Actually, let's not be so quick to dismiss any offers like that. Is there anyone here who would object to Spirit or Opportunity being part-sponsored by Google or some other company if it meant their mission continued? Would it be such a bad thing? This might have to be the way things are in this cash-strapped future. Here's an idea, and a semi-serious suggestion: let Google put a Google logo on MSL, close to the calibration dial - or make the Google logo part of the calibration dial - if that kind of advertising would bring in a contribution that would allow the MERs to work on.

Looking at this practically, the money we're talking about here is very small change to today's business community, and sports community too. Here in the UK football players are "bought" and "sold" for tens of millions of pounds and a lot, lot more. Here and across the world, I'm sure, business people spend fortunes on extravagances, and $4m would be what we call "back of the sofa" money to them. Business people have already spent millions of pounds going into space as space tourists. The money is out there for this, if it comes down to sponsorship of some kind, I'm sure it is. The question is, what would such a sponsor get back in return?

Worth thinking about, I believe.

Our support is guaranteed and no less than you deserve.

Question: what kind of impact would letters arriving from MER supporters from the UK have on these Powers That Be? Excuse me for trotting out cliches here, but if we stressed things like the MERs' "contribution to the global scientific community", "value for the US's image", "proof of the superiority of US technology to overseas competitors", etc would that make a difference? I would personally be writing a letter including those points, and stressing too the value of MERs for public scientific Outreach, encouraging kids - around the globe, not just in the US - to take up careers in science and technology, etc etc, IF a letter arriving from overseas would help the campaign.

I think this is an important point because any such campaign would feature members of UMSF, TPS and other international communities, and a lot of people will be wanting to write letters of support.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6909656.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6970561.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6990813.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7137793.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/7205004.stm

And of course, from Odyssey
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/7205004.stm

That's the last 12 months from the BBC.

There is good science yet to come from Home Plate and the southern basin. It was a short Martian summer for Spirit. But just before that dust storm, Spirit had hit 800 Whrs and was ready to head south. The dust storm took away that chance, but, given the fact that it survived that storm, I think that it will survive this winter and can carry on to the features south of Home Plate. If it gets the chance.

From what I've heard - this is a waiting game anyway. There's likely to be some creative accounting and juggling over the next few days. Let's see where this actually ends up by the end of the week.

The thing to NOT do is lash out at one program or one mission. That doesn't get anyone anywhere.

Doug

The seemingly odd NASA response about not being willing to shut a rover down, given the inevitability of such a thing should these cuts stand, makes me really think that this was part of this NASA vs. the Mars program battle and possibly a bluff, and Squires and the media who are publicizing this may have just called them on it.

So one goes out for the Easter and when one returns this is the scenary?
No one messes with our babies...

Indeed lots of media intrest: NASA budget cut threatens MER duties!
I would hate to see the Mars Exploration Rovers' budget running out before the rovers do... But what if?

Although NASA Administrator Michael Griffin might be against a shutdown, if they'll have to make a choice I guess Spirit would become the victim as it has been doing a lot of five wheel driving (after problems with the right front wheel since March 2006). Moreover, Opportunity is in a far more interesting place

Cost per year to run the Mars twins is $20 million per year.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080324/ap_on_...5kyVt51AUGs0NUE

Looks like bad news?

The Odyssey cuts are equally nonsensical. Given the long lead time, big money and assumed risk required just to get an interplanetary spacecraft where it needs to be, it makes absolutely no sense to me to shut one down or intentionally limit its operations unless the vehicle's capabilities are severely impaired. Annual operating costs are trivial compared to the level of effort & expenditure needed to get them there in the first place.

I find it appalling that Odyssey & the MERs are apparently suffering for their superb reliability and longevity. Sure, these days we can always build something better after the fact, but the transportation lag and inherent risks of getting there at all (as well as the capricious nature of developmental efforts/funding) sure as hell reinforces the old chestnut about a bird in the hand being worth two in the bush.

Moreover, if shutdowns of operational spacecraft becomes an acceptable practice, what sort of message are we sending to the contractors that build them? "Make it work for *** days...no more?" That's a slippery slope; planned obsolescence has no place at all in UMSF. Likewise, project team members probably would not find the prospect of abitrarily limited term employment appealing enough to stay on...it's gotta be brutal anyhow hoping that their babies stay alive as long as it takes to pay the bills & find another project willing to take you on after this one's done. Disregarding human factors in this system is extremely perilous.

I'd thought that Nasa (or whoever it is) would have been wise to avoid this debate so close to a Mars landing.
I'm not sure the people that are working so hard to make Phoenix lander a success are in their best mood now.
Communicating is essential but sometimes, they'd better think it twice.
I hope Spirit & Oppy will not be only two successful landing from 2004 to 2014.

Guys, just got the info that it seems like the situation is evolving quite rapidly...
There was also a request to give it a day waiting for something new.
Let us prepare ourselves...

I'd think your best bet would be to write to your MP and suggest he/she send some sort of supportive memo to NASA or Congress. Be sure to supply suggested wording. I got my Congressman to write a letter to NASA supportiing the Kepler mission (a long time ago), and his staff were even kind enough to let me know when the mission got approved.

It's hard to gauge how much impact personal letters from overseas would have, but I wouldn't think it'd be much -- unless there were a whole lot of them. A letter from an MP, though -- especially a 100% positive letter along the lines you suggest (to the effect that this sort of thing does wonders for America's image abroad) should be a completely different matter.

--Greg

I'm the representative of the orbital community? Then why am I working so hard on MSL?

Seriously, as others have said it's pretty hard to put a dollar figure on data bits. Certainly more GRS integration time leads to better SNR and higher spatial resolution in elemental abundance maps, and more THEMIS images is more coverage of more places in more bands. And THEMIS can monitor atmospheric temperature and dust globally. But there's some overlap with the MRO payload in that regard, so I would think the GRS dataset was the unique contribution of Odyssey.

"in this discussion," Mike, "in this discussion." Most people hanging out on UMSF are more than a little emotionally connected to the MERs and have less situational awareness of what's going on with the orbiters -- I figured, since you'd spoken up on Odyssey's behalf, you'd have more to say about what it's currently doing. I've been wondering about the value of long-term THEMIS atmospheric monitoring. Obviously MRO has MCS to do weather monitoring, but the MCS guys haven't yet delivered higher-level data products, and I'll bet having the THEMIS data set overlapping with them will help a lot -- especially since the elevation actuator problem on MCS has severely limited their ability to do nadir-pointing measurements.

To show you how much I (don't) know, I was under the mistaken impression that GRS was no longer taking data. That's one case where "more data good" is a pretty clear-cut benefit, for the reasons you mention.

--Emily

That message is explicitly stated as a requirement in every RFP for every spacecraft I've ever worked on, except it's usually 3x longer than the expected mission duration.

I've worked on spacecraft that blew up, were misnavigated into a planet, crashed, and were miscommanded into oblivion (and even a few that worked.) After all that, I'm skeptical that an explicit shutdown for cost-saving reasons would have much of a chilling effect.

Don't get me wrong, it may not be. I'm only involved with Odyssey to the extent that I get consulted when there's a hiccup with the THEMIS hardware, which hasn't happened for a while now.

EDIT: GRS is still releasing products to the PDS (last was in Jan 08). Could you be thinking of MARIE, which has been shut down for a while now?