It took so many years to get to where they are. In another 15 years, they
would be passing through parts of the solar system fringes we will probably
never have access to for decades, if ever. Would be a pity to simply cut
them off and loose our link so far out into space... perhaps they can
consider an automated system to receive and log the data , and to only
trigger human intervention if a pre-determined change in data stream is
detected...

"Michael Lawson" wrote in message
news

"Max Power" wrote in message
...
Voyager probes in funding crisis

Nasa's twin Voyager probes may have to close down in October to save
money,
the US space agency has said.

Launched in 1977, Voyagers One and Two are now more than 14 billion
and 11
billion km from Earth, respectively.

They are on their final mission to locate the boundary between the
Sun's
domain and interstellar space.

But the agency's Earth-Sun System division has had to cut its budget
for
next year from $74m to $53m, meaning that some projects will be
abandoned.

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.

Other missions like Ulysses, which was launched in 1990 to explore
the Sun's
polar regions, might also have to be abandoned after the end of the
fiscal
year in October.

Although the decision is not yet final, some Nasa scientists are
preparing
themselves for the worst. Voyager project scientist Edward Stone of
the
California Institute of Technology told Nature magazine: "We are
currently
developing a plan for shutdown."
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/h...re/4338245.stm

That's not 4.2 mil for the probes themselves, but to perform
monitoring and data analysis. The probes will continue
to transmit until their power is exhausted; it's a matter of
someone listening, examining the data, and storing it. That
is what would be shutdown. No one is going to fly out
to beyond the solar system and shut down the probes or
anything.

To be honest, I'm surprised that NASA was still devoting
money towards Voyager, since they had already succeeded
in their missions.

--Mike L.