less for the mission? (As noted earlier, this won't involve margins of a dollar/Euro/yen. It would mean something like separate crafts -- which is a very large quantum -- or instruments, a smaller quantum.)

If space agencies A and B have agree to fly one craft, with each building and operating 4 instruments, what's the upside/downside for A to instead fly 3 and B to fly 5? A saves budget, but loses, what -- prestige? What are the "economics" of this?



First off, when we talk about prestige, it's not really the prestige of the particular scientific or exploration accomplisment. It is more the prestige of 'our country or countries did this'.

Furthur, I think prestige is only one part of the equation, and possibly not even the biggest part.

I think the main point is that the money spent by each country (or agency) gets spent internally. This is to promote and sustain local industry and scientific capability.

And since economies are intertwined, for every dollar (or Euro) spent on an engineer in company A, an portion of that dollar is spent by company A on a subcontractor. The subcontractor then spends part of that dollar on one or more of his suppliers and .... etc etc etc.

Beyond that, when those engineers and subcontractors are not working on this particular space project, they can apply all their experience to build something else. Something that they might not have ever had the skills to do if they hadn't built that particular spacecraft.

Those of us on this board focus on the incredible scientific returns on these missions, and the "wow" factor of going out there. I think the politicians are more focused on 'I helped our local industry thrive'.

And that's just fine. It works out well for everyone.
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nprev
post Apr 19 2008, 06:00 AM
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Well said. Realpolitik is what it is, and frankly when it comes to the comparatively extremely small investments that are made in UMSF, the immediate and long-term societial/technological ROIs are immense.

There's a lot of--usually sarcastic--focus on direct spin-offs, mostly because critics do not recognize (or comprehend?) this fact.

Perhaps there's a heuristic to be derived here: The more difficult a technical problem is to solve, the more benefits from both solutions and alternative approaches--even if not adopted--can be harvested. Ideas often spring from previous ideas, which is probably why nobody's working on an improved version of the flint axe instead of proposals for new interplanetary spacecraft right now...


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SFJCody
post Apr 19 2008, 07:18 AM
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I favour the Titan/Saturn mission because the mission elements would be more reliant on each other than the Europa/Jupiter mission. Remember the International Solar Polar mission? How easy it was for NASA to cancel its part and leave ESA with a single spacecraft. Compare to Cassini/Huygens, a spacecraft US politicians tried but failed to kill in the early 90s. Huygens saved Cassini from the fate of CRAF.
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imipak
post Apr 19 2008, 09:49 AM
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QUOTE (vjkane @ Apr 19 2008, 02:29 AM) *
I don't believe that the German space agency is helping to pay for MER or Dawn even though they have instruments on both craft.


The German government funded development of the Mössbauer spectrometers on MER; does R&D count as "paying for MER"?


QUOTE (JRehling @ Apr 18 2008, 07:05 PM) *
Here's a policy question. If two space agencies are collaborating on a mission, what's the marginal incentive for one to pay more/less for the mission?


The value each agency places on the value of prestige, having the control centre on their territory, of flying instruments or publishing papers are subject to different weightings. As ESA isn't a national agency like NASA, the game-theory functions of their funding strategies are probably a lot different from NASA's.


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tedstryk
post Apr 19 2008, 02:21 PM
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QUOTE
(I discount other Saturn observations in the belief that this craft is unlikely to improve on Cassini observations.)


I don't know. A modern infrared camera might prove extremely valuable in studying Saturn and the rings.




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vjkane
post Apr 19 2008, 05:12 PM
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QUOTE (imipak @ Apr 19 2008, 09:49 AM) *
The German government funded development of the Mössbauer spectrometers on MER; does R&D count as "paying for MER"?

Usually the pro quid pro includes $ contributions beyond simply paying for the instrument. In other words, if you help pay for other costs of the mission (a separate craft, the launch vehicle, sub-systems in the craft, tracking, data relay), then you get the opportunity to contribute (and pay for!) instruments and representation on the science teams of other instruments.

NASA is providing the relay for ExoMars, for example, and in return gets to include an instrument.

However, where a foreign group has better expertise (apparently the case for the alpha-x-ray spectrometers on both Sojourner and MER), then the pro quid pro is apparently relaxed. Similarly, when the mission funding can't stretch to cover the development of all the instruments, other agencies are invited to partner and cover only that portion of the mission cost. This appears to be true on Dawn and Juno.


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vjkane
post Apr 19 2008, 05:18 PM
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QUOTE (tedstryk @ Apr 19 2008, 02:21 PM) *
I don't know. A modern infrared camera might prove extremely valuable in studying Saturn and the rings.

Thanks for pointing this out. It does improve the value of the Saturn/Titan orbiter even if ESA choses not to participate.

In fact, my conclusion from these two studies is that NASA should fly both (about 7 years apart) instead of the Mars sample return. The cost of both missions is probably about equal to the cost of one of the less ambitious MSR concepts and much less risky.


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Stephen
post Apr 21 2008, 07:03 AM
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QUOTE (djellison @ Apr 17 2008, 08:45 PM) *
Other than contributing whole spacecraft, or just instruments - I'm not sure what you're suggesting Stephen.

I think you're missing my point.

When I said in my previous post that the proposal ESO/JSO/JAXA project looked more like a group of national missions "bundled together for marketing purposes" that was partially based on this line in the Jovian project's preliminary proposal outlined at the recent OPAG meeting:
"Independent launches allow decoupled development schedules"

"[I]ndependent launches" obviously means separate launch vehicles for each orbiter--as opposed to both sharing one vehicle. Less obvious is that "decoupled development schedules" implies development programs for each orbiter that are to some degree independent of each other.

Having independent launches and "decoupled" development schedules would be just what you would expect if those orbiters were indeed separate projects only loosely tied together rather than one integral project with two elements integrated with one another to some degree (as for example was the case with Cassini-Huygens) or one project with twin elements (eg the MERs or the Voyagers).

They are also hardly going to help cut the overall cost of the project to make both more affordable to those who will be paying the bills. The Jovian proposal outlined in the recent presentation is not so much one flagship mission with two elements totalling $2+ billion as one flagship mission with two $2+ billion elements: a $2+ billion EO and a $2+ billion JSO! (And thus a grand total cost in excess of $4 billion.)

Can NASA and the ESA, even together, afford a $4+ billion mission to Jupiter?

I dunno, but judging from the tea leaves displayed--or rather not displayed--in the recent OPAG presentation someone may have doubts. That OPAG presentation was noticable for the absence of details on the JSO. It is not as if they don't exist. That presentation pulled the EO ones from the 2007 EO report. The fact that the presenters did not do the same for the JSO could be interpreted to mean that somewhere there is an argument still going on as to what kind of JSO the ESA will be funding.

Personally I wish both orbiters could fly. If that is not achievable then the next best option would be a fully funded EO or a fully funded JSO, with or without a smaller and less ambitious version of the other riding along with the main orbiter (a la Huygens with Cassini) which would be released when the two arrived in the Jovian system. One of the two could still be provided by NASA and the other by the ESA.

At the moment though that doesn't seem what the Jovian team has in mind.

Persevering with both multi-billion dollar craft but not enough funding for both is not likely to produce a happy ending. Either there will be no Jovian mission at all (because the Titan one will get picked instead) or a large funding hole will open up which someone will have to fill in, most likely with bits and pieces of the mission which could not be paid for, to the likely detriment of the mission as a whole. For example, if NASA can't even pay for the EO as it stands out of that $2.1 billion where will it be getting the funds from to pay for a substantial contribution to the JSO? Or will it be a case of NASA saying to the ESA you guys put a $10 million instrument on our orbiter and we'll put a $10 million instrument on yours?
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djellison
post Apr 21 2008, 07:27 AM
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Still not getting your point. We're no where near the end of the discussion as to what ESA and NASA might not fly. You're making an assumption about flying X and then finding funding to also get onboard Y. As yet - we don't know if X or Y will fly, or who will contribute, in what way, to which. There are far too many unknowns and options to establish what may or may not happen.

And remember - you're not going to have 'substantial contributions' from one space agency to another. You can have instruments going across, maybe a very large sub system ( HGA on Cassini for example ) but that's it.

Doug
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volcanopele
post Apr 21 2008, 07:39 AM
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Decoupled development schedules doesn't necessarily imply that these probes would be developed under different programs, however they are necessary due to the different schedules demands placed on the approved project by NASA and ESA. At least for the Jupiter mission, NASA wants the Europa Orbiter out the door by 2017 at the latest, while ESA won't get JPO out the door until 2018 at the earliest, 2020 if they couple it with Japan's Magnetospheric Orbiter. Obviously such requirements will necessitate decoupled development schedules and independent launches. But it isn't meant to imply that these would be two separate programs. Unusual yes, but I can definitely see science teams being shared between the two spacecraft, for example, imaging teams having the same makeup on both spacecraft.

What is more disconcerting, as vjkane has pointed out, is that ESA has an added downselection process which could nix their contribution IF they choose to go with a gravity wave or X-ray observatory instead. NASA will go with their contribution with a new start in FY09 while ESA can't get started until FY11.

As far as JPO not being discussed by Ron Greeley at OPAG, well, that is a little worrisome, but considering that we are early in this process of development, I will choose to chalk that up to them not getting to that component in the mission yet. Perhaps their stateside meetings have focused on the Europa Orbiter while the meetings on the other side of the Atlantic will get into the nitty-gritty of ESA's contribution.


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ngunn
post Apr 21 2008, 08:46 AM
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Here's a question. Which of the two possible outer planets mission contributions is more likely to beat off the observatories in ESA's downselection? I'm guessing that's the Titan balloon-plus-landers. There is already a small corner of Titan that is forever Europe in the public mind (over here at least) - and it's unfinished business.
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