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New NASA Budget Woes
Abcd1234 writes "The last few months have seen NASA the focal point of high drama, the most obvious example being the controversy surrounding the next Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission. Well, the drama continues with NASA reporting to a Senate subcommitee that it currently faces a $2 billion budget shortfall which could result in the downsizing, delaying, or outright cancellation of a number of NASA missions, including the Space Interferometry Mission and Terrestrial Planet Finder, which may be delayed, and the James Webb Space Telescope, often cited as the successor to the HST, which faces potential cancellation. Among the reasons for the shortfall: cost overruns in a number of missions, including the shuttle return-to-flight program, resumption of the Hubble servicing mission, and mandated congressional expenditures (a.k.a 'pork')."
Incorrect. The JWST hasn't even started major construction, and the estimated (and optimistic) launch date is late 2011.
Hubble is a bird in the hand, and the JWST is two birds flying around in the future, and part of an organization that routinely starts and cancels projects.
Don't count your telescopes before they've hatched.
Next season is survivor Afganistan. First team to go in and capture Osam gets a billion dollars. A real bargin and ratings gold. Could save broadcast TV and solve the budgt crisis at the same time! The government is so screwed up outsourcing to entertainment could solve all our problems.
People always suggest "they should privatize space!" but these same people fail to realize a fundemental problem: space is not profitable.
There is very little out there to capitalize on (you know...the root of capitalism?). I don't think people realize how hard it is to travel out there (in terms of size, durability, and other huge problems). What does a company do with space exploration? If the rings of Saturn were made of gold nuggets we would be there. If there where diamons the size of boulders on Mars we'd be there. Unfortunately by all measurements these places are remarkable but not useful for any buisness on Earth.
I don't think you'll have MD, Boeing, Airbus or anyone else lining up to fund their own excursions into deep space because there is simply no money to make out there. Remember that Columbus had a plan to make money before going on his little trip. Expecting companies to explore space just because is unrealistic.
Look, NASA would solve a lot of its budgetary woes if it would just hire somebody professional to come up with names for its various projects. Space Interferometry Mission? WTF is "interferometry"? Sounds like a cancer treatment. "Planet Finder" --- boooring, besides, isn't "Finder" already trademarked by Apple? And who in the tarnation is James Webb? Some hack from the sixties nobody's ever heard of.
Off the cuff, I can think of much snappier names -- "Intragalactic Terrorist Locator" for the planet spotting thingy, "George H.W. Bush Memorial Telescope" should make it politically impossible to cancel the Hubble replacer, and for that Space Interfrazometer Moozit, let's license the sucker to Electronic Arts/Maxis and call it "SIMS in Outer Space."
There are two kinds of people: 1) those who start arrays with one and 1) those who start them with zero.
It's all done the same way; in much the way that Bush is deliberately running a huge budget deficit to bring down the "welfare state" thanks to fiscal crises he has created, the same was done with NASA. O'Keefe had nothing to do with space; he's a guy from business who joined the Bush administration on its very first day and was sent to NASA to carry out a partisan politics agenda, and he did it to the letter. The manned mission to Mars is simply a huge cost that will keep NASA distracted and in crises such as this one that will force it to cull science programs, in much the same way they plan to cull social security programs, and Bush has already culled 150 social security and welfare programs in his last budget, on the excuse that they can't afford them. Additionally, Hubble is primarily from the liberal state of MD, whereas the missions the Bush administration imposed on NASA are those that will primarily benefit the military-industrial complex and conservative states such as FL and TX.
Gaaah! It really cheeses me off whenever I hear this tired old argument. "There are problems here on Earth! We must solve all the world's problems before going into space!"
That's the same as saying we should never do anything in space. The world has had problems for thousands of years, I don't see paradise-on-earth being established anytime soon.
So if you really believe this, let's get serious. Let's stop making movies, since they cost a ton of money and don't contribute to solving the world's problems. Let's outlaw the gambling industry. Let's shut down tourism, too. Let's make people give up their pets -- Americans spend way more on their pets every year than NASA gets.
And of course, the US military budget is about 10X NASA's budget, maybe we should trim *that* back until after we've solved illiteracy, poverty, world hunger, AIDS & cancer, etc.