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NASA Priorities Out of Whack?
amerinese writes "Just last week, we saw a story on NASA reconsidering the fate of the DAWN mission, another reminder of the space agency's budget woes. Gregg Easterbrook over at Slate.com argues not only is the budget a little short, but NASA's priorities are all wrong. From the article: 'For at least a decade, it's been clear that the space shuttle program is a clunker. Nonetheless, NASA's funding remains heavy on the shuttle and the space station, while usually slighting science. This year's proposed budget for fiscal 2007 takes the cosmic cake.' Is NASA just not thinking creatively enough?"
Whilst I agree with the vast majority of this article, the planet finder project should be given a much higher budget, study of the earth should have a much higher priority, I think the author leaves the Near Earth Object study a little low on the list, I would think this should be at least number 2 on the list of priorities, first save the Earth from itself the study of moisture is important so this is fine, second save the Earth from a huge chunk of rock eliminating mankind, from there on down yes cool study other object in our solar system, study possible locations for other life out there.
Additionally I am not sure about the moonbase, until we get a definitive answer on the question of if water exists on the moon I don't see the point in building a base there, really we should be putting a lot more focus on studying the moon, what rare minerals can we find, is there any water anywhere that can be used to fuel spacecraft travelling further than the moon. These questions can all be answered with probes and possibly robotic landers we should be putting more effort into studying in this way before we even consider sending people back let alone building a base there.
I am interested in the study of the universe, I am curious about development of galaxies and black holes but I am more interested in protecting our species from an extinction level event either from us damaging the planet or from an asteroid wiping us out. It seems like NASA is really just trying to get popular support here. For the unknowing masses building a moonbase would seen really impressive, having mankind walk on the moon again would be a great advertisment for NASA, "hey look guys we still got it". Given the set backs they have experienced in recent years I can kinda understand their reasoning to feel like they need the public behind them again, but I think a report saying we have found a way to save the Earth would be a lot better for their publicity than a report saying we have some guys bringing more rocks back from the moon.
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One of the arguments given for completing the ISS is that other nations have contributed to it, and it would not be in good faith for the US to stop working on it.
How much for us to just buy them out? I suspect much less than the cost of completeing it.
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From the evolutionary position this is easy to explain. Meat is very, very dense calorie wise compared to veggies. When you're a human being struggling to get enough food for survival for, say, the last 10 million years, and your lifespan averaged less than 30 years, meat was extremely good for you. The heart clogging problems with the fat and cholesterol don't kick in until your average lifespan hits 40+ (how many people die of heart attack due to over-eating meat before 25?), and even then, the odds that it will impact your likelihood of reproduction are small. The bottom line: meat is bad for your longevity, not your reproduction, and for your ancestors it was very good for their reproduction.
Given the number of women advocating vegetarian lifestyles, it could be argued that given another 10,000 or 100,000 generations, the preference for meat taste will go away.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
If a bunch of engineers and hard scientists got together and decided how to spend NASA's budget most effectively, we'd see only automated missions.
Speak for the hard scientists. If a bunch of engineers got together and decided how to spend NASA's budget next year, we'd see nothing but launch vehicle R&D. Trying to seriously explore the solar system with current vehicles is like trying to explore another continent via catapult.
What's more, we'd see a dozen different companies competing to create those new components, testbeds and launch vehicles, not just because that's how much money NASA's current budget takes up but because that's how you get a working product instead of an X-33. Engineers find it easier to choose between working prototypes than to choose between stacks of paper viewgraphs. It's more expensive in the short run, but the results usually turn out much better.
13 billion. You say that as though it's an astronomical sum. To you and I, who measure things in hundreds or maybe thousands of dollars, it is. To the federal government, whose budget is in the trillions, and who can run deficits with near impunity, it's less than pocket change.
13 billion is less than 0.7 of the total federal budget. It's practically nothing. And it's one of the few government agencies that can actually produce real, tangible, ROI in terms of technology developed, not to mention the advances in our understanding of the universe, which can't be measured in dollars and cents.
Contrast your precious 13 billion to what else the government blows money on -- 553 billion on military expenditures (not counting veteran's benefits which account for another 76 billion). We've dropped 250 billion in just a few years on this Iraq war. Nearly 80% of the national debt is military related, and the interest alone nears 353 billion dollars. Per year.
And you're saying NASA is overbudgeted?
Yes, they could do a lot more if they funneled money into R&D for mass production, modular probes, fast cheap and out of control. But 13 billion is not really a lot to play with for a program that is, by its very nature, expensive. With mass production, you could possibly lower the manufacture costs per probe, but what about the not-cheap task of actually launching them, designing new ones, administration overhead, on and on?
When you think about all the stuff we have today that is a direct result of the space race, 13 billion is not asking a lot, and is far from being the most bloated of government spending.
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The article's author seems to be arguing that NASA's main priorities should focus on areas of earth science. While I agree that earth science is important, I have to wonder how much NASA should even care about that stuff -- they are an aeronautics and space administration after all.
If I was head of another government department with a strong mandate for earth sciences (NOAA), I'd only want NASA's help to get some of my earth-pointing satalites up there and keep them flying -- and to stay out of the way beyond that.
Lunar dust is -awful- stuff. It doesn't matter that there's no air or wind to waft the stuff around: it's constantly getting lifted from the surface by electrostatic levitation. It sticks to things persistently. And it's wretchedly abrasive. This isn't friendly fuzzy Earth dust we're talking about here, these are billions of tiny shards of sharp glass.
Moon dust sucks.
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We are in a race against time against catastrophe. This planet is a death trap that history (as attested in the fossil record) has shown time and again in mass extinctions, supervolcanoes, tsunamis, asteroid impacts, ect. The only way we are going to survive long term is to establish manned colonies and spread out in the universe, and we are behind schedule! Our manned space program is not a frivolous waste of time and rescources. What better science can be done by a rover that cannot be done better by a trained geologist on site? No rover or probe sent to the moon ever did a better job than the apollo astronauts, whose scientific accomplishments are often glossed over or ignored. Plans are afoot to construct a huge array of antennas on the lunar farside making the most awesome radio telescope ever concieved, but It WILL NOT get built without MANNED spaceflight! It is hyperbol to suggest that science funding is being permanently cut. The manned program needs more rescources NOW to re-establish capability to leave earth orbit (that we foolishly discarded 35 years ago after spending billions to develop it! At the same time They must finish the space station to meet international obligations and only the shuttle can do the job. This is only a temporary situation. The Shuttle WILL be retired in 2010, and after the CEV and associated boosters are developed their operating costs will be far lower than the shuttle. More of NASA's budget will then be available for a more robust science program. And as I have said, you will not be able to beat the science that can be done by astronauts, on site. But the most important thing is, in the wake of NASA's scientific explorations establishing infrastructure, private concerns for mining, construction, tourism, what have you, will follow, and the first space colonies will get started.
Here's the problem. NASA has a budget measured in billions, yes, and it has seen steady small increases in recent years. The problem is that NASA has been asked to do 50% more things with a 5% budget increase, and the mandate is for manned efforts to return to the moon and Mars. NASA does has been slashing budgets for space science. Those of us who value NASA's support of space science are crying about the budget because it has been cut year after year. You might as well ask what's the problem with the US budget every year when so much income comes in? Anytime your needs outstrip your income, you have a budget problem, no matter the absolute number on that income.
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You've fallen for the Average lifespan fallacy. human being have never been prone to just 'dropping dead' at 30. death under 60 has always been due to 'disease' or 'accidents' or 'at the hands of your fellow human' what made the average lifespan 30 or so years for so long throught human history was infant mortality. durring some of the most culturally backwards times in human histories babies have had less than a 1 in 3 chance of survivng their first year of life. now you take one person who lives to 60, one who lives to 1 year of age, and one whop died at 20 of the plauge and you get an 'average' lifespan of 30 years. well, sure statistically you had a 66% chance of not making it to 60 years of age, but i'm not so certain the people who died at one year of age were even aware of the problem ;)
the single biggest factor in prolonging human lifespans has been in the 'saving' of infants from diseases and death in child birth from being in the uterus backwards being unable to be safely delivered through natural childbirth. Go areound ask your friends how many were delivered by Cecarian section? nearly every one of them would havesuffocated int heor own mothers womb, unable to be delivered. some midwives were practiced in 'turning' the babies, but that is a risky procedure to both mother and child, which is why nowadays we just cut the mother open and take the baby out.
The fallacy in your argument is that somewhere along the course of human evolutiuon people mysteriously didn't live past 30 years of age, which has never been true, ancient chinese and other cilvilizations writings speak of people living much longer than 60 years even without any 'modern' medicine to help them along the way. the average may have been 30, but that was not a typical age to die even then. BTW, meat was generally not in the buudget of the 'common worker' who hasd to susist of cheper grains. and as such the erarliest history of heart disease are in the aristocratic ruling classes who could afford to eat meat daily, instead of on 'sunday' (if they were that lucky) the primary exception were fishermen, etc, however fish has none of the negative heart health effects that 'red meat' does.
with the exception of the plains indians who had easy access to bison meat, enough to preserve for 'year round' consumption very few early civilizations had easy access to red meat. cattle are very expensive and wasteful creatures to raise, they consume roughly 39 times their selling weight in grasses and grains(over their life time). what's more 'profitable' 39 lbs of grains or 1 lbs of 'red meat' although with cattle you can pretty much ground up the entire plant into cattle feed, wheras humans would only eat 'the grain' so that does change the picture, since one can sell 'the grain' to humans, and 'grind up the plant' for inclusion into feed, and still wind up ahead. having both many lbs of grain and many pounds of cattle to sell.
The 'preference' for meat taste is actually an addiction to the chemicals that eating meat produces in the body. so no without 'genetic alteration' this trait will not go away, yes people can learn to live without meat (how many centuries did the japanese go without any access to red meat? having only fish and rice and fruits and vegrables?) but as has been shown by the 'modern' japanese taste for burgers and beefbowls, this trait does not go away simply because a culture rejects or has no easy access to red meats.
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