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New NASA Budget Woes
Posted by
timothy
on Sun May 22, 2005 05:40 PM
from the all-out-of-taxdollar-pie dept.
from the all-out-of-taxdollar-pie dept.
Abcd1234 writes "The last few months have seen NASA the focal point of high drama, the most obvious example being the controversy surrounding the next Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission. Well, the drama continues with NASA reporting to a Senate subcommitee that it currently faces a $2 billion budget shortfall which could result in the downsizing, delaying, or outright cancellation of a number of NASA missions, including the Space Interferometry Mission and Terrestrial Planet Finder, which may be delayed, and the James Webb Space Telescope, often cited as the successor to the HST, which faces potential cancellation. Among the reasons for the shortfall: cost overruns in a number of missions, including the shuttle return-to-flight program, resumption of the Hubble servicing mission, and mandated congressional expenditures (a.k.a 'pork')."
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get us off this rock (Score:3, Interesting)
a really solid plan for space exploration [issues2000.org].
And although he had his problems ( a few, ok more than a few,this post is
about the message not the messenger:) this was the only espoused program that
would have really had a chance to "get us off this rock". He at one
point even talked about the "conversion" of 1/2 of the military budget to the
space program (who would do that now?) we need to take this
seriously, it sucks being at the bottom of a gravity
well..
Not really (Score:2)
In addition, if Quayle really believed that, he had his 4 years. Yet, Quayle did not once push or change anything for the 4 years that he was in VP.
Re:Not really (Score:3, Informative)
As to the fallacy that the republican party cares about the deficit, well, here is the record. [hevanet.com] That is not to say that the democrats care. If they did, then they would have p
I like Griffin... (Score:3, Insightful)
Heres to hoping theres a nice earth like planet around 1-3AU from Alpha Centauri A =)
No big deal, really (Score:4, Funny)
An Example of a Short Sited Administration (Score:3, Interesting)
Or We will send enough troops to beat the Flintstone army, but not enough to keep Bedrock safe and orderly untill we can install a new government in Bedrock.
Duh!
Re:An Example of a Short Sited Administration (Score:5, Informative)
Hubble is a bird in the hand, and the JWST is two birds flying around in the future, and part of an organization that routinely starts and cancels projects.
Don't count your telescopes before they've hatched.
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Re:An Example of a Short Sited Administration (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:An Example of a Short Sited Administration (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:An Example of a Short Sited Administration (Score:3, Insightful)
They can't pick up a few bands that are filtered out by the atmosphere, but you're acting like the hubble is the only worthwhile telescope in the world. The ones in Hawaii look fantastic from where I'm sitting.
AND the Bush administration has increased the budget for the sciences. Doesn't sound like bible thumping fundies to me.
Re:An Example of a Short Sited Administration (Score:3, Funny)
Never explain by conspiracy... (Score:4, Insightful)
Your explanation is actually very optimistic. It describes an administration with a set (albeit evil) purpose, and, with sheer determination, remarkable acumen and awesome foresight, this demonic plan is achieved.
I think that this is actually giving credit to this bureaucratic mess known as NASA. They haven't been that organized since the Appolo days.
NASA is in survival mode. Its actions are not rational, they are guided by the panic of administrators that see their personal empires crumble.
NASA has admirable engineers and great scientists, but they don't get to make the decisions. Bureaucrats do. Evil geniuses need not apply. Now, on the other hand, if you know someone who can snowjob Congress, they are hiring...
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Strategies for space (Score:5, Insightful)
Science was a only by-product of Apollo.
We need something like Apollo to lay foundations to have more science done later at lower budgets. Until science is no longer hideously expensive, it won't be done.
It gets down to patience, objectives and the will to get from here to there.
Re:Strategies for space (Score:3, Insightful)
Spoken like a technie realist. Most politicians who voted for Apollo probably thought the by-product was showing the Russkies who had the baddest science and technology.
If Homeland Security can't buy an American computer or cell phone, that is quite a hole to dig ourselves out of today.
Why NASA? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Why NASA? (Score:3, Insightful)
Survivor Mars, The "M" Prize (Score:5, Funny)
Next season is survivor Afganistan. First team to go in and capture Osam gets a billion dollars. A real bargin and ratings gold. Could save broadcast TV and solve the budgt crisis at the same time! The government is so screwed up outsourcing to entertainment could solve all our problems.
A modest suggestion... (Score:5, Interesting)
NASA should hire some of those legendary Russian engineers who kept the Russian space program alive on a shoestring budget, using inelegant but practical solutions like kerosene rocket fuel. They should also hire the entire winning X-prize team. Mothball the shuttle program, focus less on manned space missions, increase R&D co-operation with private companies. Figuring a way to get payload into orbit cheaply should be the main mission.
Re:A modest suggestion... (Score:3, Informative)
Yeah, really inelegant in Apollo too! The first stage engines burned liquid oxygen and RP-1 (kerosene).
The Soviets tended to use hypergolic fuels, in which two components were mixed and would spontaneously combust. This reduced the need for complex ignition systems and makes for lighter engines. The Apollo lunar module also made use of hypergolic propellants.
Yeah, it's always tough to find the money (Score:3, Interesting)
$700,000 for the Admiral Theater in Bremerton, Washington, despite a $4.2 million privately-funded facelift
$500,000 for the Olympic Tree Program for the 2002 Winter Olympics.
$1,250,000 for Aleutian Pribilof church repairs.
$750,000 for the Ketchikan Wood Technology Center.
$400,000 for a parking lot and pedestrian safety access in Talkeetna (population 300).
$2,500,000 for marijuana eradication.
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Priorities, priorities. You know?
Re:Yeah, it's always tough to find the money (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Yeah, it's always tough to find the money (Score:3, Informative)
Tax us to our deaths, please, do (Score:2, Insightful)
Hubble Pictures (Score:2, Insightful)
Take a good look at those photos. How would you feel if NASA pulled the plug on such a successful project tomorrow, without a replacement for many years?
I think it would be a terrible shame if such an asset to the space program -- something that has had huge benefits to the world of Astronomy and science -- was just pulled out of the sky because of money troubles. It would be a sad reflec
Re:Hubble Pictures (Score:5, Insightful)
You can point at the pictures all you want, but the HST is still broken and outdated. Some great research has come out of it yes, but that doesn't mean that it's worth the cost of fixing. Some great research has come out of ground based telescopes too, but they're not as glamorous and don't put out as many pretty pictures for the public to ooh and ahh at. The ground based telescopes is where great research is coming from now, ask an astronomer. They put far less import on saving hubble than the general populace, and they're the ones who actually use it. Hubble is just a public-relations device anymore.
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Re:Hubble Pictures (Score:2, Insightful)
However, I do believe there is a place for space telescopes -- they provide pictures from outwith atmospheric interference/scattering, as well as being able to see further in many cases. The problem I have with NASA at the moment is not the inevita
Somekind of thingy I don't have a word for (Score:4, Insightful)
I read Toynbee and weird O. Spengler some years ago, along with many other historians but I can't recall a term that represents the construction of monuments to cement nation building.
just my .01 cent.
Re:Somekind of thingy I don't have a word for (Score:4, Insightful)
Uh you are really overselling the worth of the ISS. MIR was the first step to that goal not ISS and it was done for a fraction of the cost. MIR wasn't in great shape when it was abandoned but it was abandoned due to political pressure from the ISS not because it was done. Chances are slim the ISS will last any longer than the MIR did. The key ISS problem is there is very little happening on it that justifies the staggering price tag. One redeeming aspect of ISS is it kept all the good people in the Russian space program who build MIR employed since they build the heart of the ISS and in many respects its a MIR2 but done on a NASA scale budget which meant vast quantites of our tax dollars were squandered on it, lining the pockets of contractors.
The key problem with space stations are they are intensely dependent on cargo from earth to continue to function and at current launch costs those costs are steep. As others have noted you would be better served at this point to get launch costs down and then a large permenent presence in space would be more feasible. With current technology and approach keeping people in space is simply not sustainable. You have to throw away buckets of money every year that could better go elsewhere, and there isn't actually that much for people to do spinning around in a tin can in zero G in LEO, to justify the cost. A moon base is only slightly better. Zero G manufacturing was supposed to be a boon but you really dont hear any convincing case that it is. There is growing protein crystals and some material science work but its really debatable if that couldn't be done for a fraction of the cost of the $100 billion ISS price tag using robot spacecraft. At this point all NASA can use to justify the ISS is zero G biology, something that is of value for long duration space travel but simple CAN'T justify the $100 billion ISS price tag.
A permenent colony on Mars is probably the only manned endeavor that might be justifiable and sustainable because Mars "might" have enough resources, especially water to sustain a colony that is not completely dependent on Earth. I'm talking about sending people there who stay there and not some pointless Apollo style stunt where they plant a flag, pick up rocks and come home.
Mining asteroids might be another endeavor with some value especially as we exhaust the Earth's mineral resources but its not clear if men or robots would be better for this.
All in all this is just a sad story because it just highlights NASA's incompetence. They are spending staggering sums of money wringing there hands over every detail of the Space Shuttle and to no real long term purpose. All this money is ONLY to try and finish the ISS, with one exception a Hubble repair mission. The ISS is a staggering failure and no one has the guts to admit it and stop pouring every larger sums of money in to it, while it and the Shuttle bleed every other program with a point to death. If they do manage to finish the ISS then the shuttle is abandoned and all the money they are squandering on it now trying to reinvent it at a point it already obsolete, is down the tubes.
Simple problem here, NASA bureaucracy and its pork fed contractors Lockheed/Boeing are burning vast sums of money on the shuttle, ISS and their bottom lines to no productive end, and they are just continuing to do what they've done the last 20 years, bleed every other potential aerospace venture white to feed a corrupt empire.
Parent
Re:Somekind of thingy I don't have a word for (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes I am, while not wanting to appear flippant, I noted Stonehenge as an example of making a people in the image of an icon or wonder. I'm suggesting we build, and even overbuild, not because it's economically feasible but because it will meld the efforts of several nations in a symbol that transcends political differences. The spinoffs from developing and implementing new and bleeding edge technology are manifold and not always apparent. What I'm suggesting verges on a technological totemism and, as such, may seem bathotic, but I think we are subject to a very primitive brain barely overridden by the executive center of the cortex, and likely to respond very positively to making the ISS a la the Tower of Bable. When has space exploration been an economically driven enterprise? There is probably no similar project in all of history that didn't pork feed contractors.
One of the biggest blunders to come from the baby boomer generation was the demonization of nuclear power and it was extended to the Orion project. It may be that a transnational enterprise would manage to escape the hysteria surrounding nuclear powered spacecraft giving support to Project Prometheus [wired.com]. (It's not uninteresting as an aside that James Lovelock [wikipedia.org], formulator of the famed, Gaia hypothesis now advocates development of nuclear power because were out of time to search out alternatives in the face of depletion and pollution of oil.)
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Get with the (space) program, fellas. (Score:5, Funny)
Off the cuff, I can think of much snappier names -- "Intragalactic Terrorist Locator" for the planet spotting thingy, "George H.W. Bush Memorial Telescope" should make it politically impossible to cancel the Hubble replacer, and for that Space Interfrazometer Moozit, let's license the sucker to Electronic Arts/Maxis and call it "SIMS in Outer Space."
Re:Get with the (space) program, fellas. (Score:3, Insightful)
The world is far too preoccupied with the "image" of things, not the substance.
Re:Get with the (space) program, fellas. (Score:3, Funny)
Budget fudging (Score:3, Insightful)
It amazes me... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Wait A Minute... (Score:2, Informative)
So other areas of NASA still require funding from other areas or other areas of the government.
Spotlight For Windows [bravehost.com]
Re:Wait A Minute... (Score:3, Funny)
The Trick Is... (Score:5, Insightful)
There is very little out there to capitalize on (you know...the root of capitalism?). I don't think people realize how hard it is to travel out there (in terms of size, durability, and other huge problems). What does a company do with space exploration? If the rings of Saturn were made of gold nuggets we would be there. If there where diamons the size of boulders on Mars we'd be there. Unfortunately by all measurements these places are remarkable but not useful for any buisness on Earth.
I don't think you'll have MD, Boeing, Airbus or anyone else lining up to fund their own excursions into deep space because there is simply no money to make out there. Remember that Columbus had a plan to make money before going on his little trip. Expecting companies to explore space just because is unrealistic.
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Re:The Trick Is... (Score:3, Insightful)
I doubt gold and diamonds would get anyone in space. Sure, it'd be nice to replace all the copper wires on the planet with gold, but I think it's simply not a profitable enough venture to go anywhere in spac
Re:The Trick Is... (Score:3, Interesting)
That's probably a little farfetched to accept right off, so I'll divulge a simpler scenario. Once we have general purpose machinery and robotics capable of replication and production
Re:The Trick Is... (Score:3, Interesting)
Suppose, worst case scenario, that someone had general purpose machinery and used it to dominate everyone else. Only three things could come out of that:
1) Revolution. Oppressed peoples rising up (and in this case they truly are oppressed since the person keeping the universal replicator doesn't have much right to keep it since it, by definition, is worth
Re:The Trick Is... (Score:2, Interesting)
Bullshit!
Not profitable? You must be kidding. How about the airline industry? Other than some clouds and air, what's in the sky? Takes like 90 min for the shuttle to go around Earth right? NYC to LA in an hour? Maybe expensive, but then again, look at the things bought by people with a TON of money.
What you are saying, is we should only do stuff we know is profitable right? Ask any major company to comment on that question. OBVIOUSLY we would rather just fund stuff we know will have a high ROI.
Re:The Trick Is... (Score:2)
Gold and diamonds are pretty worthless in space. There just aren't any ladies around. Silicium, oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, aluminium and iron would be far more interesting for construction.
Re:The Trick Is... (Score:5, Insightful)
Nearly all satellites built in the US are built by private companies (sometimes with gov't funding, sometimes private, depending on the application). Launch vehicles are designed and built by private companies (typically designed under contract with the gov't, with construction paid for by whoever is getting the lift)
Deep space and earth orbiting science applications will likely remain gov't funded for the forseeable future, unless the private foundations that fund things like ground based science and telescopes decide to start funding space based research.
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Re:The Trick Is... (Score:3, Insightful)
Yah, but ironically his plan was complete vaporware. He had no hope of reaching India that way. The Earth's diameter was much larger than he estimated.
Ohhh, I can just imagine the roar on Slashdot (Score:2, Funny)
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Oh, the pain! Oh the pain!
HEY MODERATORS - was "Privatize NASA" (Score:3, Insightful)
In fact most people don't renember back in the 70's when an invenstor wanted to pull together some capital and buy some old Atlas missle shells and turn it into a pivate satellite launch program. Only to have the whole thing administratively killed by NASA.
Also, other countries are building very profitable space programs while the US lingers - even though
Re:Aren't we at war? (Score:2)
Of course not going to war based on lies so you can have the money to furhter science and humanity in the first place might be a good idea too.
Re:Aren't we at war? (Score:5, Insightful)
Doonsbury used this quote in one of his cartoons with a punchline that it was too bad GWB was apparently a child left behind and was unable to read his Dads book.
Form a post above I learned that Quayle had actually proposed spending half our military budget on space development. Eventhough I probably disagree with Quayle on every other issue he would have received my vote.
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Re:Aren't we at war? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:lets get our shit on earth fixed first (Score:5, Insightful)
That's the same as saying we should never do anything in space. The world has had problems for thousands of years, I don't see paradise-on-earth being established anytime soon.
So if you really believe this, let's get serious. Let's stop making movies, since they cost a ton of money and don't contribute to solving the world's problems. Let's outlaw the gambling industry. Let's shut down tourism, too. Let's make people give up their pets -- Americans spend way more on their pets every year than NASA gets.
And of course, the US military budget is about 10X NASA's budget, maybe we should trim *that* back until after we've solved illiteracy, poverty, world hunger, AIDS & cancer, etc.
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