Collisionless shocks in astrophysical plasmas are important; thermalizers, converting some of the incident flow energy into thermal; energy, and non-thermalizers, partitioning that energy in unequal ways; to different particle species, sub-populations thereof, and field; components. This partition problem, or equivalently the shock equation; of state, lies at the heart of shock physics. Here we employ; systematically a framework to capture all the incident and downstream; energy fluxes at two example traversals of the Earth's bow shock by the; Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission. Here and traditionally such data has; to be augmented by information from other spacecraft, e.g., to provide; more accurate measurements of the cold solar wind beam. With some care; and fortuitous choices, the energy fluxes are constant, including; instantaneous measurements through the shock layer. The dominant; incident proton ram energy is converted primarily into downstream proton; enthalpy flux, the majority of which is actually carried by a small; fraction of suprathermal protons. Fluctuations include both real and; instrumental effects. Separating these, resolving the solar wind beam,; and other considerations point the way to a dedicated mission to solve; this energy partition problem across a full range of plasma and shock; conditions.
