27-March-2008, 09:12 PM
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Vulcan Moderator
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Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Greenbelt, MD
Posts: 24,144
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And a rebuttal to the previous statement (now posted on the same page):
Quote:
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For example, "Anonymous manager" used MER operations as an example of "overzealous spending", pointing out "a 75% reduction in productivity for a 20% budget cut" on a project with "300 individuals driving two rovers". The facts are the following: The proposed budget cut, that was to be applied to the remaining funds in FY08, was roughly 40%. One rover was to be cut back from the current standard 80% duty cycle (due to the way Mars time aligns with a standard work shift) to 60% (this does not include the fact that the rovers are not commanded on weekends), a 25% reduction. In addition, the second rover that was to be hibernated (not killed) still required weekly contacts and some minimum amount of engineering analysis and commanding to maintain its viability in the dynamic martian environment; let's say this is an 75% reduction. This still comes out to ~50% overall, more than a proportional 40%, but unfortunately project expenditures are never linear. As for the 300 people driving the rovers, total MER staffing (management, operations, IT support, data processing, etc.) at JPL is roughly 50 FTEs; the larger number quoted accounts for part-time individuals and the large science team, many of whom receive minimal funding.
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