Cassini vs Curiosity - which is worth saving?

[OtherDalfite]

Our military would use money on fractional bombardment system or kinetic rod strike array not a nuclear capable moon base.

Kinetic rod bombardment is a purely fictional means of being a weapon. Flying up a several ton rod of tungsten compared to a 1 ton nuclear warhead that can level whole cities is far more economic, and you get a lot more bang for your buck.

[DaveofDefeat]

We shouldn't militarize space, government puts up gps system for entirely military purposes, o well.

Also,nukes on earth would be far more effective than nukes in space. At least for blowing up things on earth.

[Nuke]

on the contrary i think we should move the art of war into space, and make the earth a no fire zone.

[zekes]

cassini is old, and has outlived it's life. Curiosity is new, has promise, and has a longer life ahead of it.

[deadshot462]

Curiosity has yet to complete her mission deadline, so keep the rover.

Tough choice, both are great probes.

[rpayne88]

I would have to say I'd save Cassini. We have sent more than enough probes to Mars and not enough to the outer planets. And because I don't want to kill the most advanced mission on Mars right now, I would suggest selling the Curiosity mission to a private company or organization.

[zekes]

I would suggest selling the Curiosity mission to a private company or organization.

Hey that's an idea!

[rpayne88]

on the contrary i think we should move the art of war into space, and make the earth a no fire zone.

Can we make the Earth and all of space except the areas beyond the event horizon of a black hole no fire zones?

[rpayne88]

On the other hand, an unmanned military spaceplane (X-37) might be less usefull than the same money in NASA's hands. Or not. But we can't know because the mission is secret. You're paying, but you won't get to play with those toys, so to speak.

Seriously, I think it's crazy how much the US is spending on its military considering all that bloat and feature creep that seems to be in every single project. Why is it that everyone is so critical of the costs of social programs and science, but when it comes to the military, it's totally normal when everything costs twice as much in the end and comes ten years later. Not specific to the US either. (See Eurofighter, Eurohawk, apparently every EADS defense project in general.)

Not to mention that we now seem to be fighting a counter-insurgency war. I mean, why do we need to develop a new stealth aircraft (F-35A/B/C) if we already have three (F-117, F-22, B-2) when the best anti-aircraft weapon terrorists can throw at us is a .50.

Edit: I really should have condensed these three posts into one.

[Redjoker]

I would recommend managing Cassani now, since NASA managed to restart Opportunity this year and when Opportunity and it's twin Spirit were competing it was planned that they could possible reactivate Spirit at a later date.

[Camacha]

Cruel choice, isn't it? Well, it's not impossible that the NASA would have to face it sometime soon:

With all these reports spelling doom for existing and future missions, I feel NASA is trying to get attention and thus more funding in the future. I think it is a decent and necessary tactic, but it also means I do not worry about every one of the stories.

[3_bit]

They all should be saved. Sure, it may cost a few million a year a piece for a skeleton operations crew (and hardware), but it's likely that data alone will be worth a lot. Humans will ask the question eventually, and they will get their answer. It seems irrational to abandon a vehicle. Look at Opportunity, quite possibly the most amazing robot ever made. On Novermber 28th, she'll be on her 3500th day into her mission, and still going strong, still making invaluable discoveries. I'd wager we could crowdfund the whole mission if we needed to. Opportunity is my favorite object in space to date. Curiosity is one fine machine too, but has a lot to prove. Cheers to NASA for the skycrane.

[lajoswinkler]

on the contrary i think we should move the art of war into space, and make the earth a no fire zone.

Unfortunatelly, war is not a game and is not played by any rules. It's the worst behaviour of human kind and no party ever respects any rules. There are no good guys doing good things, whatever you've been taught.

War in space or robots fighting, once one side is defeated, it will move on to another way of combat.

It's relity out there and it's disgusting and brutal. Thinking that a war can be turned into a game of chess where the figures are robots is extremely naive.

[tom1499]

I think I'm gonna have to choose Curiosity. Since the landing it's become a pop culture... thing. It's not exactly a celebrity, but it's well known. If you asked someone of a robotic space mission they could think of, that person would probably say Curiosity. It's one of the few things that NASA has as an anchor of sorts, to the public opinion. It's something for poeple to remember NASA for.

[czokletmuss]

I think I'm gonna have to choose Curiosity. Since the landing it's become a pop culture... thing.

Sure but does it matter? NASA is a public entity using public money, it doesn't have to care so much about public opinion. And there were countless probes sent to Mars - and more is coming:

The Outer Solar System is still an unknown place. I mean, ESA or CSNA or Roskomos may send a probe to Mars (even ISRO did recently) but who's going to explore the outer planets? Only NASA have enough money and know-how right now. Plus, there are lakes and rivers on Titan, the only moon with dense atmosphere, and we're not sending anything there in a forseeable future. How crazy is that?

[NASAFanboy]

I choose Cassini. Because Curosity is a pop icon, the ending of it will spark mass public outrage which could force Congress to increase the NASA budget and awaken the public to the true situation at NASA

[Jug head]

What to do see the air and space museum or protest at the White House

[Requiem762]

What to do see the air and space museum or protest at the White House

Obama could try to boost his popularity by trying to throw more funding at NASA.

[Drunkrobot]

Obama could try to boost his popularity by trying to throw more funding at NASA.

I don't mean for this thread to get political, and I'm no expert on how the United States deals with it's budget, but i think that it's Congress who is the final voice on any change in the budget. If the President wanted to increase the funding going to NASA, he has to send the tweaked budget to Congress for approval, and the "new" budget could be completely ignored if they wished not to. This pretty much means that if a company builds a road but doesn't get paid, or some vanity project goes several times over budget, or indeed if an icon of the space program is forced to shut down, then it's the guy in the White House who is to blame (funny how that works).

At least it's a little better than how we (the UK) deal with our interests in space. It's pretty much boils down to what can make the most hard cash, like satellites. This means no exploration program.

To the original question...I don't know. Saturn and it's moons is a fascinating place, and it's a place we will be cut off from for a long time when Cassini is turned off. However, find life, even the evidence of previous life, on Mars is really exciting, and the social media people at JPL have successfully convinced me Curiosity is a living thing. Slight edge to keeping MSL, but I won't be happy about losing either.

[Frida Space]

I'd save Cassini... It has proven to be more reliable (Curiosity in just a month switched on and off unexpectedly four times), it is less-know (shutting Curiosity down would be everywhere on the news) and, I believe, scientifically more precious. Curiosity is a great mission, it has returned amazing data and it is a marvel of human ingenuity and capabilities, but it has been giving "mixed" signals: it did prove that Mars once was habitable, but it didn't find any methane. The mystery will be solved only once MAVEN gets there in September 2014. Also, Cassini's mission is much more flexible: just think that it recently had it 86th flyby of Titan, and thats only one moon out of the 60+ bodies orbiting Saturn! Curiosity, on the opposite side, is for obvious reasons much slower and less flexible. I would say NASA should shut off Curiosity, if it really had to choose between the two missions, but they are both of incredible relevance for the future of space exploration and both are re-writing textbooks.

[goldenpeach]

I wouldn't be setting your sights on china if I were you just because the way the governent is there.

Spacex is off the ground and is making great strides in reusability.

DARPA will only let you make something if it can be weaponized and will be the ones soaking up the money that used to be NASAs budget...

Very relevant SMBC:

http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=1522#comic

[Simon Ross]

I hate to say it, but save both and cut back operations to the white elephant that is the ISS !

NASA is at it's absolute best when it is conducting deep space research and rover based missions, the amount of bangs it produces for the bucks it spends is truly astounding.

In terms of manned space flight, NASA has been the exact opposite for a number of decades, firstly with the horrendously expensive and dangerous shuttle, then with the ISS, a bus stop on the road to nowhere.

[Albert VDS]

Might I remind you that the ISS is an international effort.

It's crucial for the future of manned space exploration.

[Simon Ross]

Might I remind you that the ISS is an international effort.

It's crucial for the future of manned space exploration.

In what way crucial to the future of manned space exploration ? Quite frankly, I just don't see it

Operationally it's been up for 15 years, cost in excess of 100 billion dollars and really hasn't told us anything we didn't already know.

Don't get me wrong, in the day I was fully supportive of the original concept, but that original concept and it's capabilities has long since disappeared.

After 15 years, we still are no closer to developing a closed circuit life support system, and without that, we are going nowhere

After 15 years we are still no closer to developing a centripetal force gravity system, and without that, we are going nowhere

What we have learned is how to assemble large structures in orbit, but frankly we didn't need to spend 100 billion dollars to learn that

[ZetaX]

Yeah, ignore the scientific results by the ISS just because they are not creating a nice picture of saturn's rings you can hang on your wall (and I think those pics are gorgeous!)...

Unlike the other missions, ISS is doing science that is more relevant to our actuall well-being and development. Cassini does nothing in that matters, it is only for understanding the solar system. This is a good goal, but it is nothing we couldn't as well do 10000 years from now. But yeah, people will probably always be in favor of seemingly direct and quick things that create nice images instead of actual hard science that requires way more effort.

But I would agree on the ISS possibly not being that cost-efficient anymore.