[X] My Assistant

[PhilHorzempa]

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

[djellison]

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.

And how do you propose to save money by delaying MSL?

I see no evidence that the '01 lander was cancelled to fund MRO and MER. Indeed, when the '01 lander was cancelled, MRO and MER were not even formal proposals. It was cancelled for engineering reasons, not budgetary reasons. The launch of the '01 lander wasn't delayed 6 years to save money for other missions. The '01 lander was CANCELLED. Full stop. And by the time it was reborn as Phoenix the cost had jumped massively. The total 2001 budget for MODY and 2001 Lander at the time of the 2001 lander cancellation was $283M.

Before cancellation - figures suggest the '01 lander had cost $100M.

Phoenix was supposed to be a $325M cost capped scout. Then $386M. Then $420M.

Add the $100M already spent - and Phoenix was a $520M mission. Take half the orig '01 budget, $142M, and - according to your supposition that it was delayed to get things in order and rectify budget problems - it ended up costing nearly 4x more than that. So on what basis do you think delaying MSL will make it any cheaper or free up any money?

It will inevitably cost more. The logical path at this point is to get it off the ground at the earliest safe opportunity, because once it's off the ground, you're spending money on flight operations, not ATLO, and they are a lot cheaper. Also - I do not see evidence that Juno, Maven and Grail are suffering greatly because of MSL. Indeed - it has been stated that:

The other major planetary mission in development (Juno Jupiter mission (2011 launch), lunar GRAIL mission (2011 launch), and the Mars MAVEN mission(2013 launch)) would proceed as planned.

Furthermore - heritage from the MSL design is required for missions already planned in the 2016+ time frame. Delaying MSL until that time frame would push those missions off into mid 2020's and beyond. It has been conceded that the Mars Program can not continue like it is. Hence the NASA/ESA partnership for future missions. But to get to that place, MSL needs to go first so that a clean interface (MSL derived descent stage to payload) can be presented for international cooperation.

MSL is massively, massively expensive and massively massively over budget. It should have been considered a flagship class mission from day 1. It needs a full independent review conducted by outsiders from industry and other NASA centres to establish how and why it's budget was so wrong at the beginning, after it's launched.

It's going to cost $XM to finish it from now. It's going to cost $XM + some quite large yet probably unknown amount that will, inevitably, suffer it's own budget creep to delay. Delaying it 5 years would:

• Not save money. It would cost more.
• Not positively impact other missions, as more money would, in total, be spent.
• Negatively impact, massively, the 2016+ Mars program
• Put at risk the NASA/ESA partnership for Mars exploration in that time frame.
• Reduce the likelihood of MODY, MRO and MEX being available for relay.

Before continuing, I would urge you to review the forum rules, especially regarding politics which technically, your first post breaks. But this IS an interesting discussion, so I'll let that go - but the admin team is keeping a close eye on this thread. As I've now posted in it - I'll leave moderation and administration of this thread entirely in EGD and A0's hands to avoid accusations of administrative bullying or bias.