NASA Priorities Out of Whack? 258
amerinese writes "Just last week, we saw a story on NASA reconsidering the fate of the DAWN mission, another reminder of the space agency's budget woes. Gregg Easterbrook over at Slate.com argues not only is the budget a little short, but NASA's priorities are all wrong. From the article: 'For at least a decade, it's been clear that the space shuttle program is a clunker. Nonetheless, NASA's funding remains heavy on the shuttle and the space station, while usually slighting science. This year's proposed budget for fiscal 2007 takes the cosmic cake.' Is NASA just not thinking creatively enough?"
I mostly agree (Score:4, Interesting)
Additionally I am not sure about the moonbase, until we get a definitive answer on the question of if water exists on the moon I don't see the point in building a base there, really we should be putting a lot more focus on studying the moon, what rare minerals can we find, is there any water anywhere that can be used to fuel spacecraft travelling further than the moon. These questions can all be answered with probes and possibly robotic landers we should be putting more effort into studying in this way before we even consider sending people back let alone building a base there.
I am interested in the study of the universe, I am curious about development of galaxies and black holes but I am more interested in protecting our species from an extinction level event either from us damaging the planet or from an asteroid wiping us out. It seems like NASA is really just trying to get popular support here. For the unknowing masses building a moonbase would seen really impressive, having mankind walk on the moon again would be a great advertisment for NASA, "hey look guys we still got it". Given the set backs they have experienced in recent years I can kinda understand their reasoning to feel like they need the public behind them again, but I think a report saying we have found a way to save the Earth would be a lot better for their publicity than a report saying we have some guys bringing more rocks back from the moon.
Re:I mostly agree (Score:5, Insightful)
The only other reason for a base on the Moon is turism: It's a place where a person can walk on the surface of another major body and be back within a few months.
Neither of these should make a Moonbase top priority.
What NASA Stands For (Score:3, Funny)
Re:What NASA Stands For (Score:3, Insightful)
BTW, the funding for the shuttle was partially justified in the same manner. Some of the claimed benefits of the shuttle program were to ma
Say what?!? (Score:3, Insightful)
If you think having telescopes on the far side is good because it is out of the way of human pollution, then why for heaven's sake do you want to throw human pollution back into the mix as close as that?
The vibrations from human equipment, outgassing, dust raised
Good go
Re:Say what?!? (Score:2)
How many complicated engineering projects have been built by tele-operated systems at the end of a long time lag?
Re:Say what?!? (Score:2)
The vibrations from human equipment, outgassing, dust raised ... sure, vibrations and dust are natural events there, but humans add more.
You need humans to fix these things when they break. You also don't get that much vibration from humans a couple miles away, and you can't raise dust with no air.
Re:Say what?!? (Score:2, Funny)
Say what, indeed! I guess that dust one sees in those newsreels of the moon landings and buggy-rides was there because some Hollywood effects hack didn't do his research. Just because there are no air currents to carry the dust around doesn't mean when you wipe moon dust off of a surface that it doesn't go flying in whatever direction you wiped it...
Re:Say what?!? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Say what?!? (Score:3, Interesting)
Moon dust sucks.
Re:Say what?!? (Score:2)
Re:Say what?!? (Score:2)
and you can't raise dust with no air.
The guys that've been to the moon would disagree; the lunar dust was a huge problem, it would get into everything, including the pressure seals of the suits, where it would cause small leaks. You don't need air to throw dust around... that doesn't make sense.
-JesseRe:Say what?!? (Score:2)
The telescopes would go on the far side of the moon. Why would tourists want to go there where there isn't the famous view of the earth?
But really, my question is why would they think of a moonbase as something to help us get to Mars? There may be less gravity on the moon, but it's still a gravity well that you have to come back out of. Put
Re:I mostly agree (Score:2)
FYI the moon is not tidally locked and your telescope would only be usable about 1/3 -1/2 of the time, this is the same reason why you'd need 3 beaming stations for lunar based so
Re:I mostly agree (Score:4, Informative)
FYI the moon is not tidally locked and your telescope would only be usable about 1/3 -1/2 of the time, this is the same reason why you'd need 3 beaming stations for lunar based solar power.
huh ? If you mean the same side of the moon isn't always turned toward the earth then i think you're wrong on that point.
Re:I mostly agree (Score:2)
Re:I mostly agree (Score:2)
Re:I mostly agree (Score:2)
We know how to do communications satellites, and we know how to do halo orbits (SOHO is a very good example), there's no new technology there (well electric propulsion would make the propellant last longer, but by the time we build anything, that won't be anywhere near novel.
But.. while the telescope is directly facing
Re:I mostly agree (Score:3, Informative)
Of course the moon is tidally locked to the Earth. Earth is not (yet) locked to the moon. But the far side of the moon is named for a reason.
A telescope still would have to deal with the sun, though. At lunar night, there should be no problem at all (no significant scattering without a real atmosphere). During lunar
Re:I mostly agree (Score:2)
Re:I mostly agree (Score:2)
I mostly disagree with the above statement. Optical telescopes can work just as well on satellites than on the moon -- even better in a zero-g environment so there's no mirror flexure. But an array of la
Re:I mostly agree (Score:2)
Re:I mostly agree (Score:2)
And how is a telescope on the far side of the moon going to help determine whether we're speaking to a bot or not?
Re:I mostly agree (Score:2)
Re:I mostly agree (Score:2)
Re:I mostly agree (Score:2)
Re:I mostly agree (Score:2)
Re:I mostly agree (Score:2)
However, I have gotten to the point of being willing to give up a year (or more) of space-exploration if it meant that same $13 billion/yr budget could be pointed at earth, addressing things like global warming, pollution, deforestation, human-rights violations, overpopulation, etc.
Do we have our eyes so glued to the telescopes looking at places we probably never will get to visit that we don't notice the ground c
Re:I mostly agree (Score:2, Funny)
Re:I mostly agree (Score:2)
That's what happens with tax-funded entities (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:That's what happens with tax-funded entities (Score:2)
The USPS is not a tax-funded entity in the traditional sense. They do not receive a standard opertaing budget from the GAO. The postal service is entirely self-funded. While I believe the federal government would (and maybe already has) step in to bail the USPS out if a nasty surprise caught them blindside, the USPS was set up with the precept that it would be financially independent. (Blame Ben Franklin for that rather sound idea.)
Money (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Money (Score:2)
If you have to resort to corporations, who almost by definition are out to make money short-term, instead of politicians, who are there to build a better society long-term (that's why you voted for'em right? right?) there is something seriously, seriously wrong with your society.
Re:Money (Score:3, Insightful)
There's no difference between a politician and a corporation in the United States, except this: politicians pass legislation based on the impulsive instincts of their voters, no matter how malinformed, misguided, bigoted, or wrong
Congress controls their budget (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's an experiment: Find out what state NASAs big dollar items come from. Then look at who is on the committe that controls the NASA budget and what state they are from. Look for correlations. After that, we can talk about priorities at NASA.
Re:Congress controls their budget (Score:4, Informative)
Here is the first part of the experiment you suggested. It turns out that the appropriations committee that handles Nasa's budget has experience some serious changes this year and as such we may see so new "spending" habits with future budgets, who knows. However, the individuals that currently sit on the appropriations committee responsible for NASA as of March 2006 is as follows:
Link to committee membership source
http://www.planetary.org/news/2005/0323_US_Congre
Link to Nasa Budget
http://www.nasa.gov/about/budget/AN_Budget_04_det
Nasa Appropriation Committees
Senate Committee on Appropriations
Full Committee:
Thad Cochran (R-MS) Chair,
Robert Byrd (D-WV) Ranking
Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, and Science:
Richard Shelby (R-AL) Chair,
Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) Ranking
House Appropriations Committee
Full Committee:
Jerry Lewis (R-CA) Chair,
David Obey (D-WI) Ranking
Subcommittee on Science, State, Justice, and Commerce, and Related Agencies:
Frank Wolf (R-VA),
Alan Mollohan (D-WV) Ranking
Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation
Full Committee:
Ted Stevens (R-AK) Chair,
Inouye (D-HI) Ranking
Subcommittee on Science and Space:
Kay Bailey-Hutchison (R-TX), Chair
Bill Nelson (D-FL) Ranking
House Committee on Science
Full Committee,
Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY) Chair,
Bart Gordon (D-TN) Ranking
Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics:
Ken Calvert (R-CA), Chair -
Mark Udall (D-CO) Ranking
Nasa Budget:
See Link (PDF Warning)
http://www.nasa.gov/about/budget/AN_Budget_04_det
And The President Sets The Tone/Agenda (Score:4, Insightful)
In addition to sending men to the moon/Mars being a good sound bite for the general public, manned missions tend to be heavily oriented towards a Florida/Texas locale with a subsequent influence on their economies. Considering the obvious interest our current President has in those states, it's one more reason (not the only one), this administration has focused on manned missions.
We need to find a better balance between manned and unmanned missions for NASA, I think the pendulum swings a bit too far in either direction sometimes, and now is one of them. They really do have a symbiotic relationship, and we have need of both. Apart from that, it's time to put the shuttle down and work on our next manned vehicle more seriously - there's no good reason to keep those things flying anymore, send one to the Smithsonian and call it a day.
It's Marketing (Score:4, Insightful)
Manned exploration is the sizzle that sells the steak. You have to keep a manned program going to keep the short-attention-spanned taxpaying pinheads interested in space. If space is just drones and bots flying off to take soil samples and collect space dust, the money will get diverted to a subsidy to study how pet monkeys could be used to deliver nuclear warheads to a target or some other stupid Pentagon project.
Re:It's Marketing (Score:3, Interesting)
Speak for the hard scientists. If a bunch of engineers got together and decided how to spend NASA's budget next year, we'd see nothing but launch vehicle R&D. Trying to seriously explore the solar system with current vehicles is like trying to explore another continent via catapult.
What's more, we'd see a dozen different companies competing to create those
Re:It's Marketing (Score:2)
I myself believe that the Hubble Space Telescope and similar missions have quite a bit of sizzle, too.
Re:It's Marketing (Score:2)
How about engineering IN space (Score:2)
"We sent mission xyz to rondesvous with iron/nickel asteroid foo. We successfully used a solar oven to refine the material and produce x kg of steel alloy pqr."
I keep hearing about in-situ resouce utilization, but it's not going to happen if we just keep sending probes that take pictures and measurments and don't actually do anything. Science is important, but it is a lot easier to piggyback science on an engineering mission than it is to use science-only missions to pav
how much did other nations pay into the ISS? (Score:3, Interesting)
How much for us to just buy them out? I suspect much less than the cost of completeing it.
Nothing to see here (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Nothing to see here (Score:2)
That said, yes, the benefits of *getting there* were worth it, but I don't know of any value to the rocks brought back other than for, as the article puts it, geology postdocs.
I'm sure there would be more advances in science and technology in a moonbase and later a launchpad to Mars. The space fanboi in me says "sign me up!", but the realist (who I try to
Re:Nothing to see here (Score:2)
Our difficulties trying to get our local house in order are one of the reasons we need to look into opening branch offices. Hundreds of thousands of years of progress later, the life expectancy near Olduvai Gorge [cia.gov] is still 45 years.
You are right that the benefits of Apollo involved politics, science, and technology (in rapidly descending order) and not colonization. That doesn't mean we need to give up on manned s
When Reporters Don't Read the News (Score:2)
Amen. People like this author bug me, so I'm going to rant for a bit.
Ok, so you missed out on the "Shuttle to Retire by 2010" headline by about 2 years. Also The fact that they are working under a mandate to develop a new crew vehicle and a new versatile heavy launch vehicle means nothing to the author. I'll ig
Priorities (Score:5, Insightful)
One can easily argue our national priorities are considerably out of whack. Easterbrook argues there are better places to spend the money than the projects which have been proposed. He might be right. But it's easy to argue that the proposed projects do have value.
A moon base might not help Mars exploration. But a moon base can begin the process of using lunar resources to support both exploration and human needs on earth. There's more to space than scientific exploration.
The James Webb Space Telescope might focus on the distant universe and questions of esoteric value. Planet finding, on the other hand, will have little real impact on humanity as well, at least in the near future. Both projects do have worth, however.
Of greater interest to me is comparing NASA funding to other things our society does. Back in October the Washington Post proposed canceling Bush's Vision for Space Exploration, and cited the need for health care for poor children as a worthier alternative. What few people recognize is that health care spending in the U.S. is 100 times the NASA budget. Health care spending is also increasing annually at multiples of the NASA budget. If poor children aren't getting decent health care, that's the fault of the health care industry, not NASA.
NASA, while far from perfect, does appear to be struggling to improve and is making some progress towards that end. It would be nice if other American activities -- for example education -- showed the same kind of work at improvement.
Re:Priorities (Score:2)
Shuttle has popular backing, Science doesn't (Score:2)
Gregg Easterbrook (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Gregg Easterbrook (Score:2)
Re: NASA Priorities Out of Whack? (Score:2)
Easterbrook's priorities wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
I agree that the space shuttle is a problem. But I don't understand why he brings up the two disasters seen on TV. It is as though he thinks that the real disaster was the PR problems which resulted. If that is the case, he is only making it worse. What we need is a redesigned shuttle. The Shuttle is out of date. There are new technologies that could be harnessed to make it better. In addition, there is the very real problem that the shuttles wear out. They may be reusable, but that doesn't mean they are going to last forever.
I want to see more funding on long term programs, the far-out stuff like NERVA, anti-gravity, and the like. These are the kind of programs that NASA was chartered for.
Maybe we leave earth monitoring to the ESA (Score:2)
Why not have NASA focus again on engineering (i.e. putting people in space is primarily an engineering task) that pushes the edge of what is possible (e.g. manned lunar/Mars/asteroid rond
Maybe NASA needs better salesmen (Score:2)
Most people don't see the value in collecting comet dust. But if you show them something that NASA R&D is doing for them today they might buy into it more.
Government budgeting is a popularity contest. Give the people something they can get behind and support, not technobabble they don't care to understand.
If
Re:Maybe NASA needs better salesmen (Score:2)
I meant it to be a bit more humorous that what it seemed to have come off as. In either case I'm sure you get the jist of what I'm saying. Tax payers want to see solid results, not studies and theories.
Official NASA Mission Statement (Score:2, Informative)
http://naccenter.arc.nasa.gov/NASAMission.html [nasa.gov]
from 2002, maybe. (Score:2)
From the link they cite as a source, trim off the url down to 'codez'
(I don't know what they've done to the PDF, but you can't copy/paste from it cleanly
Re:from 2002, maybe. (Score:2, Informative)
Strategic Goal 1: Fly the Shuttle as safely as possible until its retirement not later than 2010
Strategic Goal 2: Complete the International Space Station in a manner consistent with NASA's International Partner commitments and needs of human exploration.
Strategic Goal 3: Develop a
I think I'm with NASA on this one (Score:2)
Look at the big picture (Score:2)
It may create as serious of funded observatories, which means more Jobs with all the support industries. Again, more tax dollars brought in.
Not to mention the chance of not becoming extinct.
FInally, the revinue generated by the spin off from NASA have paid back 13 tax dollars for every dollar NASAhas spent.
Defending the Space Shuttle and Manned Flight (Score:4, Insightful)
I like the Space Shuttle. Yes, we can rail on about how it didn't meet its goals, how it was overhyped, but stop for a moment and look at what it actually is and does? It's practically a space station in its own right, it is so big. It launches like a rocket, lands like a plane, can bring back stuff in a fairly roomy cargo bay and has a cool robot arm. It's turned the notion of in-space assembly from the stuff of science fiction into ho hum routine. Before the space shuttle, we didn't even know if we could build a human space habitat. Sure, we could launch one, but build one? And we've done it.
I wish that we could build a newer shuttle, and, I wish we could send it to the Moon. I understand that CEV is better built for that. But, when they launch that CEV, look around inside, and compare it to the shuttle. The new CEV will have less room than the old shuttle.
BIG IS BETTER
When did earth science become NASA's job? (Score:3, Interesting)
The article's author seems to be arguing that NASA's main priorities should focus on areas of earth science. While I agree that earth science is important, I have to wonder how much NASA should even care about that stuff -- they are an aeronautics and space administration after all.
If I was head of another government department with a strong mandate for earth sciences (NOAA [noaa.gov]), I'd only want NASA's help to get some of my earth-pointing satalites up there and keep them flying -- and to stay out of the way beyond that.
Creativity Requires Money To Act (Score:4, Informative)
Between the ISS and Shuttle ops, 40% of the budget goes to Lock-Mart and Boeing just to keep the ISS' lights on. Then 25% for technologies to support the Moon/Mars plan.
The remaining 35% ($5.3 bil) for space science can only go so far. Got existing missions to support/complete. Plus, this Administration ain't too hot on Earth science missions. The data returned tends to include a lot of climatology data they don't want to hear about, so it's cheaper to not collect the data in the first place, rather than twist researchers' arms after the fact.
because NASA is focussed on UFOs (Score:3, Funny)
If not, view this video.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-90803696
Colonisation is vital to survival (Score:4, Interesting)
On JWST and TPF (Score:5, Insightful)
In fact, JWST is a general purpose observatory in much the same way Hubble is, and will enable a very broad base of astronomy, from cosmology at high redshift in the early Universe, all the way back to the formation of planetary systems in our own Galaxy, and to the study of objects in the Kuiper Belt of our own solar system. Again, practically speaking, these are all esoteric and yet you only have to look at the public's fascination with the enormous number of astonishing discoveries that Hubble and other astronomical telescopes have made to realise that such things play a vital role in our philosophical understanding of our part in this vast Universe.
With regards the idea that JWST is somehow NASA's spolied child, keep in mind that the US astronomy community identified it as its number one priority in the most recent Decadal Review of the National Academy of Sciences, along with the European and Canadian communities: NASA is following through on this outside recommendation. Of course, there are grave problems in the NASA space science budget and no-one likes to see missions cut or delayed, and yes, there have been cost overruns on JWST (albeit largely due to non-technical issues outside the JWST project's control), but it's simply wrong to believe that NASA has somehow made its difficult decisions in a vacuum.
Most astonishing though is Easterbrook's naive assertion about gravy train aerospace contractors building the JWST: just who, exactly, does he think is going to build TPF? A couple of University of Podunk astronomers and a dog? TPF is, if anything, even more technologically challenging than JWST and can only be built by many of the very same aerospace contractors: it's bonkers to think otherwise.
Finally, on naming the former Next Generation Space Telescope after James Webb, while, I remember very clearly the moment that was announced by NASA and yes, it was a bit of a shock. All the same, it's important to remember that Webb put in place much of NASA's space science program at the same time as running Apollo, so his credentials are respectable at the very least. In any case, get over it: let's get the JWST done and launched, and answer some of those fascinating esoteric questions.
Dear lord (Score:2, Insightful)
We are obligated to get certian thing for the space station up there, and right not the shuttle is all we got to do it.
Yes, NASA need a bigger budget.
Yes, the space shuttle needs replacing. Persoanlly, I think the 'space plane' way of getting up and down is the way to do it. That's another topic.
But we have commitments.
Re:It's not what makes sense... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:It's not what makes sense... (Score:5, Funny)
No, but finding aliens, a la Species is.
Re:It's not what makes sense... (Score:2)
Re:It's not what makes sense... (Score:2)
Re:It's not what makes sense... (Score:2)
Clearly you didn't see Mission to Mars, or as we put it when we saw it, "Mission To Take My Eight Bucks".
Re:It's not what makes sense... (Score:2)
Unfortunately, this is correct. It's not NASA's priorities that need internal adjustment, because NASA doesn't control their priorities. They are set by the President and by Congress. Much of NASA's budget is earmarked for specific projects, and they have only limited discretion over the remain
And Mars doesn't test our limits? (Score:2)
And PS, we have to beat
Re:Budget woes? (Score:5, Insightful)
And a huge chunk of it is spent on bureaucractic bullshit. Paying admistrators, and their secretaries, and their benefits, and their health insurance, and remimbursing transportation costs, and federal audits, and enviromental impact surveys, and nasa.gov, and PR, and ...
Another chunk of it goes into funding existing missions. We STILL have to keep paying for Voyager if we want anybody listening to it. For every probe that's out there, we have to pay for the earthbound hardware that listens to and talks to it, the talent that knows how it works and can troubleshoot problems, and the scientists on the publi dole who analyze what we get back.
That leaves some money leftover for NEW missions. Some that money goes into paying private contractors to build parts, some goes into research into new technology, some goes into upgrading and maintaining he shuttle fleet, some goes into the ISS. Some goes to foreign governments. Russia doesn't launch our astronauts for free.
How many probes could we launch with all that money? We could have probes flying all over the solar system. We could have fundamental research into remote robotics.
I imagine that with $13 billion we could launch thousands. There'd be no money leftover for building the ones we launch next year, though. Or paying for the crews to maintain the ones we launched last year.
There is no reason that through mass production, NASA couldn't be launching thousands of probes a year. If you're launching that many, they don't have to perfect. Launch 10 of them at every target, hoping five will end up working.
Sure there is. A probe costs hundreds of millions of dollars to build. Even at a mere $100 million, $13 billion is enough to build only 130 probes, to say nothing of paying for launch, maintainance, and scientific analysis.
NASA needs to completely change their culture and use some intelligence for a change.
I suggest that it is your intelligence, in this case, that needs some looking into.
Cost comparisons (Score:2)
The Deep Impact mission (which smacked into a comet so we could analyze the dust) and the Stardust mission (which return fabulous samples of comet dust) together cost $600M or $700M complete. You could no doubt find a similar mission to bring it to an even $1B.
This is not counting any share of the cost of failed p
Touche (Score:2)
Re:Budget woes? (Score:2)
Re:Budget woes? (Score:2)
First of all, 13B is ONE YEAR. Next year is paid for by ANOTHER 13B. Second of all, do the math. Let's say we need 10,000 people to manage the probe program (managers, engineers, secretaries, etc). Let's say it costs 100K per employee, just to be generous. That's only a billion dollars. That leaves another 12 billion.
That's what, less than a week of the Iraq quagmire? NASA's budget isn't that big, although I'm loath to feed their beast given their track record with things like the shuttle. You'd think t
Re:Budget woes? (Score:2)
That's what I found interesting. Burried in the article is an estimate that the manned moon project will cost as much as one year of the war in Iraq (200 billion). Seen the other way round: End that war, and we can be on the moon next year. And NASA can use all of its normal budget for robot missions and earth science, too!
The money would even be going to roughly the same
Let me lay out the NASA budget for you. (Score:2)
You're very ignorant about where NASA spends its money. Almost all of it goes to multi-year projects, and most of it goes into hardware and fundamental science research. Nothing at NASA gets
mod parent up! astronauts cleaning toilets? (Score:2)
Big organisations need the little guys as well as the big guys. Now you mig
Re:Budget woes? (Score:2, Interesting)
From the evolutionary position this is easy to explain. Meat is very, very dense calorie wise compared to veggies. When you're a human being struggling to get enough food for survival for, say, the last 10 million years, and your lifespan averaged less than 30 years, meat was extremely good for you. The heart clogging problems with the fat and cholesterol don't kick in until your average lifespan hits 40+ (how many people die of heart attack due to over-eating meat before 25?), and even then,
Re:Budget woes? (Score:5, Informative)
Let's see... $13 billion... of which most goes to the manned-missions right off. So that's ISS and the shuttles getting the bulk of the money. Research for aerospace stuff gets another reasonably heafty share. In fact, when you get down to it, the solar system exploration budget is around $2 billion, total. That goes to fund research, build new missions, and support existing missions.
In reality, missions are very expensive and mass-producing parts doesn't fix that. Every single mission has to be launched, which is a huge fraction of the total expense right there. Fuel isn't going to get a lot cheaper through the wonders of mass-production. Neither is the man-power needed to plan the details of each mission and to work out and check things like the trajectories. (I'm periphrially involved with selecting an extended tour on a mission right now. It's complicated to say the least.) And modular components only work if the modules are sufficiently useful to a broad number of missions. This is generally not the case, as it turns out. Every mission has specific goals and requirements that almost always demand a new suite of designs. (Check out the latest Mars missions; the new objectives have caused their instruments to be VERY carefully and specifically designed.)
And to put $13 billion into perspective: that's a few percent of what the war in Iraq has costed so far and around 1% of what it will ultimately cost us. In fact, that's the price of about 7 stealth bombers. Which were easier to mass-produce than interplanetary missions, incidentally.
Your intuition for the money here is dead wrong. I'm not saying NASA is above reproach; it very much so is not. (I can spend days ranting about how much they waste time and money.) But if you want to help solve the problem, you'll have to understand the situation first.
Re:Budget woes? (Score:2)
And . . . the priorities are being forced upon NASA by our government. "Drop all the science for science sake research, such as the Voyager probes passing the heliopause. Forget the Hubble - it can only show us pictures of places we can't go. We need to go to to Mars. It's the new space race!"
Assign the blame where it belongs and the reasons become clear. Unfortunately, the culture at NASA is essentially that of our fifth defense force
Re:Budget woes? (Score:4, Insightful)
Additionally, they've got this mandate from Bush to try to get to Mars ASAP, building a moon base first, which could use up their entire budget right there.
Beyond all of that, they feel they have to be careful to keep the public interested, or that their funding will be cut. Surveys have shown that most people are primarily impressed with human space flight, and I'm sure there's pressure on NASA to maintain manned missions even if they're just bread a circuses, and they could get a lot more science done for the money without them.
So I agree that $13 billion should be enough for NASA to accomplish an incredible amount more than they do, but not "should be enough" and isn't because they're all incompetent, but "should be enough" and isn't because they can't spend it on the important things for one reason or another.
Re:Budget woes? (Score:4, Informative)
What is wrong with you? (Score:3, Interesting)
13 billion is less than 0.7 of the total federal budget. It's practically nothing. And it's one of the few government agencies that can actually produce real, tangible, ROI in terms of technology developed, not to mention t
Re:Budget woes? (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually about $20K per person (Score:2)
Interesting idea
Population 26M. Call it 25
The US has spent roughly $500B over 3 years.
That's $20K each, or, say, $50K - $100K per family.
It would have to be spread over three years, but that still seems like a pretty good sum.
MOD PARENT INSIGHTFUL (Score:2)
Re:It's not NASA, it's Bush (Score:2)
Re:New NASA to-do list (Score:2)
Re:NASA was never about science (Score:2)
If you control the moon, you have a major military strategic advantage, the ultimate high ground. You can catapult anything down, anywhere on Earth and nobody can stop you. So NASA's highest priority is making sure nobody gets ahead of the US on this technology.
The moon is not of high military value. Contro
Tutorial on Bias (Score:3, Insightful)
Only if having a point of view is biased. Being human we all have our biases of course, and these naturally (mis)inform our viewpoints. But this doesn't license you to throw around the accusation of "bias" every time you see an opinion you don't like, because to be fair you'd have to tell the entire world including yourself to STFU.
No, the only behavior that merits this charge is the practice of bias.
Consider the following statement:
Re:Long range plans... (Score:2)
To cut the cost of shipping spices back to the Spanish? That's my guess. It's a direct benifit that people can understand. Now, tell me why Joe Sixpack should care about the origins of the universe and tell him how he can benifit from this knowledge.
Re:Academic welfare.... (Score:2)