[HN Gopher] Hard feelings over mission change for NASA's Pluto s...
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       Hard feelings over mission change for NASA's Pluto spacecraft
        
       Author : pseudolus
       Score  : 18 points
       Date   : 2023-05-05 18:12 UTC (4 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.nature.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.nature.com)
        
       | JohnMakin wrote:
       | This seems like sensationalist science journalism. It says
       | "scientists" aren't happy about the decision, but the only
       | evidence it provides is this singular quote:
       | 
       | >But some are unhappy with the decision, and worry that planetary
       | studies are being truncated too soon. "Scientifically, I just
       | don't feel that we're at diminishing returns yet," says Kelsi
       | Singer, the mission's project scientist at the Southwest Research
       | Institute in Boulder, Colorado.
       | 
       | Like, ok? The whole reason they're shifting to heliophysics is
       | because there are no other objects they're aware of for this
       | probe to explore. What else is it going to do? What do these
       | "scientists" want it to do instead?
        
         | breput wrote:
         | "There's going to be a boarding party on the first of October
         | next year," says Alan Stern, the mission's principal
         | investigator"
         | 
         | I think the unstated is that the original group of scientists
         | feels like they are being put out to pasture in favor of a new
         | set of researchers. But as you mentioned, if there aren't any
         | more Kuiper belt objects on the "horizon", it seems like the
         | right move.
        
       | photochemsyn wrote:
       | > "NASA will fund the mission from its planetary science budget
       | until 30 September 2024. After that, management could be taken
       | over by the much smaller heliophysics division, potentially
       | involving a new group of scientists."
       | 
       | Sounds like bad management. Why not just have a joint project
       | instead of a takeover? Granted this means more money has to be
       | spent since you have more team members. Certainly a better use of
       | money than many other idiotic things the federal government gets
       | up to, anyway, since heliophysics is important and planetary
       | science is important.
        
         | Analemma_ wrote:
         | I assume they're trying to allow as much cooperation as
         | possible, but at the end of the day you have to choose where to
         | point the sensors and cameras, so it's largely a zero-sum game
         | that somebody has to lose.
        
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       (page generated 2023-05-05 23:00 UTC)