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RIP Dawn



 
 
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  #1  
Old March 4th 06, 11:05 PM posted to sci.space.policy
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Default RIP Dawn

Such a shame. However, I'll leave the politics to those in the know.
It's dead for the moment although I suppose there could always be a
Phoenix-like rebirth down the track.

We are left without a large main belt asteroid mission. Does anyone have
any idea whether either the Deep Impact or Stardust buses have the dV to
manage (perhaps with a gravity assist or two?) a flyby of either Vesta
or especially Ceres? (Or failing that, what about Pallas?)

P
  #2  
Old March 5th 06, 06:22 PM posted to sci.space.policy
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Default RIP Dawn

"Phil Bagust" wrote in message
news
Such a shame. However, I'll leave the politics to those in the know.
It's dead for the moment although I suppose there could always be a
Phoenix-like rebirth down the track.

We are left without a large main belt asteroid mission. Does anyone have
any idea whether either the Deep Impact or Stardust buses have the dV to
manage (perhaps with a gravity assist or two?) a flyby of either Vesta
or especially Ceres? (Or failing that, what about Pallas?)

http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/space/0....ap/index.html

Cost overruns are normal in the space business. The idea that you just shut
down missions or ask engineers to sit on their hands for a year is no way to
run a space program.


  #3  
Old March 5th 06, 08:17 PM posted to sci.space.policy
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Default RIP Dawn

In article ,
Michael Rhino wrote:
Cost overruns are normal in the space business.


Only because there is such a tradition that they are automatically
forgiven whenever they happen. Note that NEAR *underran* its budget.
It's just a matter of competent management and proper budgeting
(including adequate reserves). Overruns should be rare, the result
of nasty surprises like major technical problems or a launch supplier
backing out.

Part of the problem is that the Discovery program has forgotten one of its
original rules: that cheaper missions have priority in selection. That
was done partly to discourage people from loading up their missions until
the most optimistic possible estimate put them $10 under the official cost
cap, making overruns almost inevitable.

I hate to say it, because I really liked the mission, but Dawn showed many
of the signs of an underbid, out-of-control project.
--
spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer
mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. |
  #4  
Old March 9th 06, 02:19 AM posted to sci.space.policy
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Default RIP Dawn

In article ,
Jim Kingdon wrote:
original rules: that cheaper missions have priority in selection. That
was done partly to discourage people from loading up their missions until
the most optimistic possible estimate put them $10 under the official cost
cap, making overruns almost inevitable.


Couldn't you have overruns either way?


Oh yes, for sure. But a situation where you *must* come in under a
specific ceiling, but there is otherwise no penalty for higher costs,
encourages you to design an ambitious mission loaded with science -- that
being the major competitive element, since all proposals are expected to
come in at the same price -- and then find some way to cook the books to
make it cost just under the ceiling. It seems to encourage much more
extravagant lies, since the payoff for getting the cost estimate down
those last few percent is so high.

...either way those in charge need to have a backbone about
overruns (and cancelling missions which encounter them seems like the
only way that I've seen to handle them which makes any sense).


Agreed.
--
spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer
mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. |
 




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