25 March 2008
Rescinded
Posted by Ryan Anderson
I don’t have time to write a long post, but I thought I should share the latest about the rover cuts. The NASA administrator Mike Griffin has stated unequivocally that shutting down a rover is not an option. The letter directing the budget cuts to MER and Odyssey has been rescinded, and we are essentially pretending that the last week didn’t happen.
There’s still a budget problem with MSL, and the money still has to come from somewhere, but the official word at this moment is to go ahead as if none of this happened.
I’ll post more about this as I learn more…
That is VERY exciting news. I’m damn glad to hear it. Congratulations.
Good deal! Hope to hear more good news soon.
If things had unfolded differently, and the story hadn’t leaked to the media as quickly as it did, do you think the funding may have been cut? Or was Mike Griffin’s response inevitable (i.e. he would have struck it down the cut whenever he heard of it)?
I suspect Griffin’s response was inevitable… the Rovers are way too popular with the public (as we saw earlier this week) for one to be hibernated to save a few bucks. The problem is, how do we pay for MSL? That still hasn’t been resolved, and I don’t know how it will be resolved.