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Hubble Future Is Cloudier After Katrina
XorNand writes "The AP is reporting that Katrina has further jeopardized the already tenuous future of the Hubble space telescope. The hurricane damaged the Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, where the shuttle's fuel tanks are built, and the Mississippi-based Stennis Space Center, where shuttle engines are tested, NASA officials said."
I'm down on NASA a lot. I think they are an unfocused government agency that is spread too thin and doing things out of the realm of their league. In that criticism, I am very unsatisfied with the shuttle program. I think that sending people into space is a complete waste of time and money for NASA. They have ceased to learn anything except that they are more and more afraid of flying every time they go up. Space travel should be a private enterprise, possibly assisted by government funds, but essentially researched and implemented by private companies.
But NASA should be around doing research. They should be at the forefront of space science. Part of this is the establishment of space telescopes. And so Hubble falls right in line with this mission. The more information NASA can gather about the universe, the more all of us benefit. The more they spend on pure research, the faster everyone (including private enterprise) can benefit and that pushes space travel forward.
Jesus saved me from my past. He can save you as well.
That the current administration is flat out against any technology that cannot be used for warfare or expansion of their personal corporate empires they will use any excuse to avoid repairing or upgrading the Hubble at all. Faith based government is directly inverse to scientific process unless some politically well connected buisiness needs the money.
NASA has long been considered a waste of money by the conservatives, HST is just another scientific boondoggle as far as these guys are concerned.
Count on them finding some fancy excuse to de-orbit HST within the next 6 months.
Stupid Humans.....
let's get private enterprise into the space race. Granted, Virgin Galactic are already there, but here's a revolutionary plan: scrap NASA and the federal space agnecy. Fulfill the obligations to the ISS and other programs, and then direct NASA's budget to federal subsidies for private enterprise. There must be thousands of businesses that want room on zero-gravity flights or orbital labs, and thousands of tourists who'd be willing to pay for an orbit round the earth. A subsidy to get things kick-started may be just what's needed.
$10/month: 120GB bw, SSH, CVS, Rails and 10 years' experience!
It's a shame that we put all of our eggs in one basket with the shuttle. Yes, it was a grand design in the 70's, but keeping something like this going, without designing something more economical as a replacement is a shame. Hubble, once fixed of it's poor eyesight, has unlocked a lot of the uknown universe to our eyes and imagination. It's just a shame that it will die without being upgraded. Maybe they can put it in "safe mode" before it dies out and perhaps a private company in the future can do the updates necessary to keep it alive until a hubble replacement is up and running. Personally, I'd like to see a 1,2 punch as far as space travel is done. Use a heavy lift vehicle like a "shuttle" system (SRB's and ET). Yes it is dangerous (going into space it very dangerous). Then, use a "spaceship one" type setup to get the people needed to do the work into space. We missed the boat I think by scrapping the Saturn V rocket. Big on power and reliable. Yes it was costly since "nothing came back", but at least it was realitively cheap to operate. Because of the complex nature of the shuttle, the cost per flight hours is just too expensive. NASA in my opinion is just like any government program. Good intensions, but too many "chiefs" which bog it down with paperwork and the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing. Get NASA out of the government, and put it into private industry, where they have to worry about the money they spend and you'll see a marked change in the way they work. But, I doubt that will happen. Once a government program starts, it's very difficult to ever end it. I grew up in the NASA heyday era of the 50's & 60's and was a HUGE fan of NASA, but, today, I wish it would just go away, for the most part. NASA had a "purpose" in the moon race....beat the USSR. After that was done, they didn't really have a purpose, plus, they lost favor with the congress, who controls the purse strings. We cannot afford to blindly spend money on a space program, that the bulk of the population sees no outcome that would benefit the population at large. Yes, a lot of technological benefits were derived from the space program, but, in this "instant" soceity we live in, and in the 5 minute attention span of our world, we don't have, or won't wait for good things to come out of spending so much money.
Hubble is about discovering how the universe is created and changing the way we view science and astronomy. Its pretty cost effect for what it has delivered and its one of the things that has had people looking at Space and going "WOW".
Unfortunately this clearly doesn't sit well with the US leadership as it doesn't give them people to shake hands with. Its so much better to build a $231m bridge in Alaska named after a senator than fund something that is considered a success by the global scientific community.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
It's sad that this may have to happen. Some of the most beautiful pictures ever taken were taken by Hubble. But, higher priorities have come up and Hubble must take a back seat to human life.
This is probably true, but we shouldn't be lured into believing that all human life must be preserved at all costs.
It's an ugly, uncomfortable truth, but if all resources went simply to preserving all human life there would be no progress. Instead there would be a race to reproduce until the entire world was full of people all living on the edge of survival - all "surplus" seed corn having been eaten before being planted for the next harvest.
Because they have money?
Unfortunately the 'business community' in general aren't going to want to help Hubble because it is largely irrelevant to their greater cause of maximising shareholder value.
Companies that would reap a benefit from helping are those already with interests in space systems (It could boost their value). However, most of these companies are simply interested in 'fire-and-forget' sattelite launches and do not have (or have the means to aquire) the complex systems needed to perform on-orbit servicing.
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
There's really not much difference between Discretionary and Entitlement spending. The only reason that Entitlement spending is "not discretionary" is because congress passed a law to make it so.
Congress DOES have direct control over entitlements. Congress can easily pass laws to make Entitlement spending NOT spending. They just don't want to... they'll lose votes (Republicans and Democrats both).
Using figures from 2000: The truth is, over 70% of our budget goes to Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. If you include the ~11% interest on the budget, and you assume that we need no national defense (for the sake of argument), that leaves us able to discuss 19% of the budget.
Why do you formulate an argument based on 19% of the budget?
If we cut 25% of the funding for Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, we would have DOUBLE the current "discretionary" spending (.25*(100-19)=20.25% which is roughly 19%)... and that's assuming no national defense.
If national defense cost 10% of our income, we'd have 350% of the discretionary income we currently have. Our "discretionary" income would be (19%-10%)=9%, so a 25% reduction in the funding for medicare would give us (.25*(100-9)=22.75% free budget), (22.75%/9%)=252% MORE discretionary income than we currently have.
I think you need to realize that Entitlements aren't entitlements because they're fundamental to the creation of this country. They're entitlements because some politician, one day, thought it would be a good idea to get them re-elected, and then went out and told everyone about how NOBODY deserves to be disadvantaged. Then they enacted laws that take other people's money so they could get re-elected. We could just as easily pass laws to take them away.
On top of all of it, the government is historically TERRIBLE dealing with entitlements. Don't believe me? Look at Katrina. We're spending TWO BILLION dollars PER DAY on Katrina victims. That's 4 times what the Red Cross has collected to date, and with the whole FEMA debacle, I'm willing to bet the Red Cross has probably helped more than the Federal Government. The total cost of the debit card program? ~650 million...
Most of that debit card money will probably be misspent. If you give poor people money (most of the displaced people from New Orleans are poor) (poor people have shown themselves to lack money management skills--by definition), they squander the money you give them. Lack of money management is why so many lottery winners end up losing their money. Every charity knows that when you provide for people in need, you give them what they NEED, NOT money. Because people without money management skills almost always buy things they want, rather than things they need.
Believing that people deserve entitlements is a fundamental problem in the thought process of many people in this country. The government is taking my money and spending 2 billion a day for hurrican relief, and people are complaining that the lines are too long, that they need people to watch their kids so they can get out of the Astrodome, etc. People BELIEVE they're entitled to all of this money because our politicans have told them (and passed laws) that the government should bail everyone out of all bad circumstances.
And you just bought into it too.
-=Lothsahn=-