U.S. Satellite Programs in Jeopardy of Collapse

smooth wombat writes "A committee of the National Academy of Sciences, headed by Richard Anthens, has warned that 'the vitality of Earth science and application programs has been placed at substantial risk by a rapidly shrinking budget.' The list of Earth-observing satellite programs affected is a long one and includes satellite programs which observe nearly every aspect of Earth's climate. A delay in launching a replacement satellite or the disabling of a current satellite without a replacement could mean that data necessary to monitor or predict an upcoming event would be severely restricted. For its part NASA says that tight budgets force it to cut funding for all but the most vital programs. 'We simply cannot afford all of the missions that our scientific constituencies would like us to sponsor,' NASA administrator Michael Griffin told members of Congress when he testified before the House Science Committee February 16."

Re:Guns or butter? Bush chooses guns.

[GoofyBoy]

These NASA cuts are just the tip of what coming up.

Americans have spent way too much money;
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&si d=amz.HoNLRL_0&refer=us [bloomberg.com]

Re:More questions

[gclef]

NASA's scientific consitituency is the scientists that make up NASA's grant applicants. Basically, it's the group of folks who are qualified & likely to win NASA research grants. It's an obvious statement that NASA doesn't have the funding to run *all* of the programs that people want to run, so his statement is a massive understatement of the problem.

The problem has been that NASA is not only declining to fund new satellite programs, they're also cutting funding for existing ones, and going back on promises to fund projects already underway. (Some commentary from Nature on the subject is at http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v439/n7078/fu ll/439768a.html [nature.com] ...unfortunately you need to subscribe to read it. The short version is that more than one sattelite program has learned from a press releasese that their funding was being cut...sometimes years after they'd started building based on earlier funding, and just weeks after being promised this wouldn't happen.)

Bush increased NASA funding overall.

[kulakovich]

I should really write this out as a form letter and paste it in pre-emptively to each NASA thread about budget, since it always turns into Bush-bashing.

The Bush administration has increased funding every year for the past several years. The President of the US does not control how NASA's budget works. Sure he has made a push toward manned space flight being revamped, but why would you complain about re-vamping an outmoded inefficient system?

It is the head of NASA who makes the budget the way it is. There is never enough money to do what you want to these days, no matter who is in charge of the country or what party they belong to. Michael Griffin has a hard job, and what he is saying is true, we need more science money. I am not disagreeing. But this notion that Bush has cut funding is folly, and shows up in every thread.

Guns and butter indeed.

kulakovich

Re:Guns or butter? Bush chooses guns.

[ElephanTS]

Yes, you're right of course. I read somewhere yesterday (but now can't find the link) that when you factor in the cost of looking after veterans and all the additional costs, the war comes to about $1trillion - $2.2trillion over the long term.

Re:Oh dear...

[BeBoxer]

NASA = National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Not a word in there about science.


That has got to be about the dumbest fscking argument I've ever seen. Do you actually think that counts for something? Here's something called a fact. Watch out. This might hurt.

Quoted from the law which created NASA and guides it's purpose. http://www.nasa.gov/offices/ogc/about/space_act1.h tml#POLICY [nasa.gov]

DECLARATION OF POLICY AND PURPOSE
Sec. 102.(d) The aeronautical and space activities of the United States shall be conducted so as to contribute materially to one or more of the following objectives:

            (1) The expansion of human knowledge of the Earth and of phenomena in the atmosphere and space;


Sounds like science to me. Back under the bridge you little troll!

Re:Oh dear...

[smooth wombat]

The greatest advances in society happen in competitive marketplaces when businesses see a consumer need to be filled.

Actually, the greatest advances in society happen as the result of war or the threat of war. Sad but true. Some recent examples:

• rockets - it is a direct line from Germanys use of rockets in WWII to the launching of satellites and men
• jet engines - again, a direct line from Germanys and Englands development of jet engines to todays modern versions
• nuclear technology - development by the U.S. on nuclear weapons and the use thereof for both military and civilian use. The University of Chicago still has the worlds first working nuclear reactor under its bleachers
• radio - while Marconi and Hertz both contributed to the creation and understanding of radio signals, it was the military who realized the potential of using devices which did not require miles of wire for communication
• the internet - started by DARPA as a way to have redundant systems of communications in the event of an attack
• computers - the first true computers were used by the military for calculating ballistic firing tables
• optics - better optics for military use translated into products for the consumer including modern camera lenses
• medicine - there are a whole host of procedures which were developed as the direct result of wounds sustained by soldiers and the use in recovery from those wounds

These are just a few examples. Certainly there are products which business has developed for consumers but many major advances come from the military doing the legwork.

Re:A pretty golddigger is still a golddigger.

[Jon Luckey]

I don't see any public interest achievements in NASA

Thats because you probably have not looked.

For example, you could see how NASA research can benefit you if you are handicapped or as you grow older by reading Robert Heinlein's non-fiction essay "Spinoff", based on his testimony before comittee in Congress. Its found in the collection _Expanded Universe_.

You can read some of it via Amazon.com here. [amazon.com]

It starts about page 501.

Re:Oh dear...

[Secrity]

According to The National Aeronautics and Space Act, NASA is chartered to do science:

Sec. 203. (a) The Administration, in order to carry out the purpose of this Act, shall-- ...
            (2) arrange for participation by the scientific community in planning scientific measurements and observations to be made through use of aeronautical and space vehicles, and conduct or arrange for the conduct of such measurements and observations; ...

Oh, please.

[sean.peters]

Meanwhile in many sections of Iraq, people have their first clean water...

From Wikipedia: [wikipedia.org] "Although the water supply has reached prewar levels in some provinces, ageing and poorly maintained equipment combined with looting and vandalism leaves the drinking water system substandard."

their first reliable electricity...

From the GAO [gao.gov]: "However, electrical service in the country as a whole has not shown a marked improvement over the immediate postwar levels of May 2003 and has worsened in some governorates." Not only is electrical service worse than during Saddam's rule, it's even worse than after much of their electrical capacity was destroyed DURING the war.

their first real sewer system, ever...

From Wikipedia (same link as before): "Untreated waste is polluting the Euphrates River, and many treatment plants require repair. More than 45 pipelines have exploded"

Hundreds of schools, dozens of hospitals exist where no service was available for at least 20 years

Right. And they're built to inferior standards, and you can't go to them in any case without risking death. I don't need to provide a link, you can see the story every day on CNN.

So, by a conservative estimate, the regime was killing civilians at an average rate of at least 16,000 a year between 1979 and March 2003."

From Iraqi Body Count: [iraqbodycount.net] estimates range from 28 - 32K deaths just from coalition military activity since the start of the war. Other estimates, some of which include deaths from lawlessness and terrorist activity, are much higher, ranging up to a quarter of a million.

Way to distort the facts. Maybe you should try getting your news from somewhere other than the Weekly Standard.

Sean

You go to be kidding

[Anonymous Coward]

Bush has increased it slightly. [wikipedia.org] It is fairly flat line compared to CPI (in 1996 dollars). Plain and simple, telling the NASA admin to do a great deal more, while keeping funding at about the same level. By the time that Bush is out of office (end of term or in prison), NASA will have been gutted. I only hope that in the end, griffin is doing the right things. Personally, I suspect that he is, IN SPITE of bush's inability to manage.

Then why do the statistics say otherwise?

[ifwm]

"No one is thinking about how, when he came into office, he slashed the NASA budget to the BONE."

Well? This is from Wikipedia, but it checks with other sources too.

1999 13.665 12.999 1.0512
2000 13.601 12.618 1.0779
2001 14.253 12.884 1.1062
2002 14.902 13.305 1.12 (est)
2003 15.00 13.158 1.14 (est)
2004 15.470 13.452 1.15 (est)
2005 16.043 13.711 1.17 (est)

Looks like the budget is NOT less, yet you claimed otherwise.

Attack me all you want, you said something that is provably FALSE. And save that "adjusted for inflation" crap, you didn't say it, so don't claim that's what you meant after the fact.

Re:Bush increased NASA funding overall.

[slumberer]

According to wikipedia [wikipedia.org] he is actually correct and the NASA budget has been increasing slightly during the Bush administration.

What he fails to mention is that Bush's plan to go to Mars has received no extra money and that going to Mars insn't cheap. The only way for the NASA to follow the direction that Bush has pointed them in is to cut the budgets of other projects. So while Bush hasn't directly instructed NASA to cut funding to other projects by telling them to go to Mars he effectively has.