Nasa going to cut extended programs???

[sao123]

Originally posted by: HombrePequeno

Originally posted by: K1052
I'd guess this is a ploy to get more cash out of congress.

They would never axe the Mars rovers, Cassini, and Voager progams while they are still operable. Hubble will have to be de-orbited relatively soon as a $1 billion repair mission would be required to service it.

I wouldn't say that Voyager is really 'operating' right now. All we're doing with them right now is tracking where they are. It would be nice to track them until the Oort Cloud but that starts to get expensive.

I do agree that it wouldn't make sense to kill the Mars rover and Cassini programs though.

This is incorrect.
both voyagers are still operating and collecting scientific data.

Souce

Welcome to the Voyager web site

Voyagers Surpass 10,000 Days Of Operation
The intrepid twin Voyager spacecraft, launched about two weeks apart in the summer of 1977 and now heading out of the solar system, continue making history. On Jan. 5, 2005 the Voyager team noted a milestone with a nice round number: 10,000 days since Voyager 2's launch. On Jan. 21, 2005 Voyager 1 also passed 10,000 days.

Both spacecraft are still going strong and are returning valuable science data. Each Voyagers' cosmic ray detector, magnetometer, plasma wave detector and low-energy charged particle detector all still operational. In addition, the Ultraviolet Spectrometer on Voyager 1 and the Plasma Science instrument on Voyager 2 continue to return data. Both spacecraft are expected to continue to operate and send back valuable data until at least the year 2020.

The mission currently employs the equivalent of about 10 full-time people at JPL, significantly less than the approximately 300 during the height of its famed "Grand Tour" of the planets through 1989. Only two veterans of the Voyager launches still work on the flight team. Some of the summer interns the team has employed were not even born when the spacecraft were launched. The project scientist, Dr. Ed Stone of the California Institute of Technology has been with the mission since inception and two original principal investigators - Dr. Stamatios Krimigis of the Applied Physics Laboratory and Dr. Norman Ness of the University of Delaware - remain.

During the journey, the Voyagers flew by Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune and returned nearly 80 thousand images and more than 5 trillion bits of data. After traveling through space for more than 27 years, Voyager 1 is now more than 14 billion kilometers (94 AU) from the Sun, heading in a northerly direction toward interstellar space. Voyager 2, closer at about 11 billion kilometers (75 AU), is headed on a southerly path toward interstellar space. Voyager 1 is now the furthest human-made object from the Sun, having surpassed Pioneer 10 on February 17, 1998.

Since the beginning of the Interstellar Mission in 1990, the two spacecraft have returned well more than 65 billion bits of data, though at lower data rates than during the Grand Tour. The data continue to reveal new characteristics of the effects of the sun in the distant solar wind. As an example, a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) shock wave from the October 2003 solar storms was detected at Voyager 2 in mid-April 2004. Some of the most powerful flares in recorded history hurled billion-ton clouds of gas, called coronal mass ejections (CMEs), into the solar system. By the time the resulting shocks reached Voyager 2, about 6 months later, they had combined into Merged Interaction Regions and had slowed considerably. Traveling at 600 km/sec, it had slowed considerably from the 1500-2000 km/sec detected last Fall as the storms left the Sun. Voyager 2 measured the speed of the shock, its composition, temperature and magnetism. When combined with measurements from SOHO, Mars Odyssey, Ulysses, Cassini and other spacecraft, the Voyager data show how far-ranging CMEs evolve and dissipate.

For the past two years or so, Voyager 1 has detected phenomena unlike any encountered before in all its years of exploration. These observations and what they may infer about the approach to the termination shock have been the subject of on-going scientific debates. While some of the scientist believed that the passage past the termination shock had already begun, some of the phenomena observed were not what would have been expected. So the debate continues while even more data are being returned and analyzed. However, it is certain that the spacecraft are in a new regime of space. The observed plasma wave oscillations and increased energetic particle activity may only be the long-awaited precursor to the termination shock. If we have indeed encountered the termination shock, Voyager 1 would be the first spacecraft to enter the solar system's final frontier, a vast expanse where wind from the Sun blows hot against thin gas between the stars: interstellar space.

The Greatest Space Adventurer
The Voyager mission, now in its 27th year, continues its quest to push the bounds of space exploration. The twin Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft opened new vistas in space by greatly expanding our knowledge of Jupiter and Saturn. Voyager 2 then extended the planetary adventure when it flew by Uranus and Neptune, becoming the only spacecraft ever to visit these worlds.

Voyager 1, now the most distant human-made object in the universe, and Voyager 2, close on its heels, continue their ground-breaking journey with their current mission to study the region in space where the Sun's influence ends and the dark recesses of interstellar space begin. At the outer limits of our solar system, a solar shock wave is about to overtake NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft.

 

[shimsham]

i think it would be foolish to axe the voyager programs. the cost to send another probe to collect the data they send back would be too much to justify it, not to mention the obvious time advantage.

 

[Bombastic Flasher]

by exploring planets that can't sustain life i was not limiting it to mars
nasa sends and has sent probes to other planets and their moons just to see what they look like
and it's a big waste of money
maybe search the solar system would be worth my money but we have bigger problems on this planet we need to get staightened out before we learn about other planets
and the whole welfare thing-there will always be people that take advantage of the system but some people have to decide between medicine that keeps them alive and eating

 

[DragonMasterAlex]

Originally posted by: sao123
space.com


Many of Nasa's programs are outliving their projected lifetimes. Yes this is causing budget strains. But how does one cut off continued programs which are still producing live valuable scientific data.

1)Hubble (duh)
2)Voyager 1&2
3)Mars Rovers
4)Cassini Probe
etc...

on one hand one needs to keep running programs active, but yet one must also look toward the future and develop new programs. I say we give Nasa a $1 Trillion budget.
('im kidding of course) but what do you think?

I say we dump Social Security altogether, pay the current generation of fogies until they croak, and give half the surplus to NASA and BANK the rest of it for national emergencies.

Jason

PS: We could get a lot of additional cash into the budget surplus, too, if we dumped welfare.

 

[DragonMasterAlex]

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

Originally posted by: sao123

Many of Nasa's programs are outliving their projected lifetimes. Yes this is causing budget strains.

But how does one cut off continued programs which are still producing live valuable scientific data.

1)Hubble (duh)
2)Voyager 1&2
3)Mars Rovers
4)Cassini Probe
etc...

Hello, the folks running the show now do not believe in Science.

Well, the NASA and JPL folks do, it's Bush, the Republicans and the Democrats who don't

Jason

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: DragonMasterAlex

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

Originally posted by: sao123

Many of Nasa's programs are outliving their projected lifetimes. Yes this is causing budget strains.

But how does one cut off continued programs which are still producing live valuable scientific data.

1)Hubble (duh)
2)Voyager 1&2
3)Mars Rovers
4)Cassini Probe
etc...

Hello, the folks running the show now do not believe in Science.

Well, the NASA and JPL folks do, it's Bush, the Republicans and the Democrats who don't

Correction: It's not the Democrats cutting Nasa's budget.

 

[impeachbush]

How many times over would repealing the Bush tax cuts pay for NASA? How about war costs? There's a start. Its sad that the most poweful and wealthy nation on earth can't even afford to pay for space exploration. Where oh where did the money go?

 

[DragonMasterAlex]

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

Originally posted by: CaptnKirk
Tax Form -

I would like $ 1 / $ 2 / $ 3 (Choose one) of my income tax witholdings to go to the
general funding for Space Programs.

I work in 'The Industry' - so I would option for even more if it was allowed.
( $ 10 Self - $ 10 Spouse )

If it wasn't for NASA we never would have come up with all that delicious Teflon.

I have never checked the boxes on the Tax form but I would if the Space program option was on there. :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

Hell yeah! We've got an idiotic option to give dough for presidential campaigns but no option for NASA?

Come to think of it, this leads me to an interesting thought: What if Congress got its proposed budget together by, say, January 1st, leaving plenty of time for new tax forms to get printed.

Then, come tax time, you fill out a new tax form and put a check in the box for programs you'd LIKE to fund, and then fill in a percentage of your tax dollars you'd like to have go to that program. You'd fill in enough items to cover a total of 100% of your tax dollars (not your INCOME, obviously, just your tax dollars) and then that money would be allocated accordingly. In this way no one would ever pay for a program they don't believe in, and programs without funding would do as they ought to do: go away.

thoughts?

Jason

 

[DragonMasterAlex]

Originally posted by: russianpower

Originally posted by: MonkeyK

Originally posted by: russianpower

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

Originally posted by: sao123

Many of Nasa's programs are outliving their projected lifetimes. Yes this is causing budget strains.

But how does one cut off continued programs which are still producing live valuable scientific data.

1)Hubble (duh)
2)Voyager 1&2
3)Mars Rovers
4)Cassini Probe
etc...

Hello, the folks running the show now do not believe in Science.

I really like when you generalize, Dave. Tons of scientists like Albert Einstein and others believed in God. I presented proof for my argument. Where's yours?

Is Albert Einstein running the show?

No, but I wouldn't generalize that republicans running the show don't believe in Science either.

I would argue that NO ONE *should* "believe" in science. Science is meant to be *UNDERSTOOD*, not *Believed in*.

Jason

 

[DragonMasterAlex]

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

Originally posted by: DragonMasterAlex

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

Originally posted by: sao123

Many of Nasa's programs are outliving their projected lifetimes. Yes this is causing budget strains.

But how does one cut off continued programs which are still producing live valuable scientific data.

1)Hubble (duh)
2)Voyager 1&2
3)Mars Rovers
4)Cassini Probe
etc...

Hello, the folks running the show now do not believe in Science.

Well, the NASA and JPL folks do, it's Bush, the Republicans and the Democrats who don't

Correction: It's not the Democrats cutting Nasa's budget.

Given that I didn't claim the Democrats were cutting anything, your statement is anything *but* a correction.

Democrats are JUST AS MUCH the enemy as the Republicans are.

Jason

 

[sao123]

NASA chief will consider hubble repair after successful return to flight.
Finally someone is starting to make some sense.

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: sao123
NASA chief will consider hubble repair after successful return to flight.
Finally someone is starting to make some sense.

Where will he get the money from when the President said no money for Space and Science crap when he needs the money to fund his War adventures and give money to Christian Organizations to promote Republican and Religious Agenda for a strong American Theocracy???