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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.
I think we need a manned Mars mission badly, and I Am worried the Democrats will kill it just because Bush signed off on the idea. It would be great to keep Hubble but how long can we put off manned space exploration? We have been dragging our collective heels now since the end of the Apollo missions.
Plus, I'd actually like to see it happen in my lifetime.
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'.
Sean O'Keefe is a bean counter(accountant) Bush sent to NASA to trim its budget. Neither of them have any interest in space exploration or science. I saw O'Keefe's new conference on CNN after the Bush announcement and it was sickening watching someone who had no vision, knowledge of or interest in space, dodging questions and avoiding specifics on this supposedly bold new initiative. You would think they would have prepared for this announcement and presented a bold vision, rather than looking like a deer in the headlights not knowing exactly what all this means or being unwilling to admit it.
Having seen the funding timeline for this at the news conference its pretty clear what the plan is. Kill off the space shuttle and the ISS while you divert all the space enthusiasts attention with the promise of bold missions to Mars and the Moon. Of course none of those start ramping up for years and until you've already started killing off space exploration and when it comes time to bend metal on the new projects, Bush will be long gone, no one will want to pay the tab and the conservatives will have managed to kill off the civilian space program. Conservatives love killing off all parts of government not associated with the military or law enforcement.
This is a perplexing dilemna because killing off the space shuttle and ISS is exactly what the civilian space program needs to be come viable again. But when you do it you actually need to have a viable new program to replace it and this new program simply isn't viable.
You get a definitive clue something is wrong because they are going to continue wasting money to finish the completely useless ISS while they kill off the really valuable Hubble. Get a clue. The Hubble, like all the great observatories, is a priceless resource and they are one thing that should survive out of the current NASA along with JPL's efforts.
To me this smacks of the classic, clueless political manuevering and bureaucractic thinking that has been devestating space exploration for the last 30+ years.
Kick ass telescope on the far side of the moon.
The end.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
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.
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
We're better off sending bots unless there's a practical need to send peeps.
Here's what I do: Bitty Browser & Andromeda
W: Where are we going?
US: Mars!
W: When are we going?
US: Real soon!
We don't need Mars.
We don't need the Moon either.
But Bush needs the votes of the geek community.
Listening to O'keefe on a press conference about a month ago, when he addressed the Hubble issue in detail, it all became clear to me: It's pure politics.
After the CAIB, he was blasted, questioned and doubted to no end, so what does a skilled polititian do? cut your losses and move on. Well, he did just that. So now he's gonna follow the CAIB like it's the road to salvation. To the letter.
The CAIB puts forward a number of requirements for shuttle flights, including the ability to service the Shuttle via ISS if something goes wrong...among a host of other "inconvenient" requirements.
O'keefe decided to follow the CAIB to the letter so that means that going to the hubble will "break the laws" of the CAIB (Hubble is in an entirely different, incompatible orbit...still you'd think that being the thing called SHUTTLE it shouldn't be an issue, but it is)
So servicing the Hubble will violate his mandate to play it safest and thus it won't happen because it's "too risky" according to the CAIB mantra.
Slashdot Moderation: From positive to terrible in 2 "insightful" posts.
Again...why?
What i like the most about our little "community" is that we tend to be intelligent...so lets ask the question...why do we want this? There are lots of problems at home to fix first that should get votes first.
The Borg assimilated my race & all I got was this lousy T-shirt
Hopefully the blatant cynicism of this ploy will be apparent to the voters.
Why does it always end up as "This or That" and never "both"? Hubble or Mars? Why can't they spare the extra 2 or 3% of the military budget and funnel it into NASA... after all, Hubble could potentially be used for military purposes, no? It's this sort of tightwadding of money that causes the managerial problems plaguing NASA today, as money gets yanked around to different places, with never enough left over to get jobs done the right way. As long as this sort of crap keeps up, we'll never get much farther than low earth orbit anytime soon. Just a few decades ago, we had a focus- to get to the moon. We got to the moon. What have we now? A leaky space station with pieces falling off, remnants of an aging and grounded shuttle fleet, and not much of a grand vision to get anywhere. While we do have 2 rovers poking and prodding Mars, America needs to find it's sense of adventure again, the spirit of pioneering that founded this country. Lewis and Clark headed west knowing the risks and found the Pacific Ocean. I've had enough of this safety and political correctness crap. Yes, it's risky, yes, it's dangerous. But how far can humanity progress without taking risks?
Bleh, that turned into a rant pretty quick, but I stand by it, so mod accordingly.
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.
OK. It would be a resource draining, PR boondoggle that would follow the same pattern as Apollo. We work hard so a few people can bounce around on the surface of another world, and then the public loses interest, resulting in another 40 year setback, and no serious move into space in my lifetime.
We need to start doing the solid, logical, incremental steps into space that we should have started in the 1950's. Orbital industry, solar power farms, something at L4/L5, then a permanent colony on the Moon and THEN Mars. NASA should bend over backward to encourage the private sector. Get serious radical new launch tech, like space elevators and lasers and mass drivers.
--- Ban humanity.
"Do NOT try to kill manned Mars exploration just because you hate Bush. That's pretty fuckin' petty."
I don't want to kill it because I hate Bush, I want to kill it because it's a pointless and expensive boondoggle that serves no rational purpose. We've already blown tens of billions of dollars sending government bureaucrats to one barren rock, why spend hundreds of billions sending them to another barren rock?
But then I don't have to worry about that, because as far as I can see, the plan is that once ISS and the shuttle have been killed, the Moon/Mars budget will be cut and NASA's manned space program will die: maybe they'll be allowed to keep the OSP/CRV/CEV capsule or whatever it's called these days and send up an astronaut or two a year, if they're lucky.
There will be a day when it makes sense for people to go to Mars. But those people will be called 'tourists' and they'll be paying their own way on transports far cheaper and more sophisticated than anything NASA is going to come up with in the next few decades.
I know people will mod this as troll -99 but this is a serious question that I hope somebody can answer for me.
What tangible benefits has Hubble provided us? Other then advancing our knowledge of and expanding the "pure-sciences" involved how has humanity improved by this telescope?
It's my understanding that _ALL_ telescopes goal is to see as far back in time as possible. We want to prove or disprove the Big-Bang theory. What if we do prove it. Then what?
Please don't misunderstand me. I feel very strongly that all pure science must be pursued, I just don't understand what the big deal about Hubble is. Let's keep using it untill it disintegrates during re-entry, why invest more money into it?
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~Plato (427-347 BC)
That way of looking at it assumes that it's more than a boondoggle. By which is meant, that's it's a serious proposal that Bush actually believes in. Frankly, I'm sceptical.
Go ahead, mod me offtopic (It really isn't, though)
"Just as Hubble isn't going quietly into the night, Bush's Moon/Mars plan isn't going quickly into space!" And thats what we all want .. right? To dump money into a project that is at the end of it's lifespan, granted the project was wildly successfull. And belittle the project that we all wanted to see succed as kids just because you don't like Bush? The space program is more important than any one president or one project or one election. When I see the democrats talk about the president "wasting money" on the space program I want to scream. Don't get me wrong I have some strong misgivings about Bush's policys and the direction that he's taking the country, but this just goes to show where the Democratic party is these days i.e. anywhere the president isent even if where he is is right. The Democratic party used to be all for the space program, where are they now, they have traded the future of the human race in for a few votes. I know I'm gonna get slammed with negs for this but I don't care this pisses me off.
"It's so convenient to have a system where everyone is a criminal" - A. Hitler
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.
Easy, its one of the M's in M&M's. Mars and Murrie. I'm certainly not giving up my (black & white M&M's) for some election year stunt!!
In fact, I would say that while retiring the Shuttle is a good idea, continuing to marry the ISS to the Shuttle isn't. Why not put the rest of the pieces up on ELVs (if you have to, buy some Arianie 5's from ESA), use fewer shuttle flights for "assembly-only," forget about hauling cargo. Simultaneously, launch a Soyuz a month, rotate crews like that, get the darn ISS staffed the way it was designed to be. Enough of this "caretaker crew" B.S.
Oh, and of course, we are killing the STS (in 2010) and ISS (in 2016) to fund this Moon/Mars project, let's not forget that. If allowed, it will become another black hole which will drain funds away from other NASA programs (like STS/ISS has done for the last 30 years). We'll never get Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter (JIMO) or the next generation of Galileo or Cassini-class missions with this project. Nevermind that Americans spend more money on potato chips than NASA in a given year.
Too bad fixing Hubble is "too dangerous," it's one of the few things manned spaceflight can do (and has done) amazingly well.
Bush Lies On the Record.
That's probably an accurate statement about Conservativism. They believe government exists to keep the peace and enforce the law, little more. But the space program is tied very closely to the military, and less directly, to law enforcement. So that part of things doesn't add-up.
I'm sure Bush would want nothing more than a 5 megawatt laser with a phase conjugate target tracking system that could destroy a human target from space. It's the perfect peacetime weapon.
Also, why does kill off the shuttle and ISS make a civilian space program viable? A better idea might be to have NASA assist other companies in developing space-faring gear, and with things such as the X-prize.
With the notable exception of the space program back during JFK's administration, not a whole hell of a lot that is spectacular or innovative has happene in space exploration. For god's sake! We put a man on the moon in 1969. Have we been anywhere else? No. Now we are talking about getting a manned mission to Mars going. Nice. But when all is said and done, we know this isn't going to happen as quickly. Not because of the time it will take to get the project going though. Because of all the rampant corporate fascism and cronyism in the current administration. Huge sums of money will be taken from YOU (the taxpayers) and funnelled into this supposed project to go to Mars. That money will make it into the hands of contractors who will claim growing expenses and line their pockets. Then when the Bush admin is thrown out of office or we get a good Democrat back in office, we'll suddenly be hearing news stories saying... "whatever happened to those plans to go to Mars"? There will be scandals involving the contractors who went bust, but not before the CEO grabbed the money and ran off to the tropics. (Bastards)
This is the wrong approach. If we as humans from the planet Earth (not Americans, not Japanese, not French or German or Europeans or whatever you may be) are serious about exploring space, we need to take this into our own hands as one big world project. Like the egyptians who had the pyramids built as a civic project, this should be the same thing. Add to that a sprinkle of the GNU GPL as applied to propulsion development, software development and mission planning, and you have a recipe for a REAL mission to Mars that might actually mean something. Open is way better closed, especially when the project is about furthering the state of humanity.
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?
If you care about the HST write your senator, don't vent on slashdot. Words here mean nothing, but a cogent, well-reasoned letter to your senator may make a difference.
The last requirement may be a stretch for some readers, but one can always hope.
Find your senator at: http://www.senate.gov/
"...It would be great to keep Hubble but how long can we put off manned space exploration?
Agreed that Hubble is great to keep. However, how long can we put it off? How about until the technology is ready, reliable and we don't have the administration pounding the economy into the ground with war? Seriously, do you really think that the "working man" is going to say "bravo!" to a manned mission to Mars while the economy is going to hell and his job is being shipped overseas? Damn man, come back to Earth.
Also, correct me if i'm wrong here, but do you have *any* fucking clue how much could be learned from Hubble and others like it with the ****billions**** of dollars it will cost to send men to mars? No, of course you don't or you would not have made such poorly informed statements.
"....Plus, I'd actually like to see it happen in my lifetime...."
Well, that's it folks! We *have* to go to mars just so this guy can *see* it happen (on monitors and tv programs "pruned" for maximum taxpayer enjoyment!!) Horray!
Danke tres mucho, tovarishch.
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 bold new vision is fine: FUND IT.
Meanwhile, we have to keep maintaining our boring old visions. Bold new visions need time to be fully developed and to prove themselves. It simply makes no sense to scrap the well tested for the not yet even designed.
Also remember that the current programs started out as "bold new visions". "bold new visions" aren't always what they're cracked up to be.
IOW, this is yet another unfunded federal mandate.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
"It'll cost us the billions we're spending today to come up with those "cheaper and more sophisticated transports."
No, private companies will spend the billions, not taxpayers... and odds are it will be much cheaper and more efficient to do privately, just like the majority of other government programs.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
Maybe he's Scooby Doo: Raffing out roud (Engrish for "laughing out loud")
Bush's Moon/Mars plan isn't going quickly into space!
Wonderful. So the only US program towards a manned spacecraft is facing difficulties while we're trying to save the ISS and Hubble.
Did it ever occur to these politicians that we might need some way to actually deliver people to the ISS and service the Hubble? Furthermore, with Soyuz, there's no guarantees -- the Russians aren't exactly in the best shape in the world. I hate to rely on them... especially considering the lack of capacity/capability.
Honestly I wish they had stuck with the Orbital Space Plane plan of attack, and started a new program towards Mars. It seems like this happens with every new concept at NASA. A program is started, it gets a decent way, and somebody decides it'd be better to do something different. We desperately need to stay the course with at least one program in five or so. How much money have we waisted already with this sort of abortion?
Furthermore, the "it costs too much" really pisses me off. NASA's FY04 budget was $15.5 billion. The increase in the Military budget -- not including the costs of our various wars around the world -- was $16.9 billion from FY03 to FY04. The overall military budget for FY04 was $399.1 billion. With wars included, it's even higher.
Should we turn a blind eye to this rampant military waste while putting NASA under a microscope?
In the long run, what's more important?
Fuckin' a. Sometimes I hate being human.
Dragging people kicking and screaming into reality since 1996.
"Service missions to Hubble are crazy given the astronomical launch costs for Shuttle missions."
Launching a shuttle costs about $150,000,000. That's the difference between flying a Hubble mission and not flying a Hubble mission: most of the shuttle costs are fixed costs, so you save very little by cancelling one flight... and, equally, adding another flight doesn't cost that much.
I mean, even with _no_ shuttle launches, I doubt the shuttle budget this year is significantly lower than usual.
Do NOT try to kill manned Mars exploration just because you hate Bush. That's pretty fuckin' petty.
They aren't trying to kill the "Mars Program" because they hate Bush. The Mars program doesn't exist - it is nothing more than empty words to make Bush look good. That is what they are trying to kill - a lie that makes Bush look good.
Whether we should have one, I think the answer is not yet - or atleast not the program Bush has in mind. In my opinion, there are only two valid reasons for a public space program - science and colonization. Sending a man to Mars won't help science in anyway, and could even hurt it by diverting money away from good programs, and contaminating Mars before we are done studying it.
As far a colonizing goes, we obviously will have to work toward that in small steps. But from what I understand, getting there isn't the main obstacle to colonization - The only real problem to solve would be landing. Everything else involved in traveling to Mars just needs time and money.
The real problem that we need to be looking at if we are serious about colonizing is how to create a sustainable living environment on mars. The two biodome projects were failures (from a working standpoint, not a learning one), the ISS is really just a hotel. Not to mention how little we know about the long term effects on the human body in Martian gravity. Until we figure out how to become self supporting on Mars we will not be colonists, but tourists.
Suppose we did follow Bush's Mars program, flew someone to the Mars and back, and every one is happy. At this point we will A) get bored, and kill the program just like we did with the moon, or B) decide to put up a colony. If we put one up as soon as possible (to keep the momentem we have) it will not be anywhere near sustainable, will be massive expensive to maintain (think ISS far, far away), and it will be useless scientifically. If we instead work towards a sustainable station, then by the time we are ready, we will need to entirely redo our transportation system anyway, again like reviving Apollo.
So at this point a manned Mars mission would be pointless. We should keep building probes and telescopes, and begin research on growing food on mars, and wait off on a manned craft until it is actually usefull.
Going to Mars would undoubtedly bring Tech innovations 10 fold increase. I think the money/manpower and pride are worth more than Zealots who think the money could be better spent elsewhere. Going to Mars would only serve to further improve everything here.
You people are all freaking out because you think Bush wants man on Mars by the end of the decade. Go read his speech again (which can be found here), and tell me, where in it did he say such a thing?
The focus of the speech was on expanding our exploration of space, and eventually sending humans to Mars and the other planets. But no time frame was stated. And the immediate goal is to establish a permanent base on the moon.
For me, though, the most important part of the speech was the closing paragraph:
"Mankind is drawn to the heavens for the same reason we were once drawn into unknown lands and across the open sea. We choose to explore space because doing so improves our lives, and lifts our national spirit. So let us continue the journey."
I think he's right. I think we need to explore other planets because it's our nature to do so. And I think we should start as soon as possible, and not let petty politics get in the way of a noble endeavor.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
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."
Who ever said getting onto a pile of explosives was inherently safe? Who ever said leaving the atmosphere and hurtling around at 18K MPH was safe? The problem here isn't one of technology or volunteers waiting to go into space; hell I would.
The problem is political will and political correctness. Nobody seems to shed a tear for the soldiers getting KIAed in IRAQ or Afghanistan, it's past news. The families and friends care, but we as citizens don't. However when a $1B shuttle breaks up over Texas, OMG, stop everything, we have to be "safe." This bullcrap about being PC and "safe" is counter to every exploration ever undertaken.
It took Risk to put Hubble into Orbit. It took people like Storey Musgrave to fix it in orbit, in a space suit hurtling at 18K MPH. Those were risks. Now, we have to have "contingencies" "backups" hell, I long for the days when politicians weren't running NASA, when they had a vision and took risks.
If Lindberg hadn't taken a risk, if the guys in St. Louis hadn't taken a risk, if Ryan aircraft hadn't taken a risk, there'd be no Transatlantic crossing.
Routan and the X Prize folks are taking risks and hopefully, with our prayers and support, will wrench the exploration of space out of the hands of the beaurocrats and politicians who want space exploration, without risk, which is never, ever going to happen.
Accidents will happen in the future. Hell, people still fly in 747s after TWA 800 don't they? People fly in Airbus 3XXs don't they, despite it's safety record.
Life is full of risk, as George Carlin says "take a F***ing chance!"
Fix Hubble, fix the foam, put the shuttles back online and get the next manned vehicle system back online. If you bozos at NASA can't figure it out, I'm sure all of that old CapCom equipment stored in the VAB can be turned back on and we can launch Apollos on Saturn 1Bs or Vs again. Hell, the Russians still launch Soyuz capsules that were developed in the 60s, so why can't we reuse what we've already learned?
Ahh, too much risk, I see. Maybe we should all stay in bed with the covers pulled over our heads.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
Committing to going to Mars first is a BAD idea. When we go to Mars, it won't be for just a few days, it'll be for a few months. And, we haven't developed the technologies for those types of habitats (isolated, ground-based, long-term). The moon is the idea test bed for these technologies. It's cheaper to get there and if mistakes occur it will be possible to make fixes or send up repair parts.
We need to spend a good amount of time refining these technologies on the Moon so that we can have a very high degree of confidence that a Mars shot won't fail. Hell, we can't even land unmanned probes on Mars with good reliability.
Mars first is a huge gamble.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
There's the Chinese space program.
The Chinese intend (or intended at one time) to land astronauts and possibly build a base on the Moon after 2005. While I see no real threat from this other than to our national pride, the thought of the Chinese staking a claim to equal if not superior technological prowess in space may be one of the things entering Bush's integer-only calculations.
Knowing how little the Chinese ruling party values individual human life, I'm sure concerns about slightly radiation-toasted taikonauts with mild cases of lunar dust-induced silicosis and low-gravitiy bone loss and muscle atrophy will not slow their program or eat into their budget like they would ours. The Chinese could be tough competitors.
So, just in case they really go ahead with their program and make good progress, the US would have the Moon/Mars initiative in the pipeline.
I'm all for planning Lunar and Martian manned missions, but we just don't have the technology or the necessity yet. Preserving Hubble is far more important.
"A worthy cause has never been harmed by the truth" - Gandhi
...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
1) The amount of useful data produced by Hubble is worthless compared to newer infrared space telescopes. Virtually nothing is being learned from these visible light images of the edge of the universe compared to infrared and X-ray images from newer telescopes. Before saving Hubble became a political agenda, even Earth based telescopes had already surpassed it with newer optics and image processing.
2) Too many people have to die to fix it. That may fly in the hyper-layoff, humans-are-liabilities mentality of Silicon Valley but not when those piles of bodies are shutting down the space program for years at a time.
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?
I saw the head of Nasa on TV yesterday, talking about Hubble's cancellation. The counter argument was that Hubble's best years are ahead of it -- the next planned service mission will increase Hubble's resolution dramatically. We can already look almost into the origin of the Universe. An improved Hubble may let us to do exactly that.
This probably scares the shit out of the Religious Right. The last thing they want is more evidence that Science has the answers. The Bush administration is well known for being shameless idealogues, pandering the the Religious Right, while giving other reasons for policy changes. So one wonders about anti-science forces working behind the scenes on this one. It's Galileo vs. The Church, all over again.
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.
Debunking the "59 Deceits"
This has been the thinking at NASA for the past 30 years "we need to find out more about X before we go to Mars".
This got us the shuttle program and ISS. The benefits of both I could count on one hand and the wastefulness of which is depressing to think about. While futzing around in low earth orbit for 30 years, we haven't learned anything that we couldn't have if Apollo had continued.
To steal a page from Robert Zubrin, the shuttle paradigm is like if Queen Isabella had sent Columbus out 100 miles to sea and sit there for a few months to study the effects of being on a boat for a long time.
We understand what it's like to survive in space and how to do it. More research is always needed but what's needed more is bold initiative.
Blaze a trail to the New World
Harrison H. Schmitt. Although he might be pushing the age limit a bit for a Mars mission ;) And of course, many of the astronauts that have worked on the ISS are scientists. Prominent? Maybe not, but definately qualified.
karma capped
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.]
Like Bill Clinton managed to? Just a few years ago, people were actually predicting an end to the debt, because of the budget surplusses. Damn that sure changed quick under King George.
Congratulations, you just once again demonstrated that you don't know what you're talking about.
The original wavelengths ARE known. Every piece of observation evidence ever collected supports the idea that the laws of physics that regulate spectral emission have not changed at any point in the visible history of the universe. Those spectral lines are very well known and very accurate. By looking how a particular hydrogen line has redshifted, you immediately know what the redshift is to a great deal of accuracy. The uncertainty has been determining the distance to an object. Unless you have something like a class 1a supernova to use as an absolute distance gauge, you know the object's speed but not distance. The determination of an accurate Hubble constant require both values.
Again, the dark era is pretty damned certain. We know that the universe is expanding away from us. This implies that the visible matter of the universe was once much more compact and dense. Therefore, it simply a matter of back extrapolation to calculate the density of the matter at a given point in time. The dark era is simply when the density of matter would have caused enough light-matter interaction to ionize bulk interstellar gas, making it impermeable to light. There is nothing controversial or speculative about this - the microwave background radiation we can observe is a direct image of this plasma. Optical observations haven't been able to see back to that point yet but we're getting close.
I guess that if you posit that the Big Bang didn't happen and that the universe isn't expanding that it is possible the dark era didn't happen but otherwise, it is a forgone conclusion. There are still some theories like 'lazy light' and alternate gravitational behaviour that are competitors to the Big Bang but they are matching actual data even more poorly as time goes along. Mostly, astrophysicists argue over details on the Big Bang theory these days. Very little serious effort is given to alternate theories since the Big Bang theory fits the data so much better than everything else.
Also, you've completely missed my point. We aren't sitting around and looking at pretty pictures - this is serious science, some of which - like studying interstellar plasma behavior may have practical benefits to building the very space infrastructure you talk about. Cancelling the Hubble will have almost no positive effect upon building a space infrastructure but it WILL have a major negative effect on scientific studies.
I wholeheartedly support robotic and manned missions to Mars and other planets to get hands on sample to work with. However, we have learned FAR more about the solar system and the universe and physics from remote observational tools like Hubble than all the the planetary landers and moon landings put together. Hell, most of the data we have on Mars comes from remote imaging just like what Hubble does.
Further, insisting upon some nebulous, huge space infrastructure is necessary to get to Mars is false. The Mars Direct plan by Zubrin, while having some flaws, demonstrates that you need little to no infrastructure to get to Mars. Big lunar mines make no sense in terms of orbital energetics. It's as if the settlers of the old West had waited for the US government to build a freeway system to be built before heading out. IF that had been the case, the US would still be stranded at the Mississippi river and the native Americans would probably have been much better happier.
If we want to go to Mars, we should go to Mars. If we want to build space telescopes, we should build htem on the ground and launch them. If we just go to Mars and start making colonies, we will eventually build the space infrastructure you talk about as it becomes necessary. There is no way that taxpayers will invest in the infrastructure first and then go - the Shuttle is a prime example of what happens when you start working that way.
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.
Just for the sake of fact clarification here, you guys might want to read my Mars FAQs. Note: this document was written for the Mars Society, with the blessing of Zubrin (though it has yet to be accepted as an official document yet). Even with that potential slant, though, everything contained within it is factual, and as we all know, Slashdot can be a little light on facts somtimes. ;-)
How To Get Humans To Mars
- Someone clammoring to send men to Mars
- Someone else saying we should go back to the Moon first
- A long and tiresome sub-thread arguing about robotic vs.
manned space exploration
- One person saying the James Webb space telescope (JWST) will replace
Hubble, so we should let Hubble fall into the ocean or die
- Follow-up to the above pointing out that JWST sees only infrared
and Hubble can do ultraviolet (UV) astronomy
- Another follow-up about adaptive optics making ground-based
telescopes nearly as good as orbiting telescopes
- Yet another follow-up pointing out that UV astronomy must
be done from orbit
- Some 14-year-old with more imagination than engineering knowledge
talking about the wonders of a farside telescope and/or Helium-3
and/or beaming power from the Moon to the Earth
- Someone mentioning that kook Robert Zubrin and his plan to send
men to Mars for {suspiciously small amount of $}
- Criticisms of Bush and O'Keefe
- Flustered post from another 14-year-old along the lines of
"why don't we just build a space elevator already???"
- A rant about the US space program grinding to a halt for 2+ years
when someone dies or something blows up
There. Did I miss anything?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