I heard of the JIMO (Jupiter Inner Moons Orbiter) quite a while ago and I've heard no new news about for a very long time. It is still a future mission to Jupiter or has it been canceled?

I heard (in 2005) that the US government will make about 330 pounds of Plutonium-238, costing about 1.5 billlon (US) dollars. I fear this could be the end of the JIMO mission, which would of used a nuclear fission reactor as a power source and to do orbit shaping.

It was effectively cancelled last year.

You may find some relevant information here:

http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...indpost&p=19163

Jupiter ICY Moons Orbiter. NASA recently posted the Project Prometheus Final Report on the JPL website:
http://trs-new.jpl.nasa.gov/dspace/bitstre...5/1/05-3441.pdf

See p.178 for the final estimated cost for JIMO. With the 36% reserve they suggest (excluding the launcher), the total would be $27.352 Billion (following the report's 5 significant figure precision).

Too bad Europa Orbieter was cancelled for going over the $1B mark.

I have never seen this report. This is STRANGE, and people (including (some of) us) were really thinking about this. There isn't even a launcher. I believe the VSE will end the same way, but after spending much more money and getting a capsule with launcher to LEO. Or is anybody seeing a lunar landing by 2018?

Analyst

I tend to agree with you -- although, IF (and only if) they kill Shuttle/Station fast, the US may be able to scrape together enough pennies to fund Bush's manned lunar porogram. Even then, however, that one might be either cancelled or stretched out. I've never hoped that we would get any more out of the new manned program than the CEV and maybe a couple of new boosters -- in which case at least it won't be a complete loss.

By the way -- while there is now a public fight over whether those leaked NASA documents providing an extremely pessimistic view of the condition of the lunar program were selectively biased or not -- if they ARE seriously considering those plans, then the new plan for a possible rendezvous at the L-2 Earth-Moon point gives me the willies. If there is an emergency, it will take three days longer for the crew to get off the Moon and back to the CEV. And since the plan calls for the LSAM (with the crew onboard) to separate from the CEV BEFORE entering lunar orbit -- while the unmanned CEV then proceeds on to the L-2 point and stops there to hover -- if the CEV misses that point, the crew is in Deep Doo-Doo. It might be better to leave one crewman onboard the CEV (as with Apollo) and just land the other three men on the Moon (which would also allow the LSAM to be made a good deal lighter).

OK, I do not pretend to be very good at figures but I am blessed if can see where you get that $27.352 billion from. (I get $22.191 billion: $16.317 + 5.874 (36% of 16.317).)

Mind you, I must not be fully understanding that table on p178 either. When I plug its figures into my trusty spreadsheet the totals my spreadsheet gives do not always add up to same ones given in that table! For example, when I add up the totals for the phase columns in the "Totals w/o Science" row...

0.400 + 1.742 + 8.165 + 10.307 + 2.444

my spreadsheet gives 23.058 (billion), not the 12.751 the table gives in the "totals" column.

Am I missing something or does it take the magic wand of creative accounting to get everything to add up the same across such tables as well as down their columns?

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Stephen

The ISS is not just an American project, Bruce. The Europeans, Russians, and Japanese have all invested time, sweat, and money in it. There is no way America can kill it, slow or fast, without incurring some kind of penalty, whether now or in the future.

As for the Shuttle, if the remaining orbiters stay grounded much longer that retirement date of 2010 is going to look increasingly shaky and unrealistic.

That said, I do agree with Analyst's point about the VSE. In fact if that 2010 date truly does become untenable then at some point somebody is going to make a decision whether to continue with 2010 as the retirement date or not. What avenue was chosen would surely impinge on the VSE's funding & its timetable;and maybe its future if by then Bush was no longer office.

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Stephen

What the absolute retirement date of the shuttle actually is is considerably less significant than the number of flights that can be flown. Griffen/NASA has officially shut down the production pipeline on (for example) shuttle tanks to support more than maybe 2 missions beyond the current manifest plus the Hubble flight. (got to have spares in case a tank gets trashed, etc.) After expendable hardware production termination is essentially irreversable, the shuttle will HAVE to stop flying when it's used up the last whatever.

Given the derivation of the new HLV from the Shuttles ET - that seems a little premature doesnt it?

Doug

No... the lead time on shuttle-specific hardware can be / is years. we could restart shuttle-specific tank production now.. in a year if will be much harder.. in 2 years effectively impossible as the transition's underway and a lot of OTHER shuttle specific hardware becomes un-makeable.

Of course. The question is whether we'll gain MORE of a penalty by retaining the thing -- as opposed to killing it and simply paying off our partners whatever they've lost thereby. The answer is that we would very definitely save money -- lots of it -- by following the latter course.

As for the Russians: they've already financially gained far more from their involvement, in the form of American payments, than they've lost -- which is the only reason they ever got involved in the first place. (Indeed, those payments are the only thing keeping their manned space program going at all at this point.) And Japanese newspapers are already starting to ask whether it's worthwhile for Japan to remain involved with it.