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O'Keefe Under Fire for Hubble, ISS Decisions
chuckpeters writes "The battle over saving Hubble is just starting to heat up! The House Science Committee Democrats released their views and
estimates report. Recommendation number two was that
until Congress gets better information on the long term costs of Bush's
Moon/Mars initiative, NASA's 2005 funding requests should go to existing
programs. The House Science Committee has also decided that
they want to hear from outside experts on Bush's space initiative.
Just as Hubble isn't going quietly into the night, Bush's Moon/Mars plan
isn't going quickly into space!"
It seemed like it only showed up in a media once a year or so. Now everytime the Hubble takes a piss (metaphorically speaking), it's front page news.
People always told me NASA has good P.R., but now I see that it's astrophysicists in general who are great at getting attention.
After the last incident he was given safty guidelines, and he is going to stick to them to the letter. If congress wants to bend them, then fine, but they will be making the call and it will be their asses on the line if something goes wrong not O'Keefes'.
I have a good friend who works at NASA HQ. According to her, the whole moon/mars idea is basically a boondoogle to shift NASA subcontractor jobs into Ohio and Florida, two very important states for the 2004 elections.
So it makes perfect sense that the dems are going to want to block it.
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A Democratic President wouldn't be likely to do this.
I'm a liberal myself, but I will admit this: It is easier to bash a Republican for having ambitions for space programs than it is to bash a Democrat for not having these ambitions.
Apparently, the scientific community think that the Hubble has become limited in usefulness. The new observatory observes infrared and some visible (though not optical blue.) Everything is red-shifted, they say, so visible light telescopes like Hubble serve no purpose.
However, the new telescope cannot be fixed. It will lie in orbit between the sun and the Earth. What if it breaks? Eh? Bad lens? Bad gyroscopes? HST is in orbit and we can fix it. This can be a backup and it still serves a useful scientific role, as evidenced by its recent Ultra Deep Field exposure.
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The Hubble Space Telescope is one of the more successful of Nasa projects. One could argue that it didn't have a very auspicious start, but the very fact the engineers managed to rectify those inital errors bears testimony to NASA's true potential.
Meanwhile, the Shuttle programme is a MASSIVE disaster. It has cost the lives of 14 people. It has lead NASA to waste Billions. (This is not exaggeration, each flight costs US$500m)
So what programme does NASA scrap?
Hubble of course
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I agree, we need mars. We don't need Bush's dumb-ass moon/mars plan.
Mars Direct!
Hubble's still doing good science. The Voyagers are obselete but we're still listening to them for that very reason.
Danke tres mucho, tovarishch.
But NASA has always cut across party lines in ways that belie the stereotypes we have about our parties.
For example, Walter Mondale bitterly opposed the space shuttle program in the Senate -- back when Richard Nixon was engaged in OSP-style deceptions about the cost estimates per shuttle flight in order to "sell" the shuttle. Here's an article with some text from a letter he wrote outlining the reasons for his opposition. Key bits:
The author of that linked article, Joseph Rodota, wrote it as an indictment of "a long line of liberals opposed to space exploration."
Hmm. Does anything seem backward about this situation to you? Rodota's talking about "the importance of big ideas" over fiscal responsibilities? Mondale's decrying the senseless cost?
Basically the critic here is saying "Before we put the ax to programs like Hubble, we want to be sure we've made the right choice, and the public will want to see that decision-making process. Sean O'Keefe shouldn't make this one himself without us having access to the process."
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
This isn't about going to mars... This isn't about killing the Hubble per se...
It is about killing the Shuttle,ISS, and to a large extent the last bastion on big federal science...
The argument is that you can't get to the space station if something happens to the shuttle while servicing Hubble.
The way that you kill the space program, (the shuttle and ISS are the major targets. Hubble is just an unfortunate casualty). Is to change the priorities from existing ones that take real money, to non-existing ones that are so expensive that they can be cancelled later.
Hubble may be what saves the space program, is spite of the best laid plans of those that would like to see it killed.
The nature of physics, is that the more questions we answer, the more questions we uncover...
The hubble telescope is a unique piece of scientific equipment that allows us to perform experiments that we cannot perform here on earth.
Experiments that lead to greater questions...
Experiments we do not know of yet...
A greater understanding of physics advances us as a society, and a species in ways more profound than anything else...
If you let it burn up, we will have to replace it, or be forever in the darkness of ignorance, because we no longer have the tools to do those experiments...
I have a friend that works at NASA Stennis Space Center in MS (who incidentally admins a beowulf cluster for rocket testing), and he says the Hubble is simply being taken down to be replaced by several other, better telescopes, including ones that detect infrared and gamma radiation. Apparently the cost of maintaining it and keeping it in orbit is more than the benefits of putting new ones up, given his brief explanation. Anyone have any more info on this?
Because, put very simply, there is no such thing is irrelevant scientific research. Everything comes in useful, in one way or anything, eventually.
Taking the Hubble in particular: it's used to study cosmology (among other things). Cosmology is the study of the universe in the large. Except that the universe in the large is very much related to the universe in the small, and research into the universe in the small has direct implications into such things as microelectronics.
Say the Hubble manages to find something interesting and unexpected about the very early universe. This would require our theories to be modified to fit the observation. Some of these modifications might require changes to our basic physical models. Some of these modifications might have consequences that can be testable and exploitable in the small; but we'd only get clued into them by observing them in the large.
To put it another way: blue-sky scientific research is the only investment that pays dividends for eternity. Can you afford not to spend money on it?
I like the idea of actual honest (i.e. manned) space exploration too. But if we're really serious, we need to talk about building up a permanent presence in space. That means not just sending somebody to another planet to plant a flag. That means building a permanent infrastructure that will support continued expansion. That means investing in a reliable high-capacity, high-orbit vehicle. (The Shuttle is none of these things.) This is the first step in building real space platforms, maybe even orbital industries and that are economically self-sustaining. That is the basis for real exploration of the planets, not another expensive TV show.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
ISS was never about science, so much as keeping Russian rocket scientist from selling their skills to evil dictators. Not that those scientists would want to, but when you have no other way to earn money what are you going to do? The international part was all about making sure the Russians didn't feel they are doing it alone.
In other words politics were all it ever was about. If science happens to get done great, but it never was a goal.
As noted in this article, the Congressional Budget Office when discussing the causes of the deficits "that 36% of the deficit comes from the Bush tax cuts, 31% from spending on defense and security, and the remainder from the economic slowdown."
...but backwards. The Bush administration's goal is to LOSE all its pieces, since pieces require taxes to maintain.
So Bush puts out this obvious new gambit which, if successful, will cause NASA to saceifice its REAL pieces for some highly SPECULATIVE ones (if you can just get your pawn to the other side of the board, we have a shiny new queen for you...)
NASA is playing the game as best it can (with the required level of public-facing loyalty), saying, in effect, 'Okay, then take my Knight,' knowing the public outcry that will follow.
And why is anyone surprised? The Republican M.O. has changed over the last 50 years from direct opposition to government programs to a deceitful and suicidal kind of support for them. "Sure, we'll run up the deficit to 25% of the GDP -- that way we won't have any choice but to cut government! (except for our buddies companies who live off gvt handouts)..."
ABB
I don't think it's fair to call exploration of our own solar system pie in the sky, and then in the comment say that the Hubbles images are really useful. What real use do the Hubbles images have? They tell us something fundamental about the universe, it's true. But the fact is that interpretation of those images is a guess at best, we can't go to the pace ant time the Hubble deep field comes from, so we can only do limited measurements with them.
On the other hand, maned space missions to other planets would go a long way to helping us build infra structure in space. Image if we could mine all or most of our raw materials on the moon and and transport them back to earth using lunar and terrestrial space elevators. Think of what that would mean for the earth's environment. Think about how much easier it would make the exploration the solar system become. Think about how easy it would become to make an enormous array of large space telescopes to do hundreds of times the work the Hubble can currently do.
What's more practical, a small space telescope that can only give us hints about the wider universe, or an entire space infrastructure which would actually allow scientists to travel to other planets and do research in person?
And I know quite a few NASA engineers who wouldn't mind the competition either.
It would be like the race to map the Human Genome. Despite some problems I think the competition was a good thing.
Others may disagree.
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The heel dragging was caused in part by Apollo itself. Apollo was not able to return any signficant economic value for the investment that was made. In effect, continuing Apollo was throwing good money after bad, and then the taste of a gargantuan space program was sour in the public's mouth. Hence the era of intense compromise in the Shuttle program.
And now, you want to throw another $100 billion in the same Apollonian spirit on a Mars program that will result in a similar set of highly questionable economic outcomes: rock and soil samples, endless dissertations, and tons of equipment rusting in the Florida sun.
Intelligent behavior probably includes the ability to recognize a mistake and to not repeat it.
Going to the Moon as it was done, was a mistake since there was no waypoint used in the trip. It was just a monstrous jump out of Earth's deep gravity well. Critical as I am about the ISS, we a waypoint now; hence, Lunar voyages are much more sensible.
And it's to Luna that we must go if reaching for Mars is to make any sense. Apollo's major failing was that it was unsustainable. Reaching for Mars from Earth's manufacturing base is even more unsustainable. Luna will provide that vital manufacturing presence, with all the oxygen, aluminum, iron and silicon it can provide as readily accessible pulverized ore in the Lunar regolith.
You will note that I have used the word "economics" many times in my posting here. This is my way of getting you to catch a clue. The days of blowing billions on space are over, and We The People now want a return on *our* investment. Like solar power satellites, beaming energy back to Earth; like a manufacturing moonbase, able to supply materials for structures in Earth orbit by way of a linear accelerators and mass catchers.
I'm tired of supplying geeks with expensive aerospace toys. Time to earn your keep; roll up your sleeves and do some real work for a change!
[You have a stable society when some nut guns down a schoolyard and the law doesn't change.]
Ahhh, the obligatory space elevator post - took longer than I expected!
The space elevator is a cool idea but it's really not to the point where NASA should be funding it. When it looks as if we can get nanotube ropes that are even within an order of magnitude of the required strength, NASA should jump in. However, we're nowhere near that and it's stil more in the purview of agencies like the NSF for now. Nanotube research is getting plenty of funding these days.
Simply throwing more money at a scientific problem is a guaranteed way to waste money. Look at our huge HIV spending in the early 90's for an example. At a certain point, you've got good researchers following all of the good leads and any further money is wasted on duplicated effort. NASA is spending money on kinetic transfer tethers, electropropulsion tethers, ion drives, VASMIR and M2P2 propulsion. All of these have enormous potential cost and performance benefits for space and can run with existing technology. When nanotubes have matured enough, NASA will jump into the picture.
I'm kind of surprised that no one else has offered this speculation. I've been watching the news and hearing about China aiming for the moon.
Am I the only one who thinks that we might be headed for another space race? China might be the only nation with the economic potential to become a super power and nothing says super power better than putting people on the moon, or, say, Mars.
As was mentioned elsewhere, there are temporary job benefits, but the Bush administration has been known to think big before: Hydrogen economy... Global democracy...
I'm not claiming these efforts are "Right" or even fruitful, but they are big. Bush has made decisions to launch efforts that could only pay off long after he leaves office. And no, I'm not interested in debating Bush's intelligence.
Just food for thought.
O'Keefe is to NASA as Sculley was to Apple: a professional administrator attempting to run something by sheer professionalism and politics that they obviously know far too little about to create themselves. NASA is a scientific engineering project. It requires science and engineering people to run it. Scientists and engineers got us to the moon. Scientists and engineers will get us to Mars, administrators and politicians won't. Administrators and politicians should give the money, shut up, stand back, and let the people who know how to make things go make them go.
"We choose to go to the moon not because it is easy, but because it is hard." -- A politician who gave the order, got the money, and got out of the way.
"My god, Thiokol, what do you want me to do, wait until April?" -- A NASA professional administrator, January 28, 1986, more concerned about launch schedules than frozen O-rings.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B