NASA Think Tank to be Shut Down 132
Matthew Sparkes writes "NASA will likely shut down its Institute for Advanced Concepts, which funds research into futuristic ideas in spaceflight and aeronautics. The move highlights the budget problems the agency is facing as it struggles to retire the space shuttles and develop a replacement. The institute receives $4 million per year from NASA, whose annual budget is $17 billion. Most of that is used to fund research into innovative technologies; recent grants include the conceptual development of spacecraft that could surf the solar system on magnetic fields, motion-sensitive spacesuits that could generate power and tiny, spherical robots that could explore Mars."
% of $17B/yr That is Wasted? (Score:5, Insightful)
If it is 0.1% loss that is $17m/yr. So what is with shutting down a program that may yield opportunities for far greater savings and benefits over time?
I suspect more efficiency program work would do better for NASA.
Re:% of $17B/yr That is Wasted? (Score:3, Insightful)
Can anyone think of anything that the US government is spending money on that it shouldn't?
NASA is dropping the ball... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:% of $17B/yr That is Wasted? (Score:2, Insightful)
I can think of about $100bn/yr expense that has been going on far a couple years
Shooting a good horse (Score:5, Insightful)
This makes about as much sense as shooting a perfectly good horse while you're riding through the middle of the desert.
NASA has been charged with getting back to the Moon and on to Mars and frankly needs all the innovative ideas and thinking they can find. So what do they do? Shut down the people who dream up advanced concepts! It's sad enough that they are going to try and go back to the Moon using souped-up Apollo-era technology, which I predict is a prescription for disaster, but they are not even giving themselves a fair chance of coming up with a better alternative.
My pride in and belief in NASA wanes more with each passing year.
NASA spends that much on receptions (Score:5, Insightful)
this idiotic decision is beyond pathetic.
if NASA is going to shut down research for political suckup stunts like mars, they might as well shut down, and let the chinese colonize space.
Penny wise, pound foolish (Score:5, Insightful)
4 million sounds like a very small amount in the grander scheme of things. Choices have to be made. I understand this. But isn't the entire point of NASA to do research? The very core reason it exists?
Maybe I only hear about the success stories that come out of think tanks. Maybe most of them squander away money in futile pursuits. As a previous poster mentioned, I would like to hear what they have accomplished in the past.
Re:I live outside the USA - please help me underst (Score:5, Insightful)
NASA budgeting has little to do with politics or even practical realities. NASA continues to try and thrive on the glory days of its leap to the Moon, even though the first landing was almost 41 years ago now. Whenever things are going bad, the President (choose any one you like) will announce plans for NASA to do something to make America proud and continue our long tradition of space exploration. However, not even Presidential boosterism can keep Congress from continually whittling away NASA's budget, to the point where it becomes a competition for money between the manned program (see as costly, inefficient, and dangerous) and the unmanned programs (see as cheap, flexible, and low-risk). Inevitably, the bulk of the budget goes to the manned program and some promising probes and instruments are shelved for lack of funds.
Now, I am a firm believer in the need for both the manned and unmanned programs. The fact is NASA is underfunded, and those funds could certainly come from somewhere else (DoD for example), but the bottom line with the American people always is, what's in it for me? Now, there a legion of examples of technology spun off from NASA applications, but those are not the kind of things that the everyday citizen is impressed with. And unless you are a Star Trek fan, the idea of exploration for exploration's sake is a dim memory, best left with Lewis & Clark. The sad fact is, unless NASA can come up with something stunning, that captures the imagination of Americans again, as the Moon landings did, this is just another stage in the deterioration of a proud agency that once carried this nation's pride to a new frontier.
Re:Penny wise, pound foolish (Score:5, Insightful)
Seems applicable here, too.
Not Exactly (Score:5, Insightful)
Not exactly. They feed $500M to SpaceX and Kistler to develop real-working rockets that can deliver to ISS. And yes, the money is contingent on success. Invoking private industry to develop the next generation of vehicles is the way to go.
It's sad enough that they are going to try and go back to the Moon using souped-up Apollo-era technology, which I predict is a prescription for disaster
As an aerospace engineer, I'm glad they are reverting to the apollo 'stack' concept. It is safer than the shuttle, in theory, and let's face it - the shuttle never reached its full potential as a 'space truck': dropping off and retrieving satellites. It only really efficiently used the payload bay during the construction (and continued construction) of ISS. All those missions where they just brought along a few pallets of experiments - think of all the wasted mass that was accelerated to orbit. The new system will compartmentalize equiptment from people, allowing for better scaling and efficiency. And better failure modes, using existing hardware with a proven track record (and failure modes that have been documented and corrected).
Re:Thnk tanks and this administration (Score:3, Insightful)
I always felt I was a moderate. As I get older and learn more, I'm beginning to believe I'm a Goldwater Conservative. Today that makes me a Liberal.
Re:% of $17B/yr That is Wasted? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:NASA is dropping the ball... (Score:3, Insightful)
No, NASA is not dropping the ball. They are planning to go back to the moon, live there and then on to Mars. NASA *is* doing big things. For one the ISS is a big thing although, it seems small to you it will be very helpful in the long run to know how to build and assemble a space station that is livable for many months at a time. FFS we're *living* in space. How is that not a big deal?
NASA does what they can with the funding they receive. George W. Bush is doing cut backs on the NASA program so they have to cut expenses on things that they decide are "unnecessary". They have to cut back expenses some where. Maybe if Bush didn't use the money to fund his war (notice I said *his* war) then NASA wouldn't have to cut back on programs that innovate and design new space craft and ideas. If NASA felt that this program was of upmost importance I'm sure they would not have stopped the funding.
It's brinksmanship (Score:5, Insightful)
No member of Congress is going to begrudge $4 million. It's a drop in the bucket. The average Senator and congressman earmarks more than that for their many pet local projects.
This is a pale shadow of what NASA used to represent: the scientific might of the world's most advanced country, boldly striding into space while the world watched in awe.
Today NASA just exists to keep its patchy old 1970s era shuttles flying, pouring billions into dead end maintenance efforts while the truly innovative efforts are moving to the private sector if not completely to other countries.
Frankly I think the U.S. has lost its will to explore space. Now everything needs to be justified by short term gain. The can-do, beat-the-Soviets mentality that drove us into orbit in the '50s and 60s seems to have been replaced by crass (and ignorant) focus on the bottom line. Of course, those early efforts resulted in massive technological advances, but today everything has to be directly and obviously profitable to even the stupidest politician before it gets any funding.
Let's vote out the war and vote in a $1 trillion increase in science budgets. That's my pet solution to the whole NASA problem.
Re:Not Exactly (Score:5, Insightful)
> Not exactly. They feed $500M to SpaceX and Kistler to develop real-working rockets that can deliver
> to ISS. And yes, the money is contingent on success. Invoking private industry to develop the next
> generation of vehicles is the way to go.
Building a rocket to go to the space station is not an advanced concept.
Building a space elevator using carbon nanotubes...that's advanced. Magnetic field drives...that's advanced. Solar sails, antimatter engines, gravitational drives...all advanced.
The whole point of research like this is to look for major leaps in science, technology, and engineering. The third-party space industry is concerned with profit, mainly by repeating what NASA and the military have been doing for about a half century. Maybe in thirty years they'll be in a position to concentrate on research like this...but I don't think SpaceX is concerning itself with warp drive just yet.
The NIAC, and the Breakthrough Propulsion Physics group before it, are about pushing for the future, not just resting on our chemically propelled century-old technological laurels.
Re:Can somebody give us a list... (Score:4, Insightful)
Why would that be important?
If we're looking for ways to do things better 50, 100, 200, 1000 years from now, why would we care about short term "...technologies...that have made it into practical use"?
Jim
Time to toss manned missions (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Can somebody give us a list... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:It's brinksmanship (Score:2, Insightful)
Someone else on the thread pointed out issues of waste, and I think that's a huge point. We can dump billions of dollars into science research, but if it's not well spent, that just hurts us more in the end. If we can't cure that disease, I'm sorry, but it's time to chop the limb. Unfortunately, I'm not convinced anyone is trying to cure the disease either. We are just letting it fester.