White House Wants Devastating Cuts To NASA's Mars Exploration 422
The Bad Astronomer writes "The White House released its proposed NASA budget for FY13, and while much of it remains the same from last year, one particular program got devastating news: Mars exploration got a crippling $226 million cut, more than 38% of its budget. This means killing two future missions outright and threatening others. The reasons for this are complex, including huge cost overruns on James Webb Space Telescope and the Curiosity Mars rover, but it also points to a political lack of valuing science in America."
A followup to news from before the budget was released, this has details on the actual proposed cuts and re-allocations.
It's a good thing the military is still funded... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:It's a good thing the military is still funded. (Score:4, Interesting)
Because who needs progress in science?
The 50%+ who are in love with government hand-outs and have forgotten how to provide for themselves are dependent. Cut them off and they're also desperate. Think "political suicide" desperate at best, "rioting in the streets" desperate at worst. So politicians are afraid to cut the real excesses which are the entitlement programs and they are afraid to fix the fucked-up tax code where 46% pay no income tax at all. If you must view that through your political lenses and get offended and hypersensitive, so be it, but it's the truth about why this situation won't change. When a nation gets into this kind of dependency hole for the sake of political power it's hard to get back out, just ask Greece.
It doesn't matter how you feel about the poor and how to best care for them. It doesn't matter when we can't afford to do it anymore, then no one gets much of anything you see. So they cut science to be seen "doing something" about the ridiculous debt that is now about equal to GDP.
Politics got us here. After all people will vote for the guy who gives them free money. Then they'll be scared of the guy who says maybe all that free money costs too much and his career goes *poof*. Something more reasonable than politics is the only way out.
Re:It's a good thing the military is still funded. (Score:4, Insightful)
Riddle me this, Batman:
What percentage of the total pie of income does that 46% who pay no taxes make?
Answer that, and you'll understand why the people who aren't so upset about that particular factoid see you as the one seeing a distorted world through a "political lens". (As it happens -- the Tax Policy Center, who made the 46% estimate, has a much more level-headed assessment [taxpolicycenter.org]).
s/pay no taxes/pay no income taxes/ [nt] (Score:2)
Blugh. Not the same thing at all, as the TPC paper explains.
Re:It's a good thing the military is still funded. (Score:4, Informative)
Oh look it's this lie again. Payroll tax. Sales tax. The "46% pay no tax" myth comes from income tax only.
Re:It's a good thing the military is still funded. (Score:5, Insightful)
"What percentage of the total pie of income does that 46% who pay no taxes make?"
Riddle me this, Blindman:
What percentage of that 46% who pay no taxes would have voted differently had they been paying to the system even a MINIMUM of 1% of their income? And what if that 1% were tied to the highest tax bracket at a 1:5 ratio such that if you want to raise the highest tax bracket from 35% to 45%, you'd need to raise the lowest from 1% to 3%?
Think of how the masses might yowl for more responsible government spending and vote for people who enforced the spending of their money. Think of how differently this huge voting block might vote if it meant THEIR taxes would go up so they could get "more stuff".
Taxing the "rich" more fairly shouldn't cause us to ignore taxing EVERYONE at SOME rate so we're ALL invested in the system.
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It seems that what we need is to clarify what the effective tax rate of everyone is. This is quite difficult to do, due to the Federal nature of the US government. There are many different levels of government (National, State, County, Local) applying many different taxes (Income, Sales, Property, etc...).
I agree that knowledge of their exact total tax rate (and the rates of others) would affect v
Re:It's a good thing the military is still funded. (Score:5, Insightful)
"The only reason those that pay no FEDERAL INCOME tax (and that's the percentage you're citing) is because they don't make enough. They're either unemployed, or unemployable (disabled, illness, whatever)."
From my perspective, the only VALID reason to pay no FEDERAL INCOME tax is that they have no INCOME. People shouldn't get more back as a tax RETURN than they actually pay in taxes. People should also only be able to reduce their tax burden down to a mandated MINIMUM. Not ZERO or NEGATIVE (where they get money back).
Even if you make $1, you should pay 1%. One penny. If you make $25,000, you should pay 1% (right now it's zero -- and often they get more money BACK than they actually PAID). That comes to 250 per year, or about $21 a month. Get them invested in the system.
Now, lets go back to having EVERYONE participate in the system -- a system everyone already can VOTE for people who spend public money, but only about half of us actually CONTRIBUTE to the public pie. THAT is fairness incarnate!
"It is also the wealthy who benefit dramatically from the Federal Government (especially the legal and commerce systems, transportation, etc), both directly and indirectly... not to mention the police that are protecting their wealth."
That statement is SUCH a cop out. It's EVERYONE who EATS FOOD who benefit dramatically from the Federal Government (ESPECIALLY the legal and commerce systems -- and PARTICULARLY transportation). You just try to find food in Los Angeles or New York city if the legal system breaks down -- or the transport system breaks down -- or the ability to move/buy/sell goods breaks down.
WE ALL benefit dramatically from the system. We should ALL be vested in the system at SOME minimal level.
Re:It's a good thing the military is still funded. (Score:4, Informative)
I have a comment that explains that there is no such thing as an 'income tax' [slashdot.org], it's a ruse. There are only 'profit' taxes, and individuals have no profits to pay any of that.
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No. I'm willing to bet you've never made anywhere near as low as $25,000 in your adult life, otherwise you'd know what $250 means to them. They spend all of their money. ALL of it. That's why it's called living paycheck to paycheck. My in-laws make slightly less than that in rural Ohio, and those "tax windfalls" mean things like replacing a decades old, leaky refrigerator, or fixing a car that's been broken down in front of their house for months (yes, those are what their last two tax refunds went to).
Re:It's a good thing the military is still funded. (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, the 46% who pay no taxes don't make much at all. So? That isn't the underlying issue.
The parent nailed the underlying issue: People are addicted to government handouts and would rather say "To hell with Mars" than try to do something for themselves. The majority of the people reading/posting on Slashdot are going to be able to fend for themselves and would rather see our tax dollars going to something useful rather than 'entitlements.' But until 50% of the nation thinks in this way and they vote with that in mind, things aren't going to change for the better. At best, we will keep the status quo and at worst, the US will be another Greece in a few years.
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Most people at some time in their lifetimes will accept some kind of assistance from the federal government. You seem to think that because you have a job, you can "fend for yourself" and everything the government does is a sponge off of your effort. "Something useful rather than 'entitlements'". At some point in your life, your parents are going to need their social security. Your aunt is going to need Medicaid or Medicare. Your neighbor may need SSI. Your co-worker is going to need short-term disabi
Re:Underlying Issue (Score:4, Interesting)
Hmm, this is a slightly strange thread. Several of the key comments are AC.
Trying to be clear - we're talking about why we can't go to Mars, because it's "too expensive", right?
So then we're getting into expenses vs handouts.
So has no one noticed the *other* two colossal drains of money? The Security Theatre (Now Playing!) and the Big Brother Engine. We're spending money to watch ourselves not-spend-money. (Copyright)
What happened is that we have decided/proved we are not socially mature enough to avoid the Eternal Paranoia trap of the Post-911-World - on land!
Can you imagine how tight the conditions are on a Mars mission? All the AC's keep saying "what would a Mars mission teach us?"
Answer: How to survive on REALLY limited resources!
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Yes the poor pay a smaller percentage tax then the rich. However with 46% not paying tax combined with the fact that they are also recipients of extra services is a problem.
I am not some raving republican stating that we should remove welfare, because we need it, without it the poor will do whatever it takes to survive and whatever it takes will be highly criminal. However if close to half the population isn't paying their share for services then
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Everyone /does/ pay something, idiot. Sales taxes. Property taxes. Social Security. Medicare. Gasoline.
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When did the Feds implement a sales and property tax...idiot.
Re:It's a good thing the military is still funded. (Score:4, Informative)
it's not? It pays oldtimers with money the newcomers bring to the table and promises today's newcomers that their turn will come. It's very sensitive to demographic changes (as in going belly up when numbers of newcomers dwindle)
It's a government mandated ponzi scheme at its core, period.
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EVERYONE should pay something. Even it it's just $10.
Better would be if everyone had to write a check to the Feds each month. Withholding hides what's happening to your income.
Someone may owe only $6000, had $7000 withheld and they are happy to get $1000 back as if it was a gift. If they had to write a check each month to the Feds for $500, attitudes on taxing would change overnight.
Any fair reading by anyone with a moderate intelligence level would have understood the context. You either didn't, or you jus
Re:It's a good thing the military is still funded. (Score:5, Insightful)
The 50%+ who are in love with government hand-outs and have forgotten how to provide for themselves are dependent.
Have you looked at the actual breakdown of that segment of the population?
Take how many of them are senior citizens, who previously paid in taxes, but are now in retirement/subsidence mode. Take how many of them are disabled who can barely tie their own shoes, or the parents/caretakers of such. Take how many of them are children. Take how many of them are barely adults.
Yeah, your picture isn't so easy to condemn when you actually look at the people, not your manufactured strawman of people who you think are lazy pond-suckers.
Tell me it's wrong to be dependent when you're past your prime, when you're just a child, or where through, more than likely no fault of your own, you can't manage much of anything in life?
Tell me how you think you're going to change that, and why.
Cut them off and they're also desperate. Think "political suicide" desperate at best, "rioting in the streets" desperate at worst. So politicians are afraid to cut the real excesses which are the entitlement programs and they are afraid to fix the fucked-up tax code where 46% pay no income tax at all.
And you want them to be desperate, because you believe in a survivalist mindset...but tell us what their income is. Please tell us what taking 100% of what they have would mean.
If you must view that through your political lenses and get offended and hypersensitive, so be it, but it's the truth about why this situation won't change. When a nation gets into this kind of dependency hole for the sake of political power it's hard to get back out, just ask Greece.
Yeah, ask Greece how they feel about the international bankers dictating their national policy.
If they were really smart, they'd say "Screw this" and cut themselves off from the foreign system. Of course, they know they're too small to make that viable, but they should do it, just because the austerity measures forced upon them are going to cause the same harm.
It doesn't matter how you feel about the poor and how to best care for them. It doesn't matter when we can't afford to do it anymore, then no one gets much of anything you see. So they cut science to be seen "doing something" about the ridiculous debt that is now about equal to GDP.
Ridiculous debt? Right. Because debt is something you pay off in a year of your entire income for some reason. Stop buying into the fallacy of large numbers, it looks scary to you the individual, but you know what? I know folks who have a lot more debt than the average spread about per person. Somehow they realize, that's ok, they got it for a reason, and they realize what they get from it.
The problem is they can't see what they get from government spending. It's just beyond their notice.
Politics got us here. After all people will vote for the guy who gives them free money. Then they'll be scared of the guy who says maybe all that free money costs too much and his career goes *poof*. Something more reasonable than politics is the only way out.
Great, now we see your motivations. You want to make the people lose their bread because you think it's all circuses. Too bad you don't realize where the real money is going. The sums that go to the poor are not the majority share of government spending on special interests, they aren't even a plurality. They're a drop in the bucket.
But ok, let's say you take away the welfare. You know what happens? People realize they are going to starve. That's your intent, right? To give them the impetus to get out and do something. Nevermind the fact that many of them are senior citizens or disabled, you'll push them all the same.
Guess what? They aren't going to do what you think. They're going to go out and take what they want, because you know what
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Tell me it's wrong to be dependent when you're past your prime, when you're just a child, or where through, more than likely no fault of your own, you can't manage much of anything in life?
- sure it's wrong. It's not a 'collective' problem that forces individuals into becoming slaves to that system for no fault of their own.
Vote with our feet, that's what we must do to avoid being put into this position of perpetual slavery by the socialist propaganda.
Don't get fooled by accounting tricks. (Score:3)
the fucked-up tax code where 46% pay no income tax at all.
Hey, only 54% more to go.
No, but really, your statement is false. Income taxes are part of the cost of goods. On an average basis, 22% of the price of good you pay in the store goes to pay the income taxes of those in the product stream.
If your taxes went up $10000, you'd want $10000 more from your employer (with a small margin of elasticity) and your employer would raise his prices to cover that. By time the income taxes of the farmer, the fertil
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Do you want the society of China or Mexico here? The dramatic air pollution and water pollution of China, or the slums and crime of Mexico?
You DO realize that with our taxes, we buy civilization, right? We buy clean air and water, peaceful neighborhoods, and other basic quality of life.
What we really need to get rid of (after fixing the tax code so that the wealthy are returned to paying their fair share) is all the corporate welfare and tax-breaks for highly profitable businesses, as well as trimming som
Re:It's a good thing the military is still funded. (Score:4, Insightful)
No kidding. I mean that 225 million savings is going to go oh so far!!! As somebody who tends to be in the center of politics I have to say that I am completely disappointed in Obama. He has turned out to be a poor example of a president. Yes yes blame the congress and house as well. I think what bothers me the most with him is his lack of leadership. Yes you can argue that the Republicans are trying to call him out. BUT a great leader like Regan, or Clinton just stared down other politicians. Obama makes bold statments and then backs off in a major way. There is compromise, but there is also taking a stand and setting a clear path.
Re:It's a good thing the military is still funded. (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe you think this about a luddite Obama, but it's more about the fact that the government is squeezed in all quarters. The deficit roars, pension and public programs liability soars, there are huge pressures to keep taxes down in the face of an economic recovery, and it's not a wonder that Mars trip funding gets a heel on the garden hose.
This isn't about leadership, this is about revenue. Go tell your friends that the government is nearly broke and needs real funding. Then, bills assuaged, we can dream about Mars and beyond. Until then, the piggy bank is empty, as in no dough.
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It isn't about revenue, either. The government has... lots of money.
It's about spending. I.e. the government having absolutely no self-control over it. Spending went up 16% from 2008 to 2009, and in recent years has been nearly a quarter (~24.4% of the US GDP), compared to closed to a fifth over the preeceding 40-odd years (~20%). A government that spends 3.5 trillion doesn't have a revenue problem.
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Sadly, you're wrong. There's a Libertarian-ish meme out there that purports this, but indeed, there's a revenue problem of horrific size. The outflows of money are huge, despite how much money the Fed has printed. There must be real work done to surfeit the GDP; raw materials and work applied is the crux of the economy. From there, it becomes more complex.
We are a larger, and more complex economy than most people realize. We have far too many US corporate products sequestered offshore, instead of being taxe
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Re:It's a good thing the military is still funded. (Score:4, Insightful)
1999: end of the DotCom boom
2012: end of the war in Iraq after nine years; still going in Afghanistan after nine years; war on terror still moving; banks nearly collapse in 2008, still ongoing.
And sometimes deficits are what happen when the world goes nuts. Deficits don't mean justice. Deficits don't mean luxury. Deficits mean you got to live, rather than die, or go into deep financial depression.
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We must disagree. And the funded programs you speak of are funded in different ways.
Spending? Yes, it's badly done. But we're not ready to blow money on Mars travel until the other issues are taken care of. Perhaps we can agree on that.
The problems in Greece are a red herring for this argument. That problem has been brewing for decades. It's a different culture, and the problems Greece faces are for vastly different circumstances. Drawing parallels to Greece isn't tenable.
No one said their was a free lunch.
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But for a bit of luck, you're off welfare. Don't be so quick to judge.
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Re:It's a good thing the military is still funded. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's a good thing the military is still funded. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:It's a good thing the military is still funded. (Score:4, Informative)
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Doesn't the military drive some science/research forward?
Yes, the military needs to be trimmed back SOME (including some overseas base closures that should've probably happened when The Wall Fell over 20 years ago, but the military should remain strong.
This whole cutting rinky dink Mars programs is a waste of time. The real issue is cutting back on the trillions going into social services (social security, medicare, etc.) while not raising revenue. The social programs were started when we had a huge industr
Gullible voters say what? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a good thing the military is still funded... Because who needs progress in science?
It's stunning that this post made it to plus five, and shows just how insidious misinformation can be.
Obama's budget CUTS military spending. Not reduces the growth rate. CUTS. By tens of billions of dollars. The DoD budget in 2012 was $671 billion [deathandtaxesposter.com]. Obama's proposal for 2013 puts it at $620.3 billion [nytimes.com]
If you follow that second link, you can see the cuts/increases broken out by department. You'll see that the biggest cuts hit the military, the Department of Homeland Security (especially hitting the TSA), the FBI, and the ATF. There are also big scary red circles on the DOL (but that's due to decreasing unemployment and thus decreases in unemployment benefits paid out) and Federal Student Aid (but look closely and you'll see its a reduction in mandatory spending offset by a matching increase in discretionary spending). And finally, there's NASA, being cut by a whopping 0.3%.
This is like a Slashdotter's dream budget. Cuts to the military and the TSA and all the other three-letter bogeymen, increases to science spending, and a reduction in overall spending. But by focusing one single tiny program, just 0.006% of the budget, the article submitter was able to masterfully manipulate scores of people into thinking that this budget is bad and anti-science.
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Re:It's a good thing the military is still funded. (Score:5, Insightful)
So we had no military science before the 1950's?
RADAR - military science from the 1930's (no space exploration there - but it was done by the Brits)
Computers - military science from the 1940's (no space exploration there - but it was done by the Brits)
Nuclear power - Rutherford was playing with this in Manchester, England (damn, Brits again) he split the atom in 1917
Advanced maths - parabolic trajectories - that was Galileo in the 1500's (Italian)
Ironclad ships - 1800's (French)
Screw propellor - 1810's (Brits again)
Jet engines - 1930's (Brits again)
So what military science have we got since the space program.
Stealth - low radar & low visible profiles were worked on since RADAR was invented.
'digital camo print' - continual development from existing designs & theories (see dazzle camo)
SCRAMJET - continued development from Jet
laser - not space based
pulse jet - development from existing tech
hovercraft (damned Brits again) and not space based
Space based stuff :-)
GPS - space based progession of existing radio beacon systems.
ICBM - space based (although space is a development from this rather than the other way round)
Satellite comms - progession from existing radio comms systems
satellite recon - progression from existing plane overflight photography
memory foam mattresses - I sleep well at night
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I think you'll find that's the other way around.
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Space exploration is where most of our military science came from in the first place.
Demonstrably false. America's first rocket... the Redstone... was an evolution of captured German V-2 technology to give the Air Force a ballistic missile. It was adapted from military use to civilian purposes, not the other way around. You've got it backwards. Our space technology was spawned from military technology. From the very beginnings of the space program, rockets, technology, pilots... all of it came from military sources.
Confused (Score:5, Insightful)
Didn't we just read a story yesterday that indicated some fairly substantial increases in overall research funding? It seems to me that this indicates a preference for certain research programs over others, not "a political lack of valuing science in America." I mean, you can quibble about which programs got the axe, or say that the overall raises in funding were insufficient, but to point at one research project among the hundreds or thousands that the federal government funds; and use that alone as evidence for a failure in will hardly seems reasonable. It sounds to me more like "My favorite program got cut! Americas hates teh sciences!!!1!one!"
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Or he could have simply cut some entitlement program and left NASA's budget intact. But that would make too much sense.
Re:Confused (Score:5, Informative)
NASA's budget was left close to intact, at $17.7 billion, down from about $17.75 billion this year. The main change wasn't overall funding for NASA, but reallocating where the money is spent within NASA.
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Your facts do not answer the main point of the OP: the US should dismantle it's few remaining safety net programs. Admittedly that point has nothing to do with this story, but the mods apparently do not see that as a problem.
Re:Confused (Score:4, Insightful)
Safety nets are fine, just not when people use them as hammocks.
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Perhaps you don't remember back when Clinton instated a 2-year limit on the amount of time people could spend on welfare without working, and a 5-year lifetime cap?
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Nope. I was in primary school then. However, I know people that have lived off the system for 20 years and continue to do so.
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Re:Confused (Score:5, Insightful)
My thoughts exactly. This post sounds too much like partisan drivel intended to smear Obama. I mean, it may be a shame to cut spending on a specific space exploration program. Yet, to go from some spending cuts to it also points to a political lack of valuing science in America, even after Obama asked for increasing public investment on research [slashdot.org], is a bit too much to swallow.
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Re:Confused (Score:5, Insightful)
The summary is far from partisan it is written from someone who wants mars exploration and does not want the funding for it cut. That some other project got funding does not matter if it is not something you value.
It's one thing to criticize how a specific project is being funded. It's an entirely different thing to claim that reducing the funding of a specific project "points to a political lack of valuing science in America." One someone accuses the administration responsible for this specific spending cut of being responsible for "a political lack of valuing science", while ignoring historical funding increases in other areas, then we are way beyond criticizing a specific project and well into dishonest partisan bickering.
Re:Confused (Score:5, Insightful)
Keep in mind that this is the President's proposed budget. It's up to congress to actually spend money. And although they haven't got off their collective lazy butts to pass a budget, they've had no trouble spending (or wasting) money.
What we do have is direct evidence of the President's lack of commitment to a manned space program. He doesn't want to come right out and say that given the romantic attachment Americans have to the history of the program. Still, at every turn this President has paid lip service to the notion of a manned program and then cut the legs off when he thought no one might be looking.
And to the parent, this isn't quibbling. It's a statement of fact.
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Re:Confused (Score:5, Interesting)
Manned space exploration != Mars. Obama wants industry to handle LEO, and NASA instead to focus on solving the hard problems of manned deep space exploration (with the implication that he expects industry to ride their coat tails to the Asteroid Belt). This is perfectly consistent with his stated goals.
To put it another way, if we needed to leave the planet in a hurry, Mars is utterly impractical. It will take centuries to terraform it, if it's even feasible. On the other hand, if industry can be persuaded to work out how to knock the kinks out of ground to LEO travel, and to learn how to build safe long-term habitats (for instance, hotels) with materials gathered from deep space, then we might just stand a chance.
Re:Confused (Score:4, Informative)
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Didn't we just read a story yesterday that indicated some fairly substantial increases in overall research funding? It seems to me that this indicates a preference for certain research programs over others...
It's the James Webb telescope. The program was initiated in 1997 with an estimated budget of $0.5 billion and a launch date 10 years in the future. In 2002 when the telescope got its name, the program cost was estimated at $2.5 billion and launch date 8 years in the future. As of 2011 the cost estimate is $8.7 billion and launch date 7 years in the future. If we'd been able to hold the program costs at 2010 levels, that would be a lifetime cost difference of $2.2 billion. That could easily have funded al
We still have the Russians (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:We still have the Russians (Score:4, Insightful)
It's probably up for grabs whether the Europeans will soldier on; they're having their own problems. Joint venture between Russia and China, perhaps.
That's a few weeks if not days of Iraq War in cost (Score:5, Insightful)
California taxpayers alone are on the hook for $21.8 billion for the fiscal year of 2011 for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I mean really...we can't find $226 million from all national the taxpayers to fund cutting edge science? Science that will have an everyday impact on our lives once NASA's technology becomes consumer grade. But we can steal $21.8 billion in one year from one state alone to fund the wars? Wonderful.
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Why waste money on science that Americans will ignore anyway?
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They'll stop ignoring it once it turns into the next must-have appliance, like a refrigerator or microwave oven.
Re:That's a few weeks if not days of Iraq War in c (Score:4, Funny)
Sadly my cynicism seems to think that as a species we are going to sit here in the grave of a planet we are digging, kill each other, and slowly be choked to death from our own shit and effluent which we so handily ignore.
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Nice thought, you are quite right though. Either that or put a torrent site up there, thirty days and the lawyers would invade. Mars habitat... done. All it will take is a few MP3s and a movie or two.
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For that reason, I support focusing on problems now, and let the universities/private funding mature/progress the technology to get to Mars reliably in the mean time.
It is very much the computing/long thought problem. We progress in tec
Re:That's a few weeks if not days of Iraq War in c (Score:4, Funny)
statist alert (Score:2, Funny)
we can't find $226 million from all national the taxpayers to fund cutting edge science?
As a long suffering taxpayer and patriot, the answer is clearly no. If you want to fund a mission to mars, go ahead and write a check, but stop stealing from the mouths of me and my children to fund an incompetent government that just claims the innovations made by PRIVATE individuals as its own. In the future, you should do some basic reading [amazon.com] before asking such questions.
Short Answer (Score:2)
The short answer is yes we can afford it but the current climate of unnecessary and dangerous austerity just to make small numbers even smaller is not going away any day soon. Those on the other side have to pick their fights and decided that for a number of reasons "Mars Exploration" isn't one they can back.
Private sector does it cheaper, faster, better... (Score:2, Interesting)
Honestly a lot of what private sector has done comes on the back of NASA engineers but companies like these http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_private_spaceflight_companies are able to do it many order of magnitudes cheaper. If it was 20% you wouldn't hear much about it... but they are able to do it upwards of 80% cheaper so far. Lets assume they are way off their numbers (which so far it doesn't look so) they still can do it half as cheap. The reasons for this is that NASA has gotten comfortable with the
Budget Overruns (Score:2, Interesting)
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You think that's bad? You should be he one who has to read it!
I want to go to mars as much as the next guy... (Score:2)
Ok, so I want to see us explore mars and space in general. I want this a lot. I think it's important, interesting, exciting, and more. And I really wish we weren't in the financial situation we are in the US, but we are. I don't think this is a matter of the administration valuing space exploration less, but more of a reflection that we can't continue spending recklessly forever.
Mars, space exploration, and science in general are very important for the human kind and the US' wellbeing in general. But w
You've got to think about the day after tomorrow. (Score:3)
One of the keys to debt reduction is focusing on cutting big ticket items first. If you're living beyond your means, chances are it's because of your housing costs. If you are renting a $3,000 apartment, it doesn't make sense to try to balance a $1,500 budget deficit by cutting out 1 $10 cup of coffee every week. And it makes even less sense to cut out your $10 birth control medication or something like that.
Likewise, if your nation is spending $3,000 billion on social programs and military spending, and th
Suddenly Newt becomes tempting... (Score:5, Insightful)
I always find it sad that people cannot see both the benefits of space exploration/colonization, and the need for it.
Seriously, one errant asteroid and all those trillions spent on welfare and war seem pretty stupid.
Human Race....R.I.P.
10,000 B.C. - 2012 A.D.
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The downside is that Newt would also spend trillions on war. In the actual event, the space-travel funding would probably be cut to pay for invading Iran or something.
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Tell me something - why should ANYBODY give a shit about the human race becoming extinct that way?
It's not like majority of the actual living people would personally benefit from a small group of individuals making it through a catastrophe. 99.9999...% of people would still not benefit from funding anything that allows "human race" to survive. It makes no difference to almost every single person on the planet whether the human race survives with a few hundred of a thousand individuals that would be say sent
Or... (Score:3)
...but it also points to a political lack of valuing science in America.
Or it could mean that the government is finally trying to be fiscally responsible and cut this portion of NASA's budget to deal with the "huge" cost overruns on the James Webb Space Telescopen and the Curiosity Mars rover mentioned in the summary.
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This is to fund manned-mission pork in Houston (Score:3, Insightful)
Pander to the holders of the purse strings (Score:2)
The country has three concurrent wars for oil going on, and to fund it they probably spend more than NASA's entire yearly budget in a few months. Add to the mission goals the intent to research and build a giant continent-vaporizing laser, or allude to the presence of crude oil on Mars, and watch your funding skyrocket.
In all seriousness though, there does seem to be a significant lack of interest in the sciences whenever there isn't a clear end result of return on investment. It's no big secret that the
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About 1.5 months of one war is equal to a year's NASA budget, given reasonably conservative estimates of direct costs only.
The biggest problem (Score:2, Interesting)
The problem as I see it is that Americans, or at least American politicians, would rather pander to the portion of the religious right who claim that evolution isn't real, the rapture is near, the Bible contains everything man is meant to know, and science is an instrument of the Satan. It isn't just the right either. The only way I see the US getting into science is if there's money in it. We have been shutting down basic science for years in favor of things like biotech that make big money for business. N
So... mars = all science (Score:2)
Yesterday there was an article about the budget expanding it's investment into science. Today, we report that NASA funding is being cut. So the conclusion is the US hates science?
I don't get it... Hate on them all you want for cutting NASA funding. But it's not a blanket "We hate science" thing...
Interesting comparison (Score:2)
Whenever a story like would come across /. 4 years ago, we would have endless posts about Bush being an idiot, etc. Now, I can't find a single one saying anything about Obama.....
This is NOT about devaluing science (Score:5, Informative)
OTH, NASA wants the economical approach so that they can make a great deal more launches in the future. As such, NASA is cutting several missions that will cost billions, but is spending money on getting human launch going by 2014. However, with that, they will also be able to put red dragon (spaceX's dragon) on Mars with a 1 ton payload of equipment for
I do not like seeing NASA's budget cut, HOWEVER, kudos to Bolden. He is doing the right thing in getting ECONOMICAL private space going.
SLS is a bi-partisan boondoggle (Score:4, Informative)
In NASA funding, it seems the best you can hope for is that the politicians do the right thing (encourage private space transportation) for the wrong reason (it's cheaper). Obama is doing the right thing - the problem is Congress.
SLS funding enthusiasm is not so much partisan as it it regional. The NASA centers in Florida, Texas, Alabama, and California want SLS to continue so the jobs in their states/districts will continue. Those states may look like they're solid red or blue, but if you look at their representatives on the House Space subcommittee, they're surprisingly balanced - typically one D and one R.
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Obama is doing the right thing - the problem is Congress.
- so you say, so he says. He is a wannabe dictator, a king, he just found out that he can't rule like a king, but he still does everything to try (NDAA and all the wars he started, those are good examples).
The government is supposed to be near impossible to move, that's a feature, not a bug.
Space matters. Mars doesn't matter. (Score:3)
Question: If there's life on Mars and we find out in 50 years instead of 20, what are the practical implications?
Answer: Nada. Zip.
Question: If we can't figure out how to reversibly cool the planet, or get enough concentrated solar energy to use as a substitute for oil an coal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubic_mile_of_oil), what happens?
Answer: A great unpleasantness (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_depletion#Implications_of_a_world_peak), possibly fatal to 5 out of every 6 people or more by the end of the century.
Near Earth orbit efforts have to take priority over exploratory efforts for a while. There's time for exploration after we've averted our own self-made disasters.
Mod parent up. (Score:3)
I wish I had mod points!
I'm so sick of these religious like responses from scientists; it's as if they made abortions free and all the jesus freaks said we don't value life anymore. (The lack of respect for science IS a problem in the USA; part of the anti-intellectualism movement but being anti-Mars is not really part of it.)
We have HUGE problems here on earth that are not being solved. Hell, one reason Bush pushed the Mars program was to retask NASA away from planetary science; a clever move for an idiot
True colors come out (Score:3, Interesting)
Anytime there is any cut to a program, however dubious the scientific merit, that is what you will hear. And that is a perfect example of what I spoke of in the previous posting on this subject. We have created a situation where scientists are now a welfare group on the government dole. There is no 'oh my god if we dont get a man to Mars by XXXX we are doomed!!!' about this. JWST, LHC, manned space missions - all these giganormous projects are more about keeping the scientists employed than any attempt at a rational trade off between ability to fund and desirability of outcome.
So as not to just pick on our Martian overlords, Suppose Cern never built the LHC, what would have happened? Fermilab probably would have run a couple extra years before shutting down. Other smaller labs would continue and other new experiments might come on using the existing infrastructure. Any discovery of Higgs would be delayed. Outside of the HEP/cosmology community how would that delay affect anyone on planet earth?
However, there almost certainly would have been a large excess of high energy physicists and associated professions. Some will say what about grid computing or this or that. While true that the demands of Tevatron and LHC pushed the envelope on some computing technology, those advances were near certain to come not long after without the HEP leadership.
Bottom line is that there needs to be a long hard look at how science is done not just in US but around the world. The way science is funded is certainly broken but it goes well beyond that and reaches into tenure, publishing and other areas.
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Well, obviously. All this stuff that is done not for any reason but just because there is money to throw at it (until there is no money), it's all BS.
Science didn't progress quickly within the last 300 years because of government, it progressed despite of government and because of free market capitalism and industrialisation. Those are the actual primary movers of engineering problems and of all of the science that goes around it. Scientific funding is a side effect of industry trying to make a buck, noth
Re:They've lost all sense of proportion (Score:4, Informative)
Could it be you are mis-informed?
a) NASA didn't expend the $$$ developing the pen
b) It was needed because of fears that a broken pencil lead could cause damage to sensitive and life-depending machinery.
c) Americans used pencils too, at first. Then when the pen was developed the Russians used it as well...
http://www.snopes.com/business/genius/spacepen.asp [snopes.com]
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We need to get off this planet...
Seriously, if we moved most of industry to the Moon. We wouldn't have the environmental poisoning we have now.
If we had small colonies elsewhere, we could re-populate the earth in case of a cataclysmic impact.
We spend trillions on welfare and war, and how meaningless will those expenditures be if the human race goes *poof*
Just saying...
Oh, it's not a matter of if, only of "when" a big asteroid will hit the earth. Our excuse is "it only happens xxxxx number of years....so we
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The average Joe is not highly interested or informed about egghead space probes.
Sadly, you appear to be an average Joe. .8B to .3B (later the senate got it to be .5B). This year, the neo-cons are again trying to pull funds from CCdev and send it to SLS which will not be ready until 2020.
It was W that killed the shuttle and then the neo-cons underfunded Constellation. The fastest and most economical way to get us back into human launches was by creating CCDEV to build up private space. Sadly, the neo-cons this last year, gutted CCDEV by dropping
Bolden is doing all this to put the m