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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!"
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'.
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.
The Economics of Website Security
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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/
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?
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 cesspool just got a check and balance.
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.
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.
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.
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"
> Conservatives love killing off all parts of government not associated with the military or law enforcement.
Well there is certainly military value in space, so that point is moot. Also the NASA budget DECREASED under Clinton a number of times and was actually lower when he left office than when he started( and this doesn't include inflation either) and this was during the prime years of the dot-com boom too where the government was rolling in money. Bush is INCREASING the total budget. Data is below:
1993 $14.309 billion, existing NASA budget when Clinton took office;
1994 $14.568 billion, $259 million increase, first Clinton budget;
1995 $13.853 billion, $715 million decrease;
1996 $13.885 billion, $32 million increase;
1997 $13.709 billion, $176 million decrease;
1998 $13.648 billion, $61 million decrease;
1999 $13.654 billion, $6 million increase;
2000 $13.601 billion, $53 million decrease;
2001 $14.253 billion, $652 million increase;
2002 $14.892 billion, $639 million increase, first Bush budget;
2003 $15.000 billion, $108 million increase (estimated);
2004 $15.469 billion, $469 million increase (proposed);
>and this new program simply isn't viable
Why? Not that I agree or disagree but this is a pretty sweeping statement to claim without backup. Which parts of the Moon and Mars plans are not viable? What do you like about the Hubble, and ISS which you would like spared? Give us details, not generalized Bush bashing.
-Comedian
Modern particle physics, including supercollider experiments, is about as far removed from practical applications as astrophysics and cosmology. In fact, the fields overlap in various ways; big bang nucleosynthesis, cold dark matter, neutrino oscillations, etc.
And knock it off with the "pretty pictures" crap. The "pretty pictures" are a PR and education effort, not the scientific product. If we don't produce the pretty pictures, and popular explanations to go with them, we're attacked for living in an ivory tower, too elitist to share our results with the public. When we do attempt education and public outreach, we get your crap about "just pretty pictures." Can't win. Maybe if you'd read the articles, instead of adopting the Playboy approach, you'd learn something about the science.
...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
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