Voyager - Interstellar mission

SpaceNut · 2005-04-21 05:56:50

The problem with existing and future probe delay of build is that they end up costing more once they are launched.
Take for instance the Dart program. It was slated to launch last year in october or november and had to wait to fix some issues. This 6 month delay cost $15 million dollars.

edit :
while searching around I found a nasa probe site that lists all probes and there links to there respective sites.

hubricide · 2005-04-21 18:20:12

Clarke's quote applies to all ideas, ever.

Grypd · 2005-04-22 04:08:05

Clarke's quote applies to all ideas, ever.

Then by this reckoning we should cancel Voyager.
As Clarke says....

*It can't be done

Cancel voyager no way the public wont allow it even though we can no longer afford it.

*It probably can be done, but its not worth doing it

Oh we can cancel voyager but is the political hassle worth it just delay or cancel the probe that is to the proper job of researching the edge of our solar system. Dont want to do the hard thing lets take it easy.

*I knew it was a good idea all along!

Well we cancelled Voyager it means we can send the IBEX mission and do a proper scientific survey of the edges of our solar system. It also shows NASA's willingness to make the hard decisions and not just bow to public pressure so that the future of space science is secured. If NASA is not willing to do this hard thing what guts do you think it will have to start the lay offs of the Shuttle army and the dismantiling of the culture that has grown up since the appollo days back to a culture of appollo lets go and see.

Dont get me wrong Hubricide I grew up with Voyagers wonders but we have a NASA now that has to do this so that it has the funds for the long term approach to getting us into space. You see I also grew up on a diet of we are going into space to stay, Moon colonies by the 21st century and missions to Mars as well. Something happened between the heady days of Appollo and now, NASA and the rest of the space world lost its way and it needs to be back on course. It is probably too late for me but if my generation can get the world back on course it wont be for my son.

hubricide · 2005-04-22 18:58:42

Oh. Well then your quote is meaningless and you should remove it from your signature.

Grypd · 2005-04-23 15:05:28

Oh. Well then your quote is meaningless and you should remove it from your signature.

Hardly meaningless it just refers to people not willing to do something new as it is new. And cancelling a probe so that we can put the funds forward to actually advance into space rather than the little of anything we do now. And yes we need money, Lucra, spondooliks whatever you want to call it to do it.

Just dont expect it to come from a NASA which has to stretch its budget and seems to want to do something at last if it cant cancel what is in effect a sentimental feel good probe which though was a great success is not anywhere near the new vision.

hubricide · 2005-04-23 21:52:37

I fail to see how the idea of extending Voyager's mission is not an idea.

Grypd · 2005-04-24 04:41:29

Tell me what it is doing that is useful now.. or potentially useful and then compare to what we have to do to get the Moon, Mars.

SpaceNut · 2005-04-27 12:14:40

Well the space politics site:
Voyager saved (for now) Postponment of the Sun-Solar System Connection Guest Investigator solicitation

At the present time, 13 space missions focusing on solar and space physics are funded from NASA's Earth-Sun Research Program. These missions are in the extended phase of their operations, having completed their prime missions.
The President's FY06 Budget proposes reduced funding for
this mission set. Based on the prioritization derived from the 2003 Senior Review, the reduced funding level in FY06 would have necessitated a reconsideration of continued operations for some of the following missions:
FAST, GEOTAIL, POLAR, TRACE, ULYSSES, VOYAGER and WIND.

It appears this is how the funds are obtained:

The solicitation of proposals for two research programs that involve data analysis from these operating missions will be delayed until after the 2005 Senior Review. Delaying these solicitations frees up funding that
is necessary to continue operating the mission set until the senior review process has been completed.

existing comments to this item on the blog site.

Visionary Explorer · 2005-04-29 01:59:26

Tell me what it is doing that is useful now.. or potentially useful and then compare to what we have to do to get the Moon, Mars.

Giving us information on a region of the solar system we've never been to at this time - and by 2020 or later - information on the region outside our solar system.

Information we won't get in our lifetimes otherwise. IBEX will not as configured give in-situ measurements of the interstellar medium (or anything else like the heliosheath, etc).

Ulysses is useful for similar reasons, the other 5 or 6 seriously threatened missions can be replaced with smaller similar missions budgeted to last for decades. But Voyager (besides the emotional attachments) and Ulysses are both irreplacable at this point by costing alone - not to mention time.

As to what we have to do to get to Mars and the Moon and relating it to a lousy $4.6 million per year for an in-situ interstellar spacecraft - howabout we stop launching that useless winged-monstrosity called the Space Shuttle and let the Russians do our piloted launches (much kissing-up will have to be done now that we've burned our bridges a little early considering the latest RTF slippage) until we have another pilot-rated vehicle?

Save several billion every year - and get us to Mars and the Moon that much faster - while guaranteeing the JWST gets built and launched among other things.

Grypd · 2005-04-29 04:00:49

Tell me what it is doing that is useful now.. or potentially useful and then compare to what we have to do to get the Moon, Mars.
Giving us information on a region of the solar system we've never been to at this time - and by 2020 or later - information on the region outside our solar system.
Information we won't get in our lifetimes otherwise. IBEX will not as configured give in-situ measurements of the interstellar medium (or anything else like the heliosheath, etc).
Ulysses is useful for similar reasons, the other 5 or 6 seriously threatened missions can be replaced with smaller similar missions budgeted to last for decades. But Voyager (besides the emotional attachments) and Ulysses are both irreplacable at this point by costing alone - not to mention time.
As to what we have to do to get to Mars and the Moon and relating it to a lousy $4.6 million per year for an in-situ interstellar spacecraft - howabout we stop launching that useless winged-monstrosity called the Space Shuttle and let the Russians do our piloted launches (much kissing-up will have to be done now that we've burned our bridges a little early considering the latest RTF slippage) until we have another pilot-rated vehicle?
Save several billion every year - and get us to Mars and the Moon that much faster - while guaranteeing the JWST gets built and launched among other things.

Yes it is the shuttle and its rather large army that is needed that takes up a lot of NASA's funds. But to finish the ISS we need the shuttle and the russians cannot help us to put the modules up. So for a while the shuttle must stay.

John Creighton · 2005-04-29 08:36:00

Interesting discussion. I don’t know enough to comment on whether Voyager returns enough science to be worth its cost but my instinct tells me that it is a relatively small cost. Besides if they don’t shut it down today they will eventually have to shut it down anyway. It all boils down to whether we can replace the science. Can we do as good a job remotely. Can we launch a ship that is fast enough to pass Voyager but has better instruments. Then there is the question of why it is not going as fast as it should. Does this point to an error in general relativity. If so this could be the greatest accomplishment of Voyager. If Voyager points to an error in relativity can we design a better probe to measure that anomaly? How long would it take for this superior probe to return its data. Anyway, there are two Voyagers aren’t there? What if just one of them is cut for now?

SpaceNut · 2005-04-29 09:20:27

Interesting discussion. I don’t know enough to comment on whether Voyager returns enough science to be worth its cost but my instinct tells me that it is a relatively small cost. Besides if they don’t shut it down today they will eventually have to shut it down anyway. It all boils down to whether we can replace the science. Can we do as good a job remotely. Can we launch a ship that is fast enough to pass Voyager but has better instruments. Then there is the question of why it is not going as fast as it should. Does this point to an error in general relativity. If so this could be the greatest accomplishment of Voyager. If Voyager points to an error in relativity can we design a better probe to measure that anomaly? How long would it take for this superior probe to return its data. Anyway, there are two Voyagers aren’t there? What if just one of them is cut for now?

I would say no we can not do the job remotely for you need to measure the items where they actually are, Such as the shock wave front, solar winds ...

A ship that would be faster falls under the space exploration vision for mars but doubtfull it would be funded correctly since the jimo probe is being undefunded for its nuclear propulsion research and design for the coming year.

Maybe possible to monitor one then the other but then again it is a problem of needing constant contact with them.

John Creighton · 2005-04-29 09:53:16

Wasn’t an ion driven deep space probe launched once? What was it called? How is it doing?

SpaceNut · 2005-04-29 10:10:25

ION drive probe was smart 1 and it is in orbit around the moon as we speak. Getting some of the mapping data that we could use but the best data is still a ways off as it tightens its orbit.

John Creighton · 2005-04-29 10:27:50

ION drive probe was smart 1 and it is in orbit around the moon as we speak. Getting some of the mapping data that we could use but the best data is still a ways off as it tightens its orbit.

Oh, I guess I was thinking of Deep Space One. but I guess that probe has been retired. I would of thought that an ion powered ship should eventually be able to pass voyager.

SpaceNut · 2005-04-29 10:40:45

Had long forgotten about Deep space 1.
But based on this page I would say that it is a near earth object now.

edit
I wonder how many of the New Millennium programs
For the testing of advance technology in space flight are being cut from this page.

Visionary Explorer · 2005-04-29 18:45:10

Tell me what it is doing that is useful now.. or potentially useful and then compare to what we have to do to get the Moon, Mars.
Giving us information on a region of the solar system we've never been to at this time - and by 2020 or later - information on the region outside our solar system.
Information we won't get in our lifetimes otherwise. IBEX will not as configured give in-situ measurements of the interstellar medium (or anything else like the heliosheath, etc).
Ulysses is useful for similar reasons, the other 5 or 6 seriously threatened missions can be replaced with smaller similar missions budgeted to last for decades. But Voyager (besides the emotional attachments) and Ulysses are both irreplacable at this point by costing alone - not to mention time.
As to what we have to do to get to Mars and the Moon and relating it to a lousy $4.6 million per year for an in-situ interstellar spacecraft - howabout we stop launching that useless winged-monstrosity called the Space Shuttle and let the Russians do our piloted launches (much kissing-up will have to be done now that we've burned our bridges a little early considering the latest RTF slippage) until we have another pilot-rated vehicle?
Save several billion every year - and get us to Mars and the Moon that much faster - while guaranteeing the JWST gets built and launched among other things.
Yes it is the shuttle and its rather large army that is needed that takes up a lot of NASA's funds. But to finish the ISS we need the shuttle and the russians cannot help us to put the modules up. So for a while the shuttle must stay.

So the question becomes what value is there in "completing" the ISS?

There's another topic for that where I'll make a case for and against "completion" (whatever completion will end up being when the monies spent hits $100 billion).

Visionary Explorer · 2005-04-29 18:56:28

Interesting discussion. I don’t know enough to comment on whether Voyager returns enough science to be worth its cost but my instinct tells me that it is a relatively small cost. Besides if they don’t shut it down today they will eventually have to shut it down anyway. It all boils down to whether we can replace the science. Can we do as good a job remotely. Can we launch a ship that is fast enough to pass Voyager but has better instruments. Then there is the question of why it is not going as fast as it should. Does this point to an error in general relativity. If so this could be the greatest accomplishment of Voyager. If Voyager points to an error in relativity can we design a better probe to measure that anomaly? How long would it take for this superior probe to return its data. Anyway, there are two Voyagers aren’t there? What if just one of them is cut for now?

The only real problem with cutting one (let's pick Voyager 2 - being several million km less distant than V1) is that one instrument on V1 (the PLS) is out of commission but working on V2 - a minor inconvience however even though it would be valuable to have for the VISM-phase.

But, if V1 ends up being taken out by a piece of debris and we've let V2 go, we've wasted that opportunity and money, unless V2 can be picked up again, which as time goes on is less and less likely.

Plus I'm not entirely sure that much money would be saved by not listening to one of them. The various universities that handle the data would still have to... handle the data (just less of it). The cost savings probably wouldn't be that large. But it might be interesting to see if that could be done.

It would solve one problem - a fixed DSN ability for an ever increasing number of spacecraft (which it seems to me is the real problem - not the money for Voyager - but the money for an increased DSN capability).

RobertDyck · 2005-04-29 19:20:34

I wonder how many of the http://nmp.jpl.nasa.gov/] New Millennium programs
For the testing of advance technology in space flight are being cut from this page.

From http://www.spacedaily.com/news/deep1-99b.html]Space Daily January 12, 1999

Deep Space 3, a proposed optical interferometry mission involving spacecraft orbiting the Sun in formation, made significant progress in 1998, as the mission was reconfigured from three spacecraft to two. Engineering design experiments determined that separated spacecraft interferometry could be accomplished using two spacecraft separated by up to one full kilometer. This change has yielded both cost and mass savings. An industry partner is scheduled to be selected and on contract by this March. Deep Space 3, which is scheduled to launch in December 2001, will undergo system requirements and architecture review in August.
Deep Space 4/Champollion, a proposed mission that will send a lander to the nucleus of comet Tempel 1 in 2005 following a scheduled launch in 2003, achieved many milestones in 1998. The team continued working on the detailed design of the lander and mother ship, including the construction of a striking, full-scale mockup of the diminutive lander. An observational program on Tempel 1 has revealed the size of the nucleus to be 3.9 by 2.8 kilometers; the team is now trying to determine additional information on the nucleus' shape and its rotation period. A NASA review is scheduled for April.
With Earth Orbiter 2, New Millennium will fly an infrared laser in the cargo bay of the space shuttle to see if a space-based sensor can accurately measure global winds within Earth's atmosphere from just above the surface to a height of about 16 kilometers (10 miles). Successful measurements in this key region of the atmosphere could lead to improved weather forecasting and better understanding of such climate-related events as El Nino.

But they've added a few interesting ones, Earth Observing 3 and Space Technology 5 through 8. Space Technology 5, will test 3 micro-satellites flying in formation to measure the Earth's magnetosphere. That's the same satellite coordination as Deep Space 3.

SpaceNut · 2005-05-02 11:06:17

Thanks
What I find most interesting about the whole issue is who should say what monies are spent by Nasa on what projects.

Take for instance this one Search on Again for Mars Polar Lander

While it might be of interest to find out what happened to it 6 years ago to what benifit would we gain from doing so and at what cost should we do this for?

Nothing is really said about this question and the only thing to come from it is a new imaging technique.

Then the flip side of the coin from congress is that NASA's Exploration Focus Blamed for Earth Science Cuts and while the desision making process is flawed it does seem to be getting congress in line to fund nasa correctly.

"We need to stop, examine what's happening, and make sure that the fiscal 2006 budget for NASA - whatever its top-level number - includes adequate funding to keep Earth science moving forward for the foreseeable future."

But where is there support when it is about getting to the lowest budget possible and not about the science?

Visionary Explorer · 2005-05-02 22:31:43

Thanks
What I find most interesting about the whole issue is who should say what monies are spent by Nasa on what projects.
Take for instance this one http://space.com/missionlaunches/050502 … arch.html] Search on Again for Mars Polar Lander
While it might be of interest to find out what happened to it 6 years ago to what benifit would we gain from doing so and at what cost should we do this for?
Nothing is really said about this question and the only thing to come from it is a new imaging technique.
Then the flip side of the coin from congress is that NASAs]http://space.com/spacenews/businessmonday_050502.html]NASA's Exploration Focus Blamed for Earth Science Cuts and while the desision making process is flawed it does seem to be getting congress in line to fund nasa correctly.
"We need to stop, examine what's happening, and make sure that the fiscal 2006 budget for NASA - whatever its top-level number - includes adequate funding to keep Earth science moving forward for the foreseeable future."
But where is there support when it is about getting to the lowest budget possible and not about the science?

Oh yes, the guy whose in charge of trying to find MPL.

There's probably enough money in that for another year of Voyager right there! (I don't really know that for sure though, but the point is well taken SpaceNut.)

For some the Earth Science missions, I wonder if maybe the NOAA should be in charge of that (with a seperate budget) and leave the launching to the ESA, Russia or NASA.

But I love this quote:

"You talk about the handoff," Boehlert said. "I'm enough of a track man to know it takes two hands to hand off. One hand is extending to hand off, but there has to be a recipient with a plan and a program and the funding behind the program and we don't see that."

Exactly.

SpaceNut · 2005-05-03 05:58:18

Thanks and oh by the way Welcome Visionary Explorer to New Mars.

SpaceNut · 2005-05-12 06:24:07

ESA has release a status report for this joint Nasa operated probes that is being considered for no continued funding.
Ulysses Status Report - April 2005

Palomar · 2005-05-24 10:49:17

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.htm … Scientists are confident --

*--Voyager 1 has passed beyond the termination shock and has now reached the heliosheath.

It is currently 8.7 billion miles from Sol.

They reiterate that they're receiving feedback of data unlike anything yet returned before.

The consensus of the team is Voyager 1, at approximately 8.7 billion miles from the sun, has at last entered the heliosheath, the region beyond the termination shock.
Predicting the location of the termination shock was hard, because the precise conditions in interstellar space are unknown. Also, changes in the speed and pressure of the solar wind cause the termination shock to expand, contract and ripple.
The most persuasive evidence that Voyager 1 crossed the termination shock is its measurement of a sudden increase in the strength of the magnetic field carried by the solar wind, combined with an inferred decrease in its speed. This happens whenever the solar wind slows down.

NASA, don't you dare pull the plug!

--Cindy

::EDIT:: Here's a http://www.universetoday.com/am/uploads … jpg]really terrific ILLUSTRATION of the heliosheath, heliopause, heliosphere, termination shock, bow shock and the locations (relative to) of Voyagers 1 & 2.

REB · 2005-05-24 11:33:51

The Oort Cloud extends from 1 to 3 light years our (Possibly mixing with Alpha Centauri’s Oort Cloud). This is well beyond Voyagers location.

I wonder what effect this interstellar environment has on Oort Cloud worlds, and what happens to one of those small worlds when it cross this boundry.

New Mars Forums

Announcement

#51 2005-04-21 05:56:50

Re: Voyager - Interstellar mission

#52 2005-04-21 18:20:12

Re: Voyager - Interstellar mission

#53 2005-04-22 04:08:05

Re: Voyager - Interstellar mission

#54 2005-04-22 18:58:42

Re: Voyager - Interstellar mission

#55 2005-04-23 15:05:28

Re: Voyager - Interstellar mission

#56 2005-04-23 21:52:37

Re: Voyager - Interstellar mission

#57 2005-04-24 04:41:29

Re: Voyager - Interstellar mission

#58 2005-04-27 12:14:40

Re: Voyager - Interstellar mission

#59 2005-04-29 01:59:26

Re: Voyager - Interstellar mission

#60 2005-04-29 04:00:49

Re: Voyager - Interstellar mission

#61 2005-04-29 08:36:00

Re: Voyager - Interstellar mission

#62 2005-04-29 09:20:27

Re: Voyager - Interstellar mission

#63 2005-04-29 09:53:16

Re: Voyager - Interstellar mission

#64 2005-04-29 10:10:25

Re: Voyager - Interstellar mission

#65 2005-04-29 10:27:50

Re: Voyager - Interstellar mission

#66 2005-04-29 10:40:45

Re: Voyager - Interstellar mission

#67 2005-04-29 18:45:10

Re: Voyager - Interstellar mission

#68 2005-04-29 18:56:28

Re: Voyager - Interstellar mission

#69 2005-04-29 19:20:34

Re: Voyager - Interstellar mission

#70 2005-05-02 11:06:17

Re: Voyager - Interstellar mission

#71 2005-05-02 22:31:43

Re: Voyager - Interstellar mission

#72 2005-05-03 05:58:18

Re: Voyager - Interstellar mission

#73 2005-05-12 06:24:07

Re: Voyager - Interstellar mission

#74 2005-05-24 10:49:17

Re: Voyager - Interstellar mission

#75 2005-05-24 11:33:51

Re: Voyager - Interstellar mission

Board footer