A reader pointed out this newsletter from the Solar Physics Division of the American Astronomical Society. The major update in this newsletter is about a delay in a planned NASA research announcement, but it also includes some good news about the future of Voyager and several other space science missions whose fate were in doubt because of planned budget cuts in the 2006 budget. However, because of shifting priorities that have emerged from the roadmapping process going on within NASA:
Recently, the Science Mission Directorate has received advice from the Space Science Advisory Committee that in light of these new strategic priorities another senior review is warranted to identify the operating mission set that best addresses NASA’s strategic objectives. The current plan is to complete the strategic roadmap integration activity this summer before making any final decisions about the operating missions.
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.
NASA seems to be in a phase in which officials threaten cuts to good missions from on high, then the rank and file work furiously to save the missions. That kind of back-and-forth doesn’t either win friends or save money in the long run.
“That kind of back-and-forth doesn’t either win friends or save money in the long run.”
This is true. This whole incident seems to have ruffled a lot of feathers in the space science community for no good reason. NASA had a proper way of handling this kind of decision and ignored it.
There is a good quote in a well-written article in this week’s Space News. The article is “NASA’s Budget Woes Put Programs on the Chopping Block.” The quote is from Stamatios Krimigis, who was Griffin’s predecessor at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab. Krimigis said:
“It’s clear that in a limited resource environment, decisions and choices have to be made–none would argue that. The key issue is the criteria used to arrive at such decisions. This is the area where the Voyager decision is totally indefensible. Why? Because Voyager has been at the fringes of the solar ‘cocoon’ that separates us from interstellar space for nearly three years now.”
As Krimigis explains, the thing that has many in the science community so mystified is why NASA (or whoever made this budget decision) chose to dump their established procedures and simply eliminate these missions. The established procedure is to hold a “senior review” where the scientists decide if the scientific return from the instrument/spacecraft is still worth the money spent to keep it running. If the answer is no, then they turn it off. They are forced to prioritize. And just because they complain in this process does not mean that they win. But it does mean that the value of the spacecraft–and not simply the cost–is taken into consideration.
However, it appears that in this case what happened is that NASA (or OMB) just arbitrarily decided to eliminate “old” missions, even if they were still productive. At the very least, NASA should have held another “senior review” before making this decision. Instead, they appear to have based the decision on an older review that might no longer be relevant.
If the article in the AAS newsletter is accurate, then what NASA has decided to do is to take money planned to pay scientists to analyze data and use it to keep the spacecraft running until after they perform a “senior review.” That is still going to cause the scientists to complain, because they are going to lose money (and what is the point of keeping the spacecraft operating if there is nobody to analyze the data?). But it seems like a decent compromise for now. Although the point may be lost on most members of the space-interested public, it is important that NASA adhere to the policies and rules that it has established in the past–developed after long debate–rather than just scratching out productive missions so that they can save a measly $75 million to throw at shuttle or ISS or some other bottomless pit.
Taking over the data collection and operations of data of these already up there, would be relatively cheap. at most a million or so a year, a few operators, a couple of senior people. Not sure how much it costs for deep space network time. Forget having scientists paid to anlyze this. Make all the data public avaiable to all scientists. So if they want they can have it. get a grant from someone rich like Paul Allen or some such if you can’t get NSF funding.
Hmm, I think I just found a job in the space industry that allows me to use my 9 years of Systems Adminstrator/Systems Engineer experience at a major ISP. And i can telecommute to work.
Now to try and get the funding, which from my days at college working on grant proposals, is not an easy task.
It needs to be non profit. Because whats up there now was paid for by tax dollars, private industry should not be the only ones that bennefit from this. Nor a few “Select” scientists.
But first I need to come up with the Systems Architecture for such an operation.
“Taking over the data collection and operations of data of these already up there, would be relatively cheap. at most a million or so a year, a few operators, a couple of senior people. Not sure how much it costs for deep space network time.”
You really know very little about how this process works. For starters, “operations” includes controlling the spacecraft, which requires that you _know how_ to control the spacecraft. For instance, send the wrong command to Voyager, make it point in the wrong direction, and you may never hear from it again. (Or to take an example from the astronomy field, point the spacecraft at the sun and you destroy it.) So before you say that a half dozen different spacecraft it widely different orbits can be controlled for a million dollars a year, you might want to look into the subject a little deeper.
“Forget having scientists paid to anlyze this. Make all the data public avaiable to all scientists. So if they want they can have it. get a grant from someone rich like Paul Allen or some such if you can’t get NSF funding.”
“It needs to be non profit. Because whats up there now was paid for by tax dollars, private industry should not be the only ones that bennefit from this. Nor a few “Select” scientists.”
Again, you seem to know nothing about how this works. The data is _already_ publicly available. There is nothing preventing someone from getting private funding to analyze it. It is just that there tends to be very little truly “private” funding for this kind of research because it has no immediate commercial payoff, and because non-profit foundations don’t have that kind of money to spend. So the government funds a lot of the research through grants, just as it tends to fund a lot of research in other areas as well, from optics to pattern recognition to genetics.
There are some areas, like space weather, where private industry could probably be doing a lot more to pay for this stuff. For instance, a solar event can cause tremendous power infrastructure damage and cost industry hundreds of millions of dollars in losses, and damage commercial comsats. However, these private companies have decided to allow the US government to fund much of the research and detection of space weather events. The US government itself has a vested interest in this kind of stuff (because of all the satellites it operates), so without industry stepping forward, government does it.
But a lot of this research is more basic and more general, with no direct connection to commercial concerns. That does not mean that it is unimportant, however. What if it turns out that global warming is not due to hydrocarbons, but to changes in the solar cycle. Don’t you think that is the kind of information that could be valuable?
Yes I’m aware of all the techincal issues. And it does not require the operator to know exactly how to control the space craft, if there is an abstraction layer that converts what the operator tells it to do to instructions the craft understands. Including double checking with the similator first. It does require a programmer that does though. Hire them for 6 months never need em again as long as you get suffcient knowledge to go back on for the wierd cases that always pops up, or put them on a small retainer.
If the data is publicly avalible, show me where the raw telemetry for the last year is on voyager? Untouch by someone *PAID* to analyze it. Its these people we can get rid of so that anyone can fund analysis. If private companies are funding research then why is it in NASA’s budget?
I want to be clear here this is not something to take over new missions. But something to take over the space crafts to continue supplying data after the funding at NASA runs out. It will be a sad day when they turn off the Mars Rovers cause of lack of funds when they are still semi healthy. Yes, Planetside Rover operations would be more complex then those of Voyager or Cassini.
But turning them off becuase we lack funds would be akin to junking a 2005 Toyota cause you can’t pay gas prices.
Why didn’t i get more techincal? Well first I need to draft a requirements document. This will require some smoozing with those who these budget problems directly effect. (ie I’d be puttin out of a Job) To get all the requirements. The kind of stuff thats not known to the general space community. I expect alot of static in this phase of it. Static like yours that tries to impede it.
Once that is done, then I can work on the details how it will work. Everywhere from the software of the absraction layer, to procedures. Again this requires talking to those who currently preform the operations.
Once all of this is done, (if I’m lucky 2 years from now) I can seek funding to hire people to build the system and begin operations of those missions I can convience to take over.
Any quicker and it would be adhoc and that immediatly rises how much it actually costs for operations. Everything in my company that was rushed takes more manhours to support then stuff that was deployed when it was ready. Of course just cause it was deployed when its ready doesn’t mean its easier to support. It could still be crapily done. Just has a better chance then that which was rushed.
“Static like yours that tries to impede it.”
I’m not trying to impede you. I think you just have no clue what you’re talking about. But please, prove me wrong.
Save Voyager?
Dude, wrong show. Save Enterprise!
“I’m not trying to impede you. I think you just have no clue what you’re talking about. But please, prove me wrong.”
Ahh sorry.. way too early for me to go on the defensive like that.. need to curb that if i want to get funding. Hopefully you’ll give me two years to prove you wrong
I know enough to get started and that its techincally feasable.
I see this as something similar to 6 people supporting 200K websites on 200 servers comprising 4 different architectures, with very little money allocated from the powers that be.
Politically feasable on the other hand..