NASA Cut Means No Roving for Mars Rover

I know this may be a little confusing to me, but why does it cost 20 million dollars to run a couple of solar powered rovers for a year? Is that because there's a team of highly paid scientists working full time on it? Satellite transmission costs? Computers to analyze the incoming data?

If these two rovers are 'doomed' anyway by the shutting down, as they very likely will be soon, why not turn them over to, say, a university team? There isn't much real science to get out of them, anyway, if they're going to be shut down, so might as well do something with them before the dust storms take them out.

RIP Spirit! Hope to see you again on some obscure future manned space mission to Mars. Or, may some brilliant hacker rig up a satellite dish and revive you in the mean time.

Boooooooooooooo. How hard would it be to cut 4 million dollars from the useless shuttle program instead of from a program that actually DOES something.

Or better yet fire a few of the "political advisers" that the US government has making sure that NASA doesn't make any press releases that make them look bad. How much money do they spend every year proofreading NASA press releases and papers to make sure there is no substantial mention of AGW or other contentious issues? Where AGW is real or not, political interference either way is a waste of time and money, and I'd bet that that interference costs them more than a measly 4 million.

I'm utterly baffled. I thought Republicans were supposed to be the party of fiscal responsibility? They paid $820M for the first 3 months, and then a near-miraculous performance by the rovers unexpectedly extends this for $20M per *YEAR*, and they just walk away from that??? Did someone put stupid pills in their water? I mean, that's a 164-fold reduction in cost! Okay, so maybe the data returned by the rovers today is less valuable than it was 4 years ago... but I seriously doubt it's 164 times less valuable! $20M/yr is chump change by NASA standards; they probably spend more on pencils.

I mean, come on! One-hundred-freakin-sixty-four! Hel-LO-O??!

Answering Felix, depending on what costs NASA chooses to include the 20 million is for: telescope time, science and analysis team, programming and troubleshooting team, control team, historical data storage, Web site and other media presentation, etc. The complete costs for an engineer at an American company run over 1/4 million, each, last I heard. That includes management, office space, equipment, medical coverage, retirement, etc. I.e., 20 million, as the other folks are saying, for *working* rovers on Mars is a real deal.

Zimtastic

The shame of it all is that in the near future they'll spend much more to send up another probe that will cost much more and do not much more. Run these until they won't run any more, then worry about what to send up next...

So most of the cost is in paying people,well, people pay tax on everything and this tax goes to...the government!! Whats the problem? Keep the rovers going, we might learn something about the universe around us. It's a damn sight better than the crap we are force fed on tv.

This is obviously politicking by the NASA heads, which can justifiably be at least partly blamed on the one that appointed them. However there are multiple sides to this.

1. Some might not think its all that bad politicking. The result will certainly be that the general public takes notice of the cutbacks, and thus maybe there will be pressure to increase funding. (Yes, its still politicking)

2. But then NASA is a very inefficient operation in general, bogged down with bureaucracy, incompetence, and laziness from top to bottom (no not everyone involved). So maybe a cutback in general is good. If it sticks, hopefully the heads will get tired of politicking when they see it does no good, and eventually juggle the money more efficiently.

3. There are some projects that some might argue are better than continuing the rovers over another year, like exotic propulsion systems and alternate energy sources. --dunno how much, if any, of those were trimmed.

I agree with FelixDraconis, why not lease them out to Universities, and allow them to absorb the operation costs, for as long as these two finely crafted robots continue to function...anything else would be pure arrogance!

Subsidize the expense by leasing C&C time to Universities!!! Is it that difficult to figure out!

WHAT A WASTE!!!!! SHAME SHAME SHAME!!!!

I'll bet the issue is paying salaries to umpteen redundant techs monitoring these little gems. Not in "real" operations cost. I bet any good university could monitor these rovers using 1/20th the manpower and money.

I feel sick.

maybe NASA can outsource this operation to an IT company in Bangalore. They can probably run the whole program on $4 mil PA. Polititians accountants = danger

An old story at NASA. If it works, kill it. Walk away from proven tech. Kill the Saturn & spend billions building the "heavy lift" rocket - which STILL doesn't exist. Reminds me of little children chasing the new shiny toy.

We need to put 50% of NASA's budget into commercial companies. Let them build and maintain the infrastructure. Let NASA and the Universities chase baubles with the other 50%. Research establishments are not designed or rewarded for maintaining roads.

Why not just get advertising revenue by doing what TV does...add digital advertising on mars photos

*no comment*

Funny - people take offense to comments against NASA. I have to wonder if they ever worked with a government agency, particularly NASA? Even in gov't circles NASA is regarded as a beacon of inefficiency and bureaucracy. If you work FOR NASA, I can understand why you would be offended, but be honest, are the jabs that far off the mark?