michelle21 - 4/7/2007 10:00 AMWhat kind of idiots are we putting in the senate???
Ducati94 - 5/7/2007 9:03 AMNASA will not build the same rovers with the same instruments or the same capabilities. The next rover will have advanced instrumentation that built off the old rovers data. Besides we just don’t fly to Mars anytime we want the orbital aliment (approximately 2.5 years?) that allows for the shortest flight time is the driver for when missions are launched. The typical pattern for NASA as of resent years is to use the assets in ever riskier task (as in going into a crater) after the primary mission is complete. It is hard to abandon functioning hardware but at some point the rate of new information falls below the investment cost of the new hardware and the data returned from it. I don’t know that the rovers have passed that point because I have not done that study but as some time they will have and it will impact the next Mars mission.
Norm Hartnett - 5/7/2007 5:05 PMThanks 51D Mascot, that is what I see in there also, looks like there are specific line items for all the Mars projects that I know of. Looks to me like The Planetary Society went off half-cocked without doing the research you just did.Any idea who added the prohibitive language in the House bill?
michelle21 - 6/7/2007 6:46 AM51d mascot , Thanks for doing this reseach, As I said I've always liked the planetary society, but they have there own agenda and sometimes they spin the news the way they want it.However, I still trust them as a source for information related to the planetary program. Maybe there just a bit over zelous.Barney Frank really has something against the space prrogram, Based on some of his remarks even about non space matters I don't know how he got to were he is in the senate.