posted March 09, 2005 03:09 PM               

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NASA has told scientists working on some of the agency's longest-running space missions - including the twin Voyagers now speeding towards the edge of the Solar System - that they may have to shut down operations in October to save money.

The decision - which NASA officials say is not yet final - has angered scientists, who call it penny-wise and pound-foolish, and say that it is being made without the usual formal review by the science community.

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Launched in 1977, Voyagers 1 and 2 are now more than 14 billion and 11 billion kilometres from Earth, respectively. Having visited all the outer planets except Pluto, they are on their final quest — to locate the shifting boundary between the Sun’s domain and the realm where interstellar space begins.

Ground antennas are in daily contact with the spacecraft, which are expected to last until about 2020 before giving out. The Voyagers cost NASA about $4.2 million a year for operations and data analysis.

To afford new projects, NASA occasionally has to turn off spacecraft that are still working but that have exceeded their life expectancy. Every two or three years, a ‘senior review’ of outside scientists ranks the science value of currently operating missions to help the agency plan which ones should be extended and which shut down. The last such review for Earth–Sun System missions was in August 2003, and the projects now facing termination ranked lowest in that exercise.

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posted March 10, 2005 05:20 AM               

How long will it be before we get another spacecraft to travel (successfully) as far as Voyager has?

posted March 10, 2005 11:40 AM            

But I believe this announcement is quite worrying in many more respects.

Lets say, in 2030, the first manned Mars landing occurs. A small base is setup. Crew returns home after some months. Some years later a second crew arrives and stays - say 3 years? They return home. Then a biggie and several crews are sent and establish a major settlement. Its lifetime is to be 20-30 years. They have been on surface for - say - 15 years into the 20-30 year settlement - when the space agency (may not be NASA then) says it can longer afford to keep tracking and supporting the Mars settlement. The earth-media following was 'long gone' after the first mission so very few folk on earth remember this mission starting and maybe even less support for it (except we at cS of course!).

Do they come home and abandon the settlement? Do we leave them fend for themselves on whatever resources they have?

And Mars will probably be the nearest manned base (other than Moon) where we have a significant presence.

And what about the possible longer term manned expeditions to some of Jupiter's moons that would take many years maybe decades to achieve?

How are long term programmes (taking many many decades) going to be supported - both financially and in human support for those crews who undertake these missions?

Do we have to move - perhaps - to a more onboard autonomous self supporting approach much more quickly in the next few years?

Will planetary expeditions have to set off as 'Noah's Arks' or even (perish thought) 'Kamikaze missions - just in case funding and contact is cut off before their missions are extinguished?

These scenarios have been discussed many many times before in numerous publications. But, perhaps more than ever, these once paper-based scenarios are now 'upon us' as we still strive to explore the planets?

I haven't expressed this too well (writer's block tonight) but I hope you can see what I'm driving towards?

posted March 14, 2005 11:16 AM               

The spacecraft itself obviously doesn't cost anything. Does the $4.2 million include costs association with operating DSN? In that case, it's a false saving, unless cancelling Voyager would decrease DSN costs.

Surely those 10 people don't cost $420K each.

posted April 27, 2005 10:21 AM               

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In other words, Voyager, whose funding after this month was in doubt, will remain in operation for the time being. Money is being transferred from another account (not specified) within the agency to continue funding the missions.

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