Posted by Chris Jensen |
Mar. 25, 2008 10:04AM PST
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|
FILED UNDER: News. Science.
That didn't take long. In less than 24-hours, NASA has reversed course on unplugging the Spirit rover on Mars due to budget cuts.
From Discovery News:
NASA is saying Tuesday that it has rescinded a letter that recommended budget cuts in the Mars Rover program to cover the cost of a next-generation rover on the Red Planet.
The move comes a day after scientists at the agency's robotics center said they would need to hibernate one of the twin Mars robots and limit the duties of the other because their budget was being cut by $4 million.
I guess we can scrap plans for that cookie-drive now.
Good call, NASA.
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(Source: Discovery News)
Tags budget, spirit, nasa, rovers, mars, space
Posted by Chris Jensen |
Mar. 24, 2008 03:17PM PST
| 307 views
|
FILED UNDER: News. Science.
NASA has ordered $4-million in funding for the Mars Exploration Rover program to be cut from its paltry $20-million annual budget, putting at least one of the rovers in serious jeopardy.
Steve Squyres, main man for the project, tells CNN that operations for Spirit will be the likely target, with Spirit entering a forced hibernation until more money is somehow found.
These poor rovers have managed to live well beyond their projected shelf life, returning amazing data that will aid humanity in the future, have faced perilous cliffs, dust-devils and wicked storms, yet good ole budget problems are going to do them in.
Sad. Sad. Sad.
$4-million is chump change when the advancement of human knowledge and understanding is involved, but for some reason, we can always find money if it involves killing people.
Surely we can have a cookie-drive or something?
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(Source: CNN)
Tags space, opportunity, spirit, nasa, budget, rovers, martian, mars
