NASA Considers Privatizing GALEX Astrophysics Satellite

hogghogg writes "The GALEX spacecraft (surveying the Universe in ultraviolet wavelengths at which the atmosphere is close to opaque) is coming to the end of its budget life, but it hasn't finished imaging the entire sky and is still (fairly) functional. A group at Caltech wants to keep it running, so NASA is considering transfer of ownership under the Stevenson-Wydler Technology Innovation Act, which 'allows the transfer of government-owned excess research equipment to educational institutions and non-profit organizations.' Many NASA missions are terminated for budget reasons at the end of a prescribed period, even while the hardware is still highly functional. Although this is the first-ever transfer from NASA of a functioning satellite, maybe this is just the start for a class of privately run astronomical and Earth-observing facilities in space?"

Win win

[captainpanic]

It's a win win situation.

Win 1. It gets NASA some money. Compared to no money at all, that's a win.
Win 2. It gets a university or other institute a fantastic toy for a bargain price. Compared to a new satellite, that's a win.

Lose lose

[vikingpower]

It's a lose lose situation: 1) Scientists worldwide become dependent upon private initiatives; we have seen with European universities having to collect so-called 3rd-party funding what that does to research levels 2) In the long run, it causes NASA to lose ( even more ) competence; competence and know-how loss at NASA is already going on at a dishearteningly rate

Re:Win win

[unixisc]

Win 3: It gets interested parties, like universities or other research organizations - profit or not - into doing something whose use to the taxpayer is arguable, and which therefore shouldn't be funded by government. This way, taxpayers don't pay for this, but people who are interested can either pay for it, work on it, or do whatever that either increases its lifespan, or makes maximum use of its remaining life

Re:Plunder of people's money

[ExecutorElassus]

Well, "privatize" should here be taken with a grain of salt. The S-W Act only allows sale to non-profit or educational institutions. That's hardly on the same scale as selling it to, say, Koch Industries. Research institutions, in particular, operate onder fairly strict guidelines regarding what they can do with their property (for example, a university I worked at for a while had a huge scandal a few years ago when it discovered the facilities manager taking home stuff they were throwing out). Even surplus property has to be disposed of in a manner that insures it doesn't fall into private hands. So if some university is taking over the satellite, that's not such a huge degradation of public utility, or ownership.
And, if that means that more NGOs get involved in managing space hardware - particularly for exploratory purposes - I'm not terribly opposed.