Re: cost of probe to Pluto?

"Tim Killian" <TJK@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:6sydnXY_h4KIpUjeRVn-hg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Yes Tom, that certainly makes sense should NASA's one "basket" get holed by a
> small meteor during the 9-year cruise to Pluto.
>
> It will be the ultimate irony if China or ESA sends an ion engine powered
> probe to Pluto and it arrives years ahead of a New Horizons mission that went
> silent five years out!
>
> Tom Rauschenbach wrote:
>> On Sat, 21 Jan 2006 12:48:33 -0700, Tim Killian wrote:
>>
>>
>>>It's too bad they didn't build any redundancy into this mission. Two
>>>spacecraft would greatly improve the chance of success for such a long
>>>flight, and the marginal increase in cost would have been a good investment
>>>IMO. But that's NASA -- all the eggs in one basket.


I think what you guys are forgetting is the cost of the War in Iraq, which is
really still continuing, on the NASA budget. Billions of dollars are being
spent on this war every month. Due to this, funding for other things like space
exploration have suffered. So if the NASA director says you only have so much
money to use on an entire mission, if you know you need a minimal science suite
of instruments to get any meaningful science done, you know that the cost of
developing those instruments, developing a spacecraft to haul all that out
there, and include paying the people to do this and guide and monitor the
spacecraft during those 10 years, and you tally that up and find you can only
build one spacecraft, and you as the head-honcho of the project say, well, we
won't fly then, I hope you can outrun all those pissed-off scientists.

Risk is part of the space exploration biz. Yeah, we'd like redundancy, but if
you can't build two spacecraft then you build one the best way you know how.

And neither China more ESA nor anyone else has a mission in the works. You
don't slap such spacecraft together in a few years. At least you don't, and
expect it to work. Ask the people across the pond about Beagle II.

--- Dave
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Pinprick holes in a colorless sky
Let inspired figures of light pass by
The Mighty Light of ten thousand suns
Challenges infinity, and is soon gone

david.nakamoto@xxxxxxxxxxx


.

Relevant Pages

  • New Horizons Update - December 2005
    ... I have been working on seeing the United States fly a mission to Pluto ... flight hardware at the launch pad, we probably would not have had the ... * We conducted our final mission simulations and final spacecraft ...
    (sci.space.news)
  • NASAs Pluto Mission Launched Toward New Horizons
    ... NASA'S PLUTO MISSION LAUNCHED TOWARD NEW HORIZONS ... Md., where the spacecraft was designed and built, received the first ...
    (sci.space.news)
  • Re: new horizons
    ... Pluto is a long way from the Earth, so to get a spacecraft ... To go into orbit around Pluto would require a braking rocket to ... you could probably do a very nice Pluto orbit mission. ...
    (sci.space.science)
  • Re: New Horizons Mission Two Pluto
    ... Why only do a fly-by with the New Horizons spacecraft? ... launched to Pluto for arrival in a reasonable period of time (bearing ... on a much slower, much longer-term mission. ...
    (sci.space.shuttle)
  • Note to Aerospace Journalists: Star Trek Analogies Make You Look Like a Wanker
    ... Dawn ready to turn science fiction into reality on mission ... solar electric ion propulsion system, ... Only science fiction spacecraft ...
    (rec.arts.sf.fandom)