Monday night marked the first anniversary of the successful landing of NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover. While NASA celebrated the milestone with a recap of the mission’s accomplishments to date and plans for the future, one member of Congress used the anniversary to call attention to the funding squeeze the agency’s planetary science program is facing.
“[T]the amazing pictures and the public pronouncements hide an ugly truth — that the nation’s planetary science program has been under sustained attack from White House budget cutters and remains in jeopardy,” writes Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) in an op-ed in the Los Angeles Daily News published on its web site late yesterday. He notes these cuts are not solely due to sequestration or other budget-cutting efforts but instead “deficit hawks in the Office of Management and Budget have targeted specific parts of the NASA portfolio for disproportionate cuts, and none more so than arguably the most successful of all NASA’s recent achievements — planetary science.”
Schiff discusses recent efforts, including that by the House Appropriations Committee (Schiff is on the Commerce, Justice, and Science subcommittee, which funds NASA) to restore at least in part funding for planetary science. The House’s CJS appropriations bill would give planetary science just over $1.3 billion in 2014, with the Senate’s version offering a nearly identical amount. Both are $100 million higher than the administration’s request, but still well below the $1.5 billion planetary received in 2012. (Not mentioned in Schiff’s op-ed is that it’s still not clear how much planetary science has to spend in 2013: as of last week, there was still no approved operating plan for the agency with just two months left in the fiscal year.)
Schiff also addresses question on why planetary science should get this or any amount of funding in the current fiscal environment. “Plainly, the bureaucrats at OMB think the search for life on other planets to be an expensive, quixotic and dispensable activity,” he writes. “These missions preserve America’s edge in a host of technologies that are key to maintaining our global leadership. Profoundly important research and development and all the economic benefits it brings will be forsaken if we abandon the field.”
CBS News ran a three minute package on Curiosity and it’s progress on the anniversary of the touchdown. In 12 months, the gold-plated gadget has moved at the glacial pace of just ONE MILE from its landing point in 12 months. And when a reporter asked just what has been the big ‘discovery’— the answer avoided mentioning the $2.6 billion price tag, praised the pretty pictures– which are good but redundant w/earlier probes returning similar imagery- and oh yeah, they’ve re-confirmed a known known- Mars had water. Hardly a sacience return worth $1.3 billion value over a year for a projected two year mission costing taxpayers $2.6 billion.
The costs surrounding these throwaway probes must be reduced or suffer the same fate as shuttle- which essentially priced itself out of operation. So far, the return from Curiosity has not justifed the cost to American tapayers. The ROI for what passes as value in science in the faculty lounge. get-a-government-grant=set is long overdue for serious reassessment.
I’m afraid I have to agree with DCSCA on this one. I think the MSL pricetag was too much for a mission fo try and prove what most people already thought anyway.
Call me an anti-intellectual but I just care that much if there were microbes on Mars millions of years ago. My only real interest would be
(Confinued) if there is life on Mars now. And if not how soon we can put some there.
“the gold-plated gadget has moved at the glacial pace of just ONE MILE from its landing point in 12 months”
Fortunately, moving isn’t what Curiosity/MSL is just there to do. So using distance-traveled as an accomplishment metric is extraordinarily naive. It did manage to go a few hundred million kilometers since it was launched, though. That counts for something, no? It’s plated with a few grams of gold for temperature regulation. Oooh, pricey! There is more gold on a comsat than there is on Curiosity.
“the pretty pictures– which are good but redundant w/earlier probes returning similar imagery”
Oh yeah. Rocks, rocks, and more rocks. I guess if all Curiosity was doing was “moving”, that would be a good observation. Redundant? I don’t recall the MERs seeing conglomerate or rounded rocks, which can only be produced by running water. I don’t recall the MERs seeing layered formations containing water-bearing minerals. Curiosity SAW water in those minerals.
“The costs surrounding these throwaway probes must be reduced or suffer the same fate as shuttle- which essentially priced itself out of operation.”
Well said. Of course the costs surrounding these throwaway probes are already VASTLY less than the cost of human spaceflight throwaway probes, including the training costs of those throwaway astronauts, who did their job, and then left NASA, lickety split, to make some money or relax with their legacy. What space exploration did Neil Armstrong do after his lunar visit? Throwaway astronaut, he was.
I would have to agree that the 3-minute CBS video probably wasn’t worth much. That’s not saying a lot.
You keep going on and on about the geopolitical importance of human space flight in articulating our technological sophistication, expressing power and prestige. For just $2.6B, the value of Curiosity in doing that has been enormous.
As to paranoia about the “faculty lounge set”, watch your back. They’re out to get ya, elbow-pads raised.
In response to a more cogent post, very true that Schiff is just a water carrier for JPL. Of course, that’s his job. At least he’s not begging for an unaffordable HLV.
Come on … this is DCSCA, (district of columbia, society for creative anacronisms)
If the Curiosity probe was designed to go 100 miles a day … then he would be complaining that it is going to fast to study any rocks. You just can’t win.
He is a constant goal post mover…. it really doesn’t matter what you say.
“You keep going on and on about the geopolitical importance of human space flight in articulating our technological sophistication, expressing power and prestige. For just $2.6B, the value of Curiosity in doing that has been enormous.” cries Hiram.
This isn’t a discussion about HSF and to attempt to draw than in as a crutch to justify the failure of the space science community to manage and tame cost overruns against the lack of ROI on Curiosity is a red herring. Besides, as the late and former NASA administrator, Dr. Thomas O. Paine once noted the great value of Apollo [human spaceflight] was that it “gave more meaning to the space program because people identify more readily with men than with machines.” So dissing Armstrong isn’t going to do much for your argument on a space forum, fella. Public interest in Curiosity focused on the dramatic success of the EDL– an engineering accomplishment– not mission science, which after a year has failed to justify the cost for the rover. Curiositry is a rover- designed to move. After a year, one mile is not only pathetic, it’s criminal.
DCSCA incorrectly observed:
“Curiositry is a rover- designed to move.”
How daft can you be? Of course rovers are supposed to move – otherwise they wouldn’t be rovers, would they?
The question is whether racking up mileage is the primary reason we sent Curiosity to Mars, and the answer is a resounding “NO”.
If racking up mileage was the primary goal, they wouldn’t have weighed it down with the following scientific equipment:
APXS – Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer
ChemCam – Chemistry and Camera Complex
CheMin – Chemistry and Mineralogy
DAN – Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons
RAD – Radiation assessment detector
REMS – Rover Environmental Monitoring Station
SAM – Sample Analysis at Mars
See?
And if that isn’t enough, then a simple review of the goals would reveal that mileage is not a factor at all:
– Determine the landing site’s habitability including the role of water
– The study of the climate and the geology of Mars
– Preparation for a future manned mission to Mars
You do have a hard time with comprehension, don’t you?
“What space exploration did Neil Armstrong do after his lunar visit? Throwaway astronaut, he was.” wrongs Hiram.
“The objective of this flight [Apollo 11] is to take man to the moon, make a landing there and return… [to Earth].”– Neil Armstrong.
Apollo 11 was sent to Luna to meet a national goal through an engineering accomplishment. It was not sent to Luna to explore, which if you were aware of your history, was one of the ongoing battles between the engineering and science community of that era within the agency. Gene Schumacher ressigned from NASA over it and it was only after 12 demonstrated pinpoint landing capability that Kraft entertained the shift from engineering to science for later Apollo landings, Hiram.
“Apollo 11 was sent to Luna to meet a national goal through an engineering accomplishment. It was not sent to Luna to explore”
I’ll buy that (though most human space flight proponents won’t). So name ONE astronaut that was not a throwaway one. They all are. Let’s point, for example, to Apollo 17, the most exploration-worthy Apollo mission. When did those three astronauts go back into space? I honor them for the role they played, but it was a throwaway one.
By the way, if, as you say, what Curiosity achieved was engineering accomplishment, then why are you worried about it being “throwaway”? Please be consistent.
I am a big fan of the Mars Rover missions. Ours is a new Age of Discovery, if people would look up from their Twitter feeds long enough to realize it. But I am keenly disappointed in the very slow progress of the Curiosity’s traversal toward Mount Sharp. In one year the vehicle has traveled less than a kilometer. Who is doing the mission planning? This is not why we sent a nuclear powered dune buggy to Mars. Cover more ground!
I have to agree with the previous two posters, the science program for all of the Mars Rovers, Curiousity and both MERs, have been badly managed from the start and are still badly managed. Even the landing site for Curiosity was an extremely bad decision. They have basically take a photo of a single conglomerate rock and declared the mission a success. This is what you get when you let astronomers and geologists run a program.
“the science program for all of the Mars Rovers, Curiousity and both MERs, have been badly managed from the start and are still badly managed”
So we have to ask. What specifically would you have done instead? The operations planning for the rovers, including the landing site decision, was based on answering specific questions about Mars, and not how much ground they could cover. If you want ground coverage, do it in orbit. MRO is tripping along at 4 km/sec! Yes, this is what you get when you let planetary astronomers and geologists run a planetary science program. Shame on NASA.
The science success assessment for Curiosity was based on a raft of science accomplishments. If you think it was all about a photo of a conglomerate rock, you need to get out more.
By the way, we didn’t send a nuke to Mars in order for it to be a dune buggy. We sent that power to Mars for communication, heat/survival, dexterity (including burning holes in rocks), and smarts as well. Of course, if we let off-road drivers run a planetary science program, they might do it differently!
These criticisms are the product of some very frustrated human spaceflight advocates. Can I hand you a tissue?
There is a mars rover enthusiast forum where these issues have been discussed extensively since the beginning of the missions, hint – not the blue forum. Spirit could have spent a lot more time on Columbia Hills, it is well known that Squyres has actively avoided investigating anything anomalous or out of the ordinary, or even superficially difficult to approach. His rover drivers appear to be interns with little or no authority to aggressively go after any hard to get science, with little or no direction from above at all. It’s been photo op since day one, with an absentee PI .
Curiosity has become a complete laughing stock, so badly that they just gave up and went with the know pork – another Curiosity clone. Very ambitious, that. lol.
They need to aggressively go after hard to reach anomalies with continuous MIs.
A little late for that, dontcha think?
Wow. Where to start.
“it is well known that Squyres has actively avoided investigating anything anomalous or out of the ordinary”
No, it isn’t. That statement is just made up. Is this performance art, perhaps?
“His rover drivers appear to be interns with little or no authority to aggressively go after any hard to get science, with little or no direction from above at all”
“His” rover drivers? Huh? But that’s precisely right that the MER drivers had little or no authority. They just pushed the buttons. It was the ops team, and the back room science team that told them which buttons to push. You really have no concept of Mars rover operations.
“They need to aggressively go after hard to reach anomalies with continuous MIs.”
No, what they need to do is answer the questions they promised they would answer. If they’re running a $2.5B mission which is that expensive because of the instruments it carries, they don’t look for the hardest places to do it.
You could brush up on rover operations management, but it’s a little late for that, dontcha think?
“What specifically would you have done instead?”
Design cheaper, throw away probes for a start. A society that has excelled in manufacturing cheaper and more technically efficient, disposable elctronics can certainly do that.
For the interested taxpayer, the ultimate objective is to discern if there is currently life on Mars. A secondary objective would be to discern if there ever was in the past. But that doesn’t satisfy the faculty-lounge set bent on getting governmentn grants rather than getting a real world job. These preobes are designed for career-perpetuation for the faculty lounge set, not to make earth shatering discoveries. So these folks can write papers and muse over their own Martian chronicles at conferences or in the faculty lounge over peanut brittle and coffee. If they actually had to pay for these probes, it woulsd be much different.
Unfortunately, taxpayers have been asked to keep financing these increasingly expensive probes designed with incremental returns in mind rather than getting at the base question. They’re purposely designed to perpetuate follow alongs to build careers over decades rather than answer questions— on the taxpayer’s dime. A sample return mission is all that’s required– and four cheap rovers with cameras, each moving out at the four points of the compass to beam pretty postcard pictures back to keep the professors happy and the taxopayers well stocked with nice screensaver images.
DCSCA opined:
“For the interested taxpayer, the ultimate objective is to discern if there is currently life on Mars.”
No, you have stated quite vehemently that the objective is to rack up rover mileage on the surface of the Mars, not to stop and do the science it takes to discern if there was ever (or currently is) life on Mars.
It’s amazing how inconsistent you can be on the same day.
And as far as the Mars Science Laboratory goes, you have shown a complete lack of any knowledge about what it’s goals are and how it accomplishes those goals.
Stop embarrassing yourself…
“Design cheaper, throw away probes for a start.”
What a swell idea. When they were designing a mission to answer specific, high priority questions, I’ll bet they never thought of doing that!
“For the interested taxpayer, the ultimate objective is to discern if there is currently life on Mars. A secondary objective would be to discern if there ever was in the past.”
Exactly right, and that ultimate objective is satisfied best with a highly capable instrument set that unfortunately costs some money.
“But that doesn’t satisfy the faculty-lounge set bent on getting governmentn grants rather than getting a real world job.”
Your paranoia about academia is really hilarious. Did you ever tell us about your own academic experience that led to this view? Would love to hear it. But maybe you went to a school where no research was done. I’ll bet they still served peanut brittle in the faculty lounge though. Try lithium, or maybe a benzodiazepine.
“A sample return mission is all that’s required”
Oh, sweet. That’s all that’s required. I hope it returns the right sample. Because if the one it comes back with isn’t teeming with life, we’ll just have to go get more. So we’re talking about a “cheaper” sample return mission, are we? I don’t think the word “cheap” and “sample return” belong in the same sentence, except for those who construct their strategies cheaply.
Hiram said:
“Oh, sweet. That’s all that’s required. I hope it returns the right sample. Because if the one it comes back with isn’t teeming with life, we’ll just have to go get more.”
Don’t confuse DCSCA with logic – it overloads his keyboard.
And math is not his strong suit either, otherwise he’d understand why it’s so much cheaper to send instruments to do science in situ instead of hauling samples back.
Actually I think Gale Crater was an excellent choice.
{Google Mount Sharp parorama}
In a single panorama we see a sedimentary section spanning a huge chunk of Mars history. We see a thick layer of water deposited sediments and the base, topped by an upconformity and cross bedded aeolian sediments on top. Amazing. Curiosity could soon be driving up a canyon like something in Utah. Fantastic exploration awaits.
The only lame choice in all of the rover missions was Spirit in Gusev crater. The crater is obviously ancient and filled with impact breccia that obscures anything else.
It would have been much easier for him to simply say:
“More money for my district!”
We’re getting stuff for that money….unlike SLS/Orion
So, here’s the thing: in the midst of all the glow, I recall Jack Mustard saying, when he did the opening press conference for Mars 2020’s SDT, that we should be looking for past signs of life and preserved biosignatures.
What, ultimately, would focusing on Mars so closely tell us, versus putting funds into some other planets? Would we be better off having a broad understanding of what we can reach in our solar system?
I’m curious, no pun intended
, about what people think.
If life is found, or past life, means we are not alone, not unique and just might not be on the top of the food chain in the milky way galaxy.
Mars is the most earth like planet in the solar system. The more we know about it the better for when we actually go there.
The one interesting thing about Schiff’s piece is that he is blaming President Obama’s OMB and not the evil Republicans for the sad state of affairs.
“The one interesting thing about Schiff’s piece is that he is blaming President Obama’s OMB and not the evil Republicans for the sad state of affairs.” notes Mark.
This isn’t an Obama issue. It’s a space science culture issue. These folks dont want to get answers, they want to perpetuate getting hints to getfunding to perpetuate missions to keep their careers financed by taxpayers.
Pot Kettle Black…… in that order
Well DCSCA and I are on the same page with this one. While I’m sure that he wasn’t directly equating value with miles travelled, his point on science return is pretty accurate.
Incidentally the MERs did ‘see’ layering indicating that the likely cause was running water (in fact one of them landed smack bang against a set of layering – read Steve Squires book if you don’t believe me) and they RATted various rocks with their grinder.
Mainly it seems that Curiosity was an experiment in risky business, that being the rocket motor/skycrane landing which had never been attempted before. Of course, that also explains a fair bit of the cost overruns as well.
Still the beast is there now and IMO is not returning sufficient science to justify another at this time.
Can’t say that I’ve heard as much about the science from Curiosity as I did from the MERs in the first year. That’s a bit disappointing but maybe I’ve just missed it.
Cheers.
“Still the beast is there now and IMO is not returning sufficient science to justify another at this time.” notes Neil.
Right. And right about the mileage reference as well, albeit one mile traversed in a year is pathetic if not embarassing for a milti-billion dollar “rover” coddled by the space science commuinty.
I think it’s an excellent idea to hold all areas of NASA responsible for justifying their return/$. How much terrestrial science could have been done for the cost of this mission? Of course other parts of NASA (ISS, for example, and SLS) would also fare poorly under such examination.
Maybe if they had to justify their returns, there would be more effort to do science that did justify the mission.
Its a bit shocking to see this much venom being written about MSL & the MERS.
I actually believed that even this crowd would get behind the rover missions.
As for cost vs. return, exactly how does one calibrate the going-rate of scientific inquiry? By the hour? By the number of papers published? By the immeasurable interest that the rovers have generated for NASA and space exploration??
Its very easy to type disparaging commentary on a forum such as this one. But I truly believe that unless you are part of the MPPG, a PI, or team member, none of us understand the challenges of planning and executing a complicated rover mission. MSL may have cost a lot- but that $ wasn’t launched to MARS. it sustained the contractors and workforce necessary to maintain a knowledge base for the next major mission. And the constant reference to the “faculty lounge crowd” detracts from the team members who are making the most of what has been nothing short of a homerun of a unmanned planetary mission.
MSL has been on the surface for barely a year. That it hasn’t made some outrageous headline discovery yet is immaterial. It has an RTG and a greater suite of instrumentation that any previous lander. Expecting instant gratification is lazy. MSL has a lot of ground to cover yet and plenty of time to do so.
I have confidence that the 2020 rover, with its sample caching ability, will exceed all the successes of the rovers that came before it.
My 2 cents, unsolicited
Casey Stedman said:
“I actually believed that even this crowd would get behind the rover missions.”
Personally, I think that overall the robotic exploration effort of Mars has been very successful. Some failures, but apparently we have learned for those and exceeded expectations on others.
Overall a pretty good record, and Curiosity is on track to add to that good record.
Now if we can only get our act together for BEO HSF, then maybe we’d be able to joint those robotic explorers at Mars…
My $0.02
As for cost vs. return, exactly how does one calibrate the going-rate of scientific inquiry? By the hour?
I’d turn it around: if scientific research cannot be evaluated, how can you assure us it isn’t just a con game? We have examples of large technological efforts that turned out to be pretty much that (the shuttle and fusion research spring to mind.) Why exactly is learning about Mars more important than learning about some other area of science, or for that matter spending money on something else, or leaving the money in the pockets of the taxpayers? If it’s just politics, how is that any defense? Zero budget for Mars is also entirely justifiable on that basis (it’s just *different* politics, not objectively worse in any demonstrable way.)
So, yes, the problem of estimating the value of research areas is a difficult one, but it’s a difficulty that must be overcome if any objective decisions are to be reached.
Paul said:
“I’d turn it around: if scientific research cannot be evaluated, how can you assure us it isn’t just a con game?”
How do you evaluate scientific research on a monetary scale?
What is the ROI of pictures of galaxies from Hubble?
For that matter, what is the value of finding out if life did exist on Mars billions of years ago?
Can you show us that formula?
“it sustained the contractors and workforce necessary to maintain a knowledge base for the next major mission”
So it is a jobs program, not a science program?
I believe what DCSCA is talking about is bang for the buck. As an engineer from Lockheed had posted once, “the PI’s refuse to reuse anything, every bell and whistle has to be a brand new, unique one of a kind device.”
We should be able to crank out modular designed buses and devices and send swarms rather then each one a gold plated tank.
Just an overall observation based on the Obama-Putin “cooling down” of relations.
For those that don’t think we need more than one way to send U.S. astronauts to the ISS – that relying exclusively on the Soyuz is a good strategy – you should be very worried about whether that has been the right strategy. That funding Commercial Crew was not worth the money.
Based on what Putin has been doing to his own citizens (i.e. manufacturing fake charges to silence them), it would not be a leap for him to manufacture some “crisis” that restricts our use of the Soyuz (and thereby our use of the ISS).
And if this current tension with Russia doesn’t make certain members of Congress change their tune on funding American companies to replace Putin’s Soyuz, then you have to wonder why?
If anything, fully funding Commercial Crew would be seen as a signal to Putin that America doesn’t intend to be held hostage, but not fully funding the program gives Putin lots of leverage. And he doesn’t even have to be overt about it, especially since their manufacturing base is not doing all that good these days anyways.
I hope it doesn’t come to that, but it’s better to be ahead of the curve on these types of things. No doubt Musk is already evaluating how quickly they could accelerate their crew vehicle, and no doubt Boeing would be too.
My optimistic guess is that they honestly think that SLS/Orion can do the job in an effective way and can be accelerated at the cost of only extra rhetorical exhortations to persevere. My pessimistic guess is that they don’t care: so long as money keeps flowing into certain favoured districts and companies, even if nothing and no-one from the US ever flies in space ever again.
Ben Russell-Gough said:
“My optimistic guess is that they honestly think that SLS/Orion can do the job in an effective way and can be accelerated at the cost of only extra rhetorical exhortations to persevere.”
Well, luckily not all of “they”. Rohrabacher would not be quiet on the matter, and I don’t think any of the Tea Party and Libertarian members of the Republican Party would look kindly on increasing NASA’s budget for any reason – not without a corresponding reduction somewhere else.
And of course any unbiased review of both SLS/Orion and Commercial Crew would show that Commercial Crew can in fact be ready by 2017, and likely even 2015 in the case of SpaceX. The SLS/Orion isn’t currently scheduled for it’s first human flight until 2021, and both systems carry far higher risk than their commercial alternatives.
“My pessimistic guess is that they don’t care”
Well I think the SLS itself is an indication about how important doing anything in space is for some members of Congress – which is not very. Because of the money issue you point out…
Coastal Ron wrote:
Based on what Putin has been doing to his own citizens (i.e. manufacturing fake charges to silence them), it would not be a leap for him to manufacture some “crisis†that restricts our use of the Soyuz (and thereby our use of the ISS).
I rather doubt it, for no other reason than NASA is a major customer for Roscosmos. Without us, they have no other customers flying on Soyuz, and lots less payload to deliver on Progress.
NASA is the ISS managing partner. All the other agencies contract with NASA, not with each other. When someone from Canada, ESA or Japan flies on Soyuz, they’re using a U.S. seat we gave up in exchange for something else.
Also keep in mind that the only way to return samples, experiments and broken parts from the ISS is on the SpaceX Dragon. Terminate our arrangement, and the Russians have no way to return their experiments and whatnot.
ISS is a non-issue when it comes to U.S.-Russian politics. There’s no upside in stirring the pot on either side.
Stephen C. Smith said:
“I rather doubt it, for no other reason than NASA is a major customer for Roscosmos. Without us, they have no other customers flying on Soyuz, and lots less payload to deliver on Progress.”
That is true. For now.
I’m not saying it wouldn’t be a really huge issue if Putin did somehow restrict our access to the ISS, just that I wouldn’t put it past him given the right conditions.
Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that, since that would set back everyone’s efforts in space.
When I was in college, I had delusions of going into the Foreign Service. I had two years of Russian, a full year of Russian history, and took every Poli Sci class my university offered on Soviet foreign relations.
Putin is a very typical Russian leader. For a thousand years, they’ve had autocratic leadership, whether it was a tsar or the Communist Party. This is natural for them.
Last night’s Rachel Maddow show had a segment about how Putin never smiles at global leaders’ summits. Well, Russians as a culture tend not to smile. Russians think it suspicious if someone smiles at you for no reason. We think it’s a gesture that you’re being friendly. They think you’re up to something. Russians as a culture are a bit paranoid, and after studying one thousand years of Russian history you understand why.
We tend to think the rest of the world will be nice to us if we’re nice to them. That’s not how it works. Everyone is out for their own interests, and Russia in particular operates that way. They don’t care what we want. They only care what they want.
It’s in their interest to continue multi-national operations on the ISS. And so it will continue.
As for Snowden, Putin knows he holds a card we want. So long as we act like Snowden is important, they will hold that over us. The smart thing is to say, “You’re welcome to him.” The damage is done. It’s not like Snowden is going to contribute anything meaningful over there, and because he was a massive leaker here they’re sure not going to trust him. They’ll punt him to the curb once his usefulness is done.
As for space, Roscosmos and the Russian commercial space industry are in deep trouble. Success with any commercial satellite launch these days is an iffy question. They’ve openly acknowledged they have to reform or business will go overseas.
Severing ISS relations only helps send business elsewhere. Again, not in their interest.
As an aside … Putin is a huge fan of U.S. rock music. In a documentary a few years ago, it showed Putin meeting with Paul McCartney. He told Sir Paul how when he was in the KGB they would smuggle in Beatles LPs. Later in the film, McCartney was performing in Red Square, and Putin walked in unannounced with his entourage. You can see that moment on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84GJsQlGbmM.
“When I was in college, I had delusions of going into the Foreign Service. I had two years of Russian, a full year of Russian history, and took every Poli Sci class my university offered on Soviet foreign relations.” muses Stephen.
But you’ve never been there, have you– particularly in Cold War times. DCSCA has.
Even at the height of tensions, PanAm flew into Moscow once a month and your Paul McCartney LPs were prized items circulating amongst the young, along with ballpoint pens and blue jeans. We literally had people trying to buy out clothes and writing instruments. Putin is cut from the last dregs of the Cold War mentality. The Soviet Union aka Russia was a superpower. It is not now, and losing that status is a bitter pill to swallow–something the U.S. is beginning to experience as its ability to project influence starts to wane. But spaceflgiht has a different place in Russian culture than in the United States. You should see it first hand. There are quite literally monuments to it across the country; it is a source of pride and the country maintained it through severee political upheavals (a characteristic not narly as strong in the U.S.– as recent events have shown.) The Russian people have embraced spaceflight as part of their culture; as part of their national character. As far as history is concerned, they essentially invented it– from Sputnik to Gagarin. The ISS contracting is transactional. It’s business. And the Russians are more than pleased to have their Soyuz and Progress spacecraft as ssential elements of the system at hand.
There’s McDonald’s in Red Square now. And Rolls Royce dealerships i Moscow nd St. Petersburg. Lenin remains green in his tomb and the old folks still visit- but there’s open chatter of placing him in ‘cold war storage’ as well. Putin is a hiccup; a transient in the massive change in Russia since 1991. Whn he is gone, he will be remembered, if at all, as a bump in the road of change.
Pfffft. Ron, space ops wasn’t even mentioned in the chattyer by the press or the WH in the cross talk on Russian-U.S. issues. . It’s so far down the list it’s essentially a transactional affair and a non-issue, as Stephen rightly notes. And its one that beneefits Russia with cash- and the United Staets w/access to the doomed platform. Of course, had the Cold War relic been splashed already, this wouldn’tt even be the non- issue for you to whine about. You’re tilting at windmills on this one, Ron. Apologies for any and all typos.
And the press were, of course, privy to all the discussions?
Has the expensive rover accomplished ANYTHING the cheaper versions could not have done Scientifically? RGO
Robert G Oler said:
“Has the expensive rover accomplished ANYTHING the cheaper versions could not have done Scientifically?”
If you mean Opportunity (MER-B) vs Curiosity (MSL), then yes, Curiosity does more.
Does more but has it discovered more RGO
Not that I’ve been able to ascertain. It’s confirmed or provided additional evidence in a variety of cases, but new, no!
And considering that Curiosity cost what, around $2.5 billion and the MERs less than half that, I’d call Curiosity not a failure as such but somewhat underwhelming.
The level of scientific detail provided by Curiosity is far higher, and it can actually drill (MERs could only abrade surface). First evidence of sedimentary mud in ancient streambeds, with detailed composition. Plans to climb through sediments revealing a large part of the history of Mars. A year isn’t much time in science.
Ok, not across that so thanks.
What’s the baseline length for the mission – 2 years? Half way through or so but then MERs was only 90 days.