Trump administration cancels lunar rover mission
The Trump administration has shut down NASA’s only lunar rover mission that has been under development for four years.
The Resource Prospector mission consisted of a lander and a solar-powered rover equipped with a drill. The rover would have scouted the lunar surface, digging up soil for analysis. Scientists know that water ice exists on the moon, but the Resource Prospector would have provided scientists with a more complete understanding of these deposits.
…Although it was not yet fully funded, the Resource Prospector mission had gotten well past the drawing board. Engineers had been working on the project for four years, and prototypes were tested on Earth in 2015 and 2016, according to The Verge. Plans had the mission launching in 2022. [emphasis mine]
What I see is a project with significant management and budgetary problems. Why has it taken four years and two prototypes to test a lunar rover when we have already flown four rovers successfully to Mars? Granted, redesign for the Moon would be necessary, but this development time, plus two prototypes, seems excessive. Furthermore, the article notes how the project was shifted from one NASA department to another, which apparently has caused some budget and management issues..
The project concept is certainly worthwhile and necessary in order to make future lunar colonies possible. I suspect that the cancellation was because the project managers were simply not delivering.
It could also be that this shut down is a tactical move by NASA upper management to force major changes in the project itself, including a complete change in its management. It could also be a political maneuver to force Congress to give the project its full funding, something it lacks as noted by the highlighted words above. Such maneuvers have been played numerous times in the past, with the most famous example the Hubble Space Telescope. NASA management cancelled it during development, knowing that this act would generate publicity that would force Congress to finally give it the funds it needed. The maneuver worked. Congress reinstated Hubble with a full budget, which was exactly what NASA wanted in the first place.
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The Trump administration has shut down NASA’s only lunar rover mission that has been under development for four years.
The Resource Prospector mission consisted of a lander and a solar-powered rover equipped with a drill. The rover would have scouted the lunar surface, digging up soil for analysis. Scientists know that water ice exists on the moon, but the Resource Prospector would have provided scientists with a more complete understanding of these deposits.
…Although it was not yet fully funded, the Resource Prospector mission had gotten well past the drawing board. Engineers had been working on the project for four years, and prototypes were tested on Earth in 2015 and 2016, according to The Verge. Plans had the mission launching in 2022. [emphasis mine]
What I see is a project with significant management and budgetary problems. Why has it taken four years and two prototypes to test a lunar rover when we have already flown four rovers successfully to Mars? Granted, redesign for the Moon would be necessary, but this development time, plus two prototypes, seems excessive. Furthermore, the article notes how the project was shifted from one NASA department to another, which apparently has caused some budget and management issues..
The project concept is certainly worthwhile and necessary in order to make future lunar colonies possible. I suspect that the cancellation was because the project managers were simply not delivering.
It could also be that this shut down is a tactical move by NASA upper management to force major changes in the project itself, including a complete change in its management. It could also be a political maneuver to force Congress to give the project its full funding, something it lacks as noted by the highlighted words above. Such maneuvers have been played numerous times in the past, with the most famous example the Hubble Space Telescope. NASA management cancelled it during development, knowing that this act would generate publicity that would force Congress to finally give it the funds it needed. The maneuver worked. Congress reinstated Hubble with a full budget, which was exactly what NASA wanted in the first place.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
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You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
I hope you’re right and that Bridenstine’s promise of multiple better rovers to come proves out. One should certainly never casually dismiss an explanation based on the incompetence of NASA management. But given the long lead-times of typical NASA planetary science efforts, cancelling a program halfway to completion also smacks of violating the “bird in the hand” principle. Let’s sincerely hope there prove to be at least two more to be found in the bush.
According to Mark Whittington, RP is not completely dead.
https://us.blastingnews.com/news/2018/04/nasa-clarifies-the-lunar-resource-prospector-situation-002535227.html
It’s amazing that Resource Prospector Mission was able to move forward at all under the Obama Administration. It wouldn’t surprise me if it was underfunded and hence slow.
I suspect that the switch to SMD was so that resource prospecting would be absorbed into a the program to establish an ongoing set of commercial lander & rover missions – “capitalism in space”. Yet, as prep for crew return, we should get the Resourve Prospector results using whatever approach works the quickest. And, we shouldn’t be waiting around before starting to build crew-scale lunar landers such as the XEUS-ACES.
The mission was in pre-formulation, which I believe means it wasn’t fully funded but work was ongoing. A fair amount of work was done. It’s not clear that there were actual management problems. As for financial problems….well, it wasn’t fully funded. My guess is the administration had to make a decision on whether to go forward with it based on what had been developed. It decided for whatever reasons that there were other ways to go about exploring the moon.