I think there should be a NASA policy not to abandon space probes as long as 
they are still working and returning useful data, and future missions should 
be designed and funded with this requirement in mind. They may fail quickly, 
meet their basic research goals, or last a very long time, way beyond their 
designed life expectancies. Useful and/or highly significant discoveries may 
occur at any point in their lifespans, whether they are short or long. In my 
opinion, data acquisition from the Voyagers should be maintained as long as 
possible.

Kevin


"Ed" <ed@home.com> wrote in message news:39gv51F61rgi7U1@individual.net...

"Martin 53N 1W" <ml_news@ddnospamddml1dd.co.uk.dd> wrote:

Max Power wrote:

Voyager probes in funding crisis

[...]

Although the Voyager probes are thought to have another 15 years of 
life
left in them, they are very expensive to run, costing Nasa about $4.2m 
a
year for operations and data analysis.

[...]

Why so very expensive?

Are the data rates so very slow that they need a lot of DSN time??

Got it in one.  The DSN used to do block accounting, but now all
missions must pay for dish time from their own budgets.  You can
thank Sean O'Keefe for that little change.  That bozo left NASA
couple weeks back -- let's hope the next bozo, er, Administrator,
is more than just a bean counter.