NASA must be really pi**ed that these guys will not just fade away. They grossly misjudged how long they would last and have to keep thinking up new missions on the fly. Had they done their homework, this endevour could have been much better planned and of more value. Their mission planners are classic underachievers.
Note to NASA: Enough of the high-fives and back patting. Given our astonomical investment in your envours, success most of the time should be expected!
Exploration on the edge of technological ablity will always bring risk. You manage it. You cannot eliminate it. We are doing things for the very first time here.
And the "astronomical investment" is peanuts compared to how government spends your money. Note NASA in the graph below, and remember that JPL and the Mars rover are a fraction of that even.......
I see that NAH has already responded to your budget comment. But I feel the need to address your other comments, they stink of a lack of understanding of exactly what goes into these programs.
The rovers had a 90 day planned lifespan. Which, really when you think of it, is not that long for the investment. What we have gotten out of these rovers is amazing. Like every other mission that humanity has ever launched, there are mounds of data that have been collected but there just isn’t enough manpower to analyze what it means. The biggest problem is if you don’t know what you’re looking for in the data you’ll never find it.
To contradict your statement, the mission managers and Primary Investigators are THRILLED that these rovers just refuse to die. Thinking up new missions on the fly is NO problem, there is enough science to be done that if these rovers lasted 10 years it wouldn’t be long enough. You can’t get a whole lot of more value out of these missions the way they are going.
As far as NASA’s budget...they were asked by the president in 2003 to plan and execute manned Lunar and Martian missions. And then he dropped the ball and refused to give them enough money to carry out that vision. Maybe it was his way of trying to kill NASA. The biggest problem is that your country can not be without human spaceflight capability. Losing that (as you will for about 5 years) will be a MAJOR setback for a country that’s already teetering on the brink of economic ruin.
Granted I think (from an engineering standpoint) the way they’ve gone about manned exploration is completely wrong. They started with a conclusion and then changed the data to make sure that their preferred system was used rather than something that was faster, better, cheaper. But the point is it will get done.
http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0709/06phoenix/
Mars-bound Phoenix lander checks out gear
NASA/JPL STATUS REPORT
Posted: September 6, 2007
Two crucial tools for a successful landing of America’s latest mission to Mars, the radar and UHF radio on NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander, have passed in-flight checkouts.
The ultra-high-frequency radio won’t be turned on again until landing day, May 25, 2008, when it will relay communications from Phoenix to orbiters already in service around Mars. Since launch on Aug. 4, 2007, and until the day it reaches Mars, Phoenix is communicating directly with Earth via even higher frequency X-band radio, mounted on a part of the spacecraft that will be jettisoned shortly before Phoenix hits the top of the Martian atmosphere.