[X] My Assistant

[edstrick]

Quoting King Richard Milhouse the first: <expletive deleted>

I think Dawn is far from dead, but it will probably require some congressional pushing and green oil <$$$>, together with some way of restarting the project, aka. Phoenix II. Cost caps and "drop-dead" limits are there for a reason, which has been increasingly made obvious by missions that blew past them.

A mission like Dawn needs to fly, but not necessarily this mission as currently configured with this team.

[AndyG]

If it IS cancelled, then surely it deserves the Phoenix treatment? Put it up for another team to pick up and fly...

And to ensure success, it must be called the "Dollar-lite Underpriced Spaceprobe requiring better Karma" mission.



Andy

[djellison]

"The project was capped at around $371 million, project scientists said previously. But the program was ordered to stand down after scientists asked for an additional $40 million last year."

$40 million it's cost less than 30 hours of the ISS's existence. Correct me if I'm wrong.

That doesnt change anything though. "But it's only two tanks" or "that's a new cinema" or "12 hours of ISS" or whatever - none of those make the $40m any less or more available.

Doug

[peter59]

International Space Station it's real Great Galactic Ghoul. His appetite never will be fulfilled. What next for cancellation, missions in progress ? Voyager, Messenger, NH ? Maybe, if the station’s permanent crew will be six or seven, everything is possible. Do you remember long period without any new mission (77-89) ? It was a very sad period, and may be repeated.

[djellison]

There's some great discussion about this going on over at the Planetary Society members forum, (the chance to interact with Louis and Bruce warrants the price of admission) - and I think this says everything we're all thinking..

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.rss.html?pid=19811

Doug

[Decepticon]

ISS is a bad word in my book.


I'm gonna Bite lip when in the future when they need to deorbit this Battlestar Galactica because of mechanical failures.

[alan]

Gotta save money somewhere so they can play golf on the ISS
http://www.newscientistspace.com/data/imag...n8791-1_550.jpg

[Toma B]

Gotta save money somewhere so they can play golf on the ISS
http://www.newscientistspace.com/data/imag...n8791-1_550.jpg

That's really SAD!!!


So, is there any hope that Dawn mission can be saved by US Congress or anybody???

[mcaplinger]

If it IS cancelled, then surely it deserves the Phoenix treatment? Put it up for another team to pick up and fly, because the science is still justified imho

The cases may not be equivalent. The Mars Surveyor '01 lander didn't fly largely due to timidity and lack of confidence on the part of NASA HQ; no one involved in the project thought it was terribly risky (although Squyres' book makes it clear how much of the science had already been descoped, and that couldn't have helped its case -- PHX has a significantly different science payload.) And the Pluto mission was just a question of money.

While without detailed documentation it's hard to be sure, the Dawn situation seems to be that the spacecraft contractor just screwed up, and the hardware is badly flawed and in need of substantial additional funding to repair. And NASA is being asked to give that money to the same company that failed to deliver on earlier promises. One might almost argue that they should do that more often, not less.

Of course, it's not helping NASA's case that no such documentation has been publically released. I'd like to see more disclosure on that.

[Mariner9]

I think the folk comparing Dawn to the International Screwedup Station is looking at the funding from the wrong angle.

It is true that Science funding just got cut, in order to transfer money to an ailing, perpetually overbudget project.

Now, the science community is screaming: why are you moving money from a sucessful program to an unsucessful one?

Well, apparently Dawn was an unsucessful project. I would think it would undermine the Discovery program, especially now, if they did what the typical NASA behavior is: bail out a bad project with more money.

What better way to be able to back up your position as a responsible program, if you actually stand your ground and terminate it?

Then you can hold your head high. Say (with a straight face), "we really learned a lesson from that one".

[pilotpirx]

Sacrificial lamb. I figure NASA will save $200M in launch costs and will use some of the savings to mend fences with other science projects.

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

Quite frankly, I agree with Mike Caplinger. The only thing I'll add is that, while I lament Dawn's demise, as I would any loss of science, the handwriting for this mission has been on the wall for months now. Therefore, cancellation should not come as a surprise to anyone, especially in the current fiscal/political environment.

And there might be a not-too-subtle message in the cancellation: Future Discovery PI's Be Warned That Already-Selected Missions Can And Will Be Cancelled. Ed Weiler almost pulled the trigger on MESSENGER, which also experienced cost overruns before launch. Maybe NASA is setting an example with Dawn.

[mcaplinger]

Maybe NASA is setting an example with Dawn.

Also, the politics of the mission can't be helping. Most of the payload is European, so there's no constituency there. And Orbital's lobbying position has always been unclear to me; they seem to spend more effort on bigger-ticket defense-related items. If JPL is making a big stink about the cancellation of Dawn, I haven't heard anything about it yet; it's probably small potatoes compared to MSL or even Juno.

[JRehling]

Quite frankly, I agree with Mike Caplinger. The only thing I'll add is that, while I lament Dawn's demise, as I would any loss of science, the handwriting for this mission has been on the wall for months now. Therefore, cancellation should not come as a surprise to anyone, especially in the current fiscal/political environment.

And there might be a not-too-subtle message in the cancellation: Future Discovery PI's Be Warned That Already-Selected Missions Can And Will Be Cancelled. Ed Weiler almost pulled the trigger on MESSENGER, which also experienced cost overruns before launch. Maybe NASA is setting an example with Dawn.

Since Mike's post contains the phrase "seems to be", are you agreeing that the part following the "seem" seems to be true, or is true? I'm not just being picky; I'm wondering if you have a different/clearer evaluation of that.

If the subcontractor is to blame, then giving the mission to new PIs and the same subcontractors would be rewarding the guilty and punishing the innocent. We might as well hold Saddam Hussein accountable for the Dawn overruns.

It would be a "nice save" ending if we had a 3/4-finished spacecraft that could be finished, adding the LIDAR, and flown while the guilty were punished and the innocent blessed, but there may be no such route.

Clearly, a mission like this will be flown one day (at least, the science goals will be pursued again; no guarantee that Ceres and Vesta will be targets of the very same craft). If the subcontractors screwed the pooch here, then the most important thing that could come of this incident might be to introduce some heightened accountability to these and other subcontractors. It might prevent not only another Dawn/Messenger, but even another CONTOUR. Speaking wishfully. Meanwhile, Ceres and Vesta aren't going anywhere, and it's a stretch to see those science goals as time-critical by any but the loosest definition. We probably stand more to gain in the long run, scientifically, from heightened accountability over the next N missions than we did from flying this one mission now. Discipline is never about making things nicer in the next time unit, but rather is about making things cumulatively nicer, integrated over the future.

If this announcement hit the PI at a time of personal tragedy, that's very unfortunate, but I'm not sure how in principle an organization could/should avoid that potential. Not only because the info is hard to come by (do you phone someone's aunt the night before lowering the boom on them to get an "all clear"?)... you don't extend a $multimillion affair to improve one person's week. Other people's life directions hung in the balance, too.

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

Also, the politics of the mission can't be helping. Most of the payload is European, so there's no constituency there. And Orbital's lobbying position has always been unclear to me; they seem to spend more effort on bigger-ticket defense-related items. If JPL is making a big stink about the cancellation of Dawn, I haven't heard anything about it yet; it's probably small potatoes compared to MSL or even Juno.

Good points. I guess Dawn lacks the equivalent of a guardian angel like Senator Mikulski, though, as you note, its payload (and thus beneficiaries) are widely diverse.

In fact, since there's a connection out here with UH, too, I don't know whether I'm surprised or not surprised that the Hawaii congressional delegation hasn't weighed in. If you press me, I'll opt for the latter. Senator Inouye seems to be mainly concerned with getting defense dollars out here, something that, given his seniority, he has been very successful at doing. As for Senator Akaka, well, I'll just leave it at that

UH gets science-related funding but there are examples of lack of political support. Namely, funding telescopes atop Mauna Kea. This is due primarily to Native Hawaiian concerns about the sacred aspect of the mountain top.

Postscript: Emily has just posted Dawn-related blog entry.