The MSL mission needs to be canceled. As it now stands, this mission is causing chaos in both the Mars Exploration Program budget, and NASA's overall Planetary budget. It seems that everytime the MSL gets into yet another fix, NASA buckles to the pressure and gives it more funds. This hemorrhaging needs to stop.
I propose that the MSL spacecraft be put in bonded storage, as was done with the Mars 2001 Lander. From what I could find out, this multi-year storage only cost $250,000. Yes, only a quarter of a million dollars. As we all know, this craft eventually flew as the Phoenix lander. The beauty of putting the 2001 Lander in storage was that this allowed funds to flow to the MER rovers and to MRO. When funds later became available through the Mars Scout Program, the lander was waiting to be used.
If the MSL is put into storage, then NASA can re-program the funding that is now being used to finance the standing army at JPL for other approved missions. This would remove the threat from the Maven Mars Orbiter, Juno, Grail, as well as the Mars Science Orbiter. There is not enough money in NASA's Planetary budget to both support continued preparation of MSL and all of the other missions listed above. I doubt that the Congress or the White House will suddenly open the funding coffers for NASA's planetary program in order to fix it. NASA needs to do what it can with the funds that it has.
This means putting MSL in storage until it can be fit back into the Planetary budget, probably in about 2016. With advanced planning, placing MSL back into an orderly progression farther down the budget cycle, will allow NASA to remove its disruptive effects on near-term missions. This worked in the case of the Mars 2001 Lander/Phoenix case. Pushing the launch of the 2001 Lander to a window 6 years down the road allowed the Mars Program to get its act together and proceed in an orderly fashion.
The Mars Program is now in the same type of mess that it faced in the year 2000. I propose that canceling the MSL and resurrecting it later is the most logical course for NASA to take in order to get the Mars Exploration Program and the rest of the Planetary Program back onto a fiscally sustainable course. I welcome comments from one and all.
Phil Horzempa
That's the single most appalling idea I've ever heard. Unfortunately it's also very sensible.
Phil
Considering the money already spent on the design and building of the rover, the amount of money saved by mothballing MSL now is not worth the multi year delay that would reverberate throughout the Mars program. A lot of the technologies developed for MSL will feed forward to MAX-C and MSR. Almost all technically induced cost overruns have already been accounted for.
(I'm aware of the sunken money fallacy; but it doesn’t really apply this late in the game.)
Edit: I ran the numbers in the FY2010 budget and as of the end of FY2009 (October 1st) 81% of the Formulation and Development costs have already been spent.
Absolutely NOT !
Curiosity's fuel would make quite expensive mothballs, since all the other missions are solar.
NO. nearly all missions cost more than origianlly budgetted. Also if MSL is stored, something could happen down the line to cancel other missions, and in hindsight we could say "Should have launched MSL ".
Besides it's got a freaking laser !
The fuel is a major point; Pu-238 is not readily available & of course perishable. I think that they've got to press on & do whatever it takes to make the 2011 launch (which is actually not at all an unusual situation for planetary missions, unfortunately.)
My suggestion that MSL be cancelled does not mean that this will save money. It will mean that MSL will become more expensive. However, I believe that the MSL mission will become more expensive whether it is cancelled (delayed) or not. The main reason that I am pulling for cancellation is to prevent MSL from harming other Planetary missions. Perhaps MSL is not now causing other missions to be delayed or cancelled. However, the trend of MSL cost growth suggests that MSL will be soon start to disrupt those other programs. I am not against Mars exploration. I am a big fan of Mars. However, the Mars community, specifically, the MSL team, has brought this on themselves, and they alone should suffer the consequences. One other mission that will be threatened is the New Frontiers-3 selection. I, for one, do not want that mission delayed anymore, whatever the choice.
As for the cancellation of Mars 2001 Lander, this action did help the MER and MRO missions to proceed. Can you imagine of NASA had not cancelled the 2001 Lander and proceeded to launch it in 2001, or 2003. As has been stated, the Phoenix/2001 Lander cost about another $400 million to get it flight ready and to fix all of the defects and shortcomings listed by the MPL Investigation Board. That $400 million would have had to come out of somewhere, and most likely would have meant delays in launch for MER and MRO missions.
Yes, cancelling MSL will cost more money, but I believe that if we can delay that budget "hit" for about 6 years, then missions already in the pipeline can proceed. Then, by 2016, NASA can program Mars funds to brng MSL out of storage. This will mean a delay in the MAX-C rover and MSR missions. However, delay is a price that the Mars community must pay. That burden should not be put on other non-Mars programs.
Phil H.
Perhaps a way to announce to the whole community that the overruns were not acceptable and won't be repeated is to "punish" JPL in the future by opening the Mars program to competitive mission selections. Let APL, Goddard and other groups have equal footing with JPL in future mission selections instead of giving JPL the virtually blank check it's had on MSL.
I think that everything that can be said about this has been said. So in the interests of moving on, we'll leave the discussion up and visible for reference, but it will now be closed to further commentary.
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