3 ms·

I've wondered the same thing. Same with Mars rovers, instead/in addition to designing a completely new one couldn't we have built a few of the previous generati

by s0rce 9y ago

I've wondered the same thing. Same with Mars rovers, instead/in addition to designing a completely new one couldn't we have built a few of the previous generation at a fraction of the cost. My experience in science is that it was easier to get funding for new and exciting than old and already been done even if there is very interesting science to be done in both circumstances.

staplers 9y ago
Congress just passed a bill to increase our military budget by $60 billion so there must be a lot of 'new and exciting' things coming in warfare..
- kevin_thibedeau 9y ago
  Yep. It's a bull market right now.
- cmurf 9y ago
  There's always plenty of other people's money for blowing other people's shit up on the other side of the planet. This is not patriotism, it's jingoism. And at one time war profiteering got people hanged. But now, militarism is a product like any other, and subject to a grand markup. It's a brilliant way to redistribute wealth, not least of which is the massive asset destruction involved ($1 million dollar bombs are assets, they blow up, and they blow up people's houses in places we don't give a fuck about - see all the bombs we're selling to Saudi Arabia who then bomb the crap out of people's apartments in Yemen.) It's totally lost on Americans, but "Made in the USA" on the bombs other countries buy and then use against their adversaries is not lost on people who reap the destruction. Americans have forgotten how we ran out of shit to blow up during the Korean war, so we decided to blow up their dams in order to flood entire villages down stream. This is after the Geneva conventions were signed. The idea the United States is a peaceful country is very tenuous. So I sent a note to my Congresscritter Cory Gardner, over a month ago about JWST and WFIRST with a really simple question, if he supported their continued funding to project completion. I included this link with it: https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2018/02/20/cancelling-wfirst-will-permanently-ruin-nasa/#38e55b7457b0 https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2018/02/20/canc... The response I got was a POS canned non-response to the question. But at the same time he talked up how great Colorado aerospace is, pretty much making it sound like if the juice doesn't come to Colorado, he doesn't give crap about aerospace. But he doesn't have the integrity to actually commit one way or another to these two projects. It's disappointing.
mturmon 9y ago
The problem with the purest form of this suggestion ("build two") is that Mars missions are missions of exploration, so you learn things, and then the next mission needs different instruments. So you really don't want to build/test/integrate two. But, I think your comment is getting at something very important, which is to have a pipeline of missions that run in some orderly way, so that you can build on prior knowledge and success. Like the original Mars Pathfinder rover (1997) paving the way for Spirit/Opportunity (MER, 2004), and then Curiosity/MSL (2012) and next Mars 2020 (2020). These have shared a lot of components, and some prototype systems that started out as "experiments" on MER made their way into "production" in MSL - such as autonomous data-taking (http://www.planetary.org/blogs/guest-blogs/2018/0313-automating-science-on-mars.html http://www.planetary.org/blogs/guest-blogs/2018/0313-automat...), and computer vision to detect obstacles during descent (https://www-robotics.jpl.nasa.gov/projects/projectImage.cfm?Project=1&Image=65 https://www-robotics.jpl.nasa.gov/projects/projectImage.cfm?... -- this moldy old page is from MER, but the same idea was later used on MSL and slated for M2020). If you can set up this kind of pipeline, it's very powerful.
- opportune 9y ago
  Disagree with your first note, as rovers are only able to cover a very small area over their lifetimes and there could be a large benefit to exploring more locations in general (higher chance to discover new compounds/geology, able to explore more areas around caves and poles and learn interesting things). And of course for probes we could definitely benefit from having a dedicated orbiter for each body in the solar system, or even multiple if it let us e.g. build a GPS system for Mars.
  - mturmon 9y ago
    We did build two for MER, but then went back to one for MSL and for the upcoming M2020. The community provided input for this, so it's not an arbitrary decision. The definitive guidance on scientific thinking behind these plans is MEPAG, see: https://mepag.jpl.nasa.gov/reports.cfm https://mepag.jpl.nasa.gov/reports.cfm. Besides its most recent report from 2015, it links to an older National Academies report (the 2013 Decadal Survey). Turning to page 160 of the (long!) Decadal Survey document (free!), we read: "The committee carefully considered the alternative of several rover missions instead of sample return [for Mars]. It is the opinion of the committee that sample return would have significantly higher science return and a much higher science-to-dollar ratio. [...] Existing scientific knowledge of Mars makes it possible to select a site from which to collect an excellent suite of rock and soil samples to address the life and habitability questions..." So, one way to reframe your objection is that we are in truth planning multi-mission coordinated observations, but in the context of sample-return. M2020 is going to select and store samples, and a subsequent mission is planned to return them. That's the kind of progression that seems to galvanize the science community. Aside: Besides the above reports, which (I hope) provide reassurance that all options are being considered, there's also the context of the site-selection process for M2020 - see https://marsnext.jpl.nasa.gov/index.cfm https://marsnext.jpl.nasa.gov/index.cfm. You might enjoy looking at the viewgraphs for the very last talk of the most recent (2017) workshop, which summarize some of the site considerations.

by s0rce 9y ago

staplers 9y ago

Congress just passed a bill to increase our military budget by $60 billion so there must be a lot of 'new and exciting' things coming in warfare..

kevin_thibedeau 9y ago
Yep. It's a bull market right now.
cmurf 9y ago
There's always plenty of other people's money for blowing other people's shit up on the other side of the planet. This is not patriotism, it's jingoism. And at one time war profiteering got people hanged. But now, militarism is a product like any other, and subject to a grand markup. It's a brilliant way to redistribute wealth, not least of which is the massive asset destruction involved ($1 million dollar bombs are assets, they blow up, and they blow up people's houses in places we don't give a fuck about - see all the bombs we're selling to Saudi Arabia who then bomb the crap out of people's apartments in Yemen.) It's totally lost on Americans, but "Made in the USA" on the bombs other countries buy and then use against their adversaries is not lost on people who reap the destruction. Americans have forgotten how we ran out of shit to blow up during the Korean war, so we decided to blow up their dams in order to flood entire villages down stream. This is after the Geneva conventions were signed. The idea the United States is a peaceful country is very tenuous. So I sent a note to my Congresscritter Cory Gardner, over a month ago about JWST and WFIRST with a really simple question, if he supported their continued funding to project completion. I included this link with it: https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2018/02/20/cancelling-wfirst-will-permanently-ruin-nasa/#38e55b7457b0 https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2018/02/20/canc... The response I got was a POS canned non-response to the question. But at the same time he talked up how great Colorado aerospace is, pretty much making it sound like if the juice doesn't come to Colorado, he doesn't give crap about aerospace. But he doesn't have the integrity to actually commit one way or another to these two projects. It's disappointing.

mturmon 9y ago

The problem with the purest form of this suggestion ("build two") is that Mars missions are missions of exploration, so you learn things, and then the next mission needs different instruments. So you really don't want to build/test/integrate two. But, I think your comment is getting at something very important, which is to have a pipeline of missions that run in some orderly way, so that you can build on prior knowledge and success. Like the original Mars Pathfinder rover (1997) paving the way for Spirit/Opportunity (MER, 2004), and then Curiosity/MSL (2012) and next Mars 2020 (2020). These have shared a lot of components, and some prototype systems that started out as "experiments" on MER made their way into "production" in MSL - such as autonomous data-taking (http://www.planetary.org/blogs/guest-blogs/2018/0313-automating-science-on-mars.html http://www.planetary.org/blogs/guest-blogs/2018/0313-automat...), and computer vision to detect obstacles during descent (https://www-robotics.jpl.nasa.gov/projects/projectImage.cfm?Project=1&Image=65 https://www-robotics.jpl.nasa.gov/projects/projectImage.cfm?... -- this moldy old page is from MER, but the same idea was later used on MSL and slated for M2020). If you can set up this kind of pipeline, it's very powerful.

opportune 9y ago
Disagree with your first note, as rovers are only able to cover a very small area over their lifetimes and there could be a large benefit to exploring more locations in general (higher chance to discover new compounds/geology, able to explore more areas around caves and poles and learn interesting things). And of course for probes we could definitely benefit from having a dedicated orbiter for each body in the solar system, or even multiple if it let us e.g. build a GPS system for Mars.
- mturmon 9y ago
  We did build two for MER, but then went back to one for MSL and for the upcoming M2020. The community provided input for this, so it's not an arbitrary decision. The definitive guidance on scientific thinking behind these plans is MEPAG, see: https://mepag.jpl.nasa.gov/reports.cfm https://mepag.jpl.nasa.gov/reports.cfm. Besides its most recent report from 2015, it links to an older National Academies report (the 2013 Decadal Survey). Turning to page 160 of the (long!) Decadal Survey document (free!), we read: "The committee carefully considered the alternative of several rover missions instead of sample return [for Mars]. It is the opinion of the committee that sample return would have significantly higher science return and a much higher science-to-dollar ratio. [...] Existing scientific knowledge of Mars makes it possible to select a site from which to collect an excellent suite of rock and soil samples to address the life and habitability questions..." So, one way to reframe your objection is that we are in truth planning multi-mission coordinated observations, but in the context of sample-return. M2020 is going to select and store samples, and a subsequent mission is planned to return them. That's the kind of progression that seems to galvanize the science community. Aside: Besides the above reports, which (I hope) provide reassurance that all options are being considered, there's also the context of the site-selection process for M2020 - see https://marsnext.jpl.nasa.gov/index.cfm https://marsnext.jpl.nasa.gov/index.cfm. You might enjoy looking at the viewgraphs for the very last talk of the most recent (2017) workshop, which summarize some of the site considerations.