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NASA May Shut Down all Space Station's Research
jdoire writes "NASA is considering shutting down all the research programs it conducts aboard the international space station for at least a year to fill a projected budget shortfall of up to $100 million, a top station manager said on Thursday. Why the shortfall, you may ask? Because of $3 billion of Congress's pet projets"
Two links to the same article in the summary, and no apparent mention in the article (yes, I RTFA'd, wow) of what the hell these so-called "Pet Projets" (sic) actually are. What gives?
Argh.
I guess every minute in which the ISS isn't doing anything is money thrown away...
The AACS key is NOT 0xF606EEFD628B1CA427BEA93A9CA9773F
If they're going to finish building the damn thing in less than 4 years, why doesn't it make sense to stop playing with that science experiment and put on their hard hat? They need to focus on construction or else you'll have this half finished barge in orbit. You'll get a lot more science done when the place is big enough for a 6 scientists.
I want my own personnal Bridge to Nowhere, damn it. If the Alaskans have one then I want one too. In fact, I think every American citizen shouldget his own bridge. The world needs more bridges. Potential break-throughs in space travel or space exploration? Pfft, who needs that.
I never spellcheck and I freely admit it. Save your karma for more worthwhile "lol erorrs" replies
I can see China overtaking the US in space exploration within the next decade or so because of all the beurocratic nonesense and hoop jumping going on in West
I find it wonderful how politicians are sapping money out of a lot of technology-based funding and using it for completely different means.
Where's IPAC (http://www.ipaction.org/) when you need them?
From TFA, what the money is being spent on instead:
Construction or renovation of dozens of museums, planetariums and science labs for colleges.
Computers, classrooms and lab space for colleges and schools across the U.S.
A website and laboratory for the Gulf of Maine Aquarium.
Arguably worthy choices to spend scientific $$$ on. If you have X dollars, and X+Y projects to spend them on, then Y of those projects are going to go unfunded.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Please learn to notice OBVIOUS SARCASM. Feel free to mod this -1000 off-topic all you want however, that's cool.
I never spellcheck and I freely admit it. Save your karma for more worthwhile "lol erorrs" replies
I've not yet deiced if Michel Griffin is doing a better job, or if I just paid less attention when Sean O'Keefe, the previous administrator fought such battles.
I think Michael Griffin is doing a better job.
Focus on the missions, and the supplementary benefits will follow. NASA did not need to buy computers for students, build planetariums or make a special website so that I could learn about the Voyager missions. Instead, they supremely engineered those things, and the science that they returned (and are still returning) inspired and taught the world.
People tend to underestimate the impact of one successful mission. Voyager, Hubble, Apollo and The Mars Rovers have done more for
science and education around the world than any congressman.
NASA could have been budgeted free and clear for the next ten years if it were not for this stupid war we keep shovelling out the million$ for each week.
Just a question from a german ;-)
Why do you call those pet projects "pork" or "pork barrels"? It seems that there is a historical connection to a precendent of this kind which had to do with pork. But what exactly happened?
use Bielefeld.pm
As I recall, most Slashdotters supported this policy. Don't think it has anything to do with Congressional pork, which has always been there. It's simply NASA's new priorities:
. html) -- conveniently for Republican environmental policy -- and made manned spaceflight its top prioirty (http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/02/ 17/1415223).
When Bush announced manned spaceflight to the Moon and Mars, Slashdotters broadly supported it (perhaps someone can find the original post). But of course, there are not unlimited resources, so money must be diverted from something else, namely science.
NASA now has cut all environmental science from its mission (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/22/science/22nasa
The mammoth deficit and the Republican's refusal to raise taxes ensure that funds are even more limited. NASA can't have it all, so which do you want? Science, or manned spaceflight?
How can the parent be considered 'Offtopic' if he is simply asking a question about a term used in the title of one of the stories in TFA.
If this were really happening, what would you think?
... $419.3 billion (2006 official), it's no surprise that they have to cut certain other projects. Poor NASA, sadly there's not as much profit in exploring / colonizing space as there is in invading countries with rich oil sources.
"Line item Veto"
Yeah, the party not in power always hates the idea.
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I don't consider ordering NASA to build/refurb science labs for colleges, or a "website and labratory for the Gulf of Maine Aquarium" (from the article, did you even read it?) as part of the mission, or priorities as you put it, for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
There are only 10 kinds of people in this world... those who understand binary and those who don't
The topic author points out $3 billion in "pet projects" -- many of which are a waste, but also many of which are valuable. Not that the budget should have itemized spending like this -- it is just absurd to say that pork of $3 billion in a year is the problem.
The problem is the nearly $5 billion per month (USA Today article with the numbers here) being spent in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Even if you think the wars are legitimate, logic dictates that this huge cost is the reason why our deficit is going up, and why programs are being shortchanged.
All the significant scientific research in space has been done by unmanned probes for a long time.
About the only really significant thing the manned space program has done in aid of science was to repair the Hubble.
We're putting humans into space so that they can build the ISS so that we can put humans into space. Into low earth orbit. The same place John Glenn went in 1962. It was thrlling then. Well, OK, the "Space Station 3D" movie is thrilling to watch now... but the scientific aspects of the ISS seem to me to be about 98% grandstanding and PR.
What's the point? Is it a welfare project on the part of the U. S. to keep Russian scientists from looking for work from nations we would just as soon not have Russian scientists working for?
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
But of course, there are not unlimited resources, so money must be diverted from something else ...
As others have pointed out, the current administration seems to feel there is an unlimited amount of resources for some causes. If only NASA had some alien threat they could use to drum up funding.
ERROR 144 - REBOOT ?
The price tag for politicians' "pork" has grown so large that NASA may have to delay the new spaceships and rockets needed to replace the space shuttles, to be retired in 2010. Instead, NASA will pay for:
Construction or renovation of dozens of museums, planetariums and science labs for colleges.
Computers, classrooms and lab space for colleges and schools across the U.S.
It is an indication of how far wrong we are going with large science projects in space that we can define support for museums and college labs as "pork" and therefore waste. How can they honestly think that frog sex in space and the dynamics of a burning candle are more important than education here on Earth? How long are we going to accept that spewing our seed into barren space is the thing to do?
The U.S. Constitution grants Congress the power to decide how the federal government spends its money.
Another fundamental error of thinking, the Federal Government HAS NO MONEY! There is NO "their money," no government money. The money is tax money, standard-of-living dollars ripped from American citizens by force of arms. Ask people to contribute out of their own pockets or weekly paychecks and see how much money the government comes up with for space.E Proelio Veritas.
It's time. Split NASA into operations and research.
Turn the shuttle and space station and all non-research operation/facilities (including launch) over to the Navy (not the Air Force, despite the superficial similarities) with the mandate to provide the US a continuous capability to deliver large payloads into space on demand.
NASA keeps making robotic probes and running science programs and focuses on organizing and developing for the "return to moon and on to Mars". All rockets and launch services to be contracted from the Navy or private industry.
Actually, split it into three portions - the utter fat (museums and such) gets divided between various other agencies such as education. Or simply cut it out entirely.
When I said, Don't think it has anything to do with Congressional pork, I meant to imply: The pork isn't the issue; it has always been there, throughout the history of NASA, and always will be. What did change were NASA's budget priorities.
Blaming pork is just a way to distract us from the real issues.
> The same could be said about the early American and Soviet space programs - they really needed the experience the Germans had.
But of course! Keep in mind the reason "Our German scientists were so much better than Russia's German scientists" though. Their distribution was not random. Being 'rocket scientists' in both senses of the term they understood Germany was losing and made every effort to be captured by American or British forces instead of the Russians.
In other words, they wanted to be here building rockets for US instead of slaving away for the Soviet Empire.
Democrat delenda est
Sounds like, aside from the ongoing costs of having people up there (food oxygen fuel replacement-parts) all the current investment could be qualified as a sunk cost.
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-- Season 3, Episode 2"Misbegotten"
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
Yes and no. NASA seemed to think it could implement Bush's Vision for Space Exploration with only moderate budget increases, by redirecting funds from the Shuttle infrastructure. This turned out not to be the case, so they're cutting science.
Now, the Space Frontier Foundation believes that NASA is not implementing the VSE: it specified that NASA should focus on going back beyond the ISS and low Earth orbit, leaving exploitation of the latter to private enterprise and buying services as needed. (Some might say that private enterprise is not there yet, thinking Scaled Composites or Armadillo, but I'm sure Boeing and Lockheed are quite capable of developing something. Just make sure competitors can bid every few years...) Yet NASA is spending most of its energy developing the CEV block 1, which it says is urgent because it must replace the Shuttle as soon as practical. And this urgency justifies poor design decisions which will hamper it if it is to be used beyond LEO as well (CEV block 2).
So the SFF's recommandation is:
This reminds me of the horror stories my ex's grandad told me about his years as a park ranger. He worked all the big ones like Yosemite and Winchester Mansion and Grand Tetons, I can't remember them all but it was a good 30 years worth of service. He told me about having to lay off rangers at his park so that some yahoo in congress could get a national park in his district dedicated to squirrel humping or some such asinine thing and then have to justify the slippage in services at his park to the congressional yahoo in his district without being able to point at the stupidly redirected funds as a fault because his yahoo probably promised the money to the other yahoo for a deal on a vote. This was not a one time deal either, there were years of this and i suppose that Nasa has the same problems because they deal with the same jackasses. It is time to turn over the bulk of close to earth exploration over to private interests. I am talking about the moon and space stations and mars. That is the only way we will ever really accomplish anything worthwhile in these endeavors. Take the profit motive away from congress and give it to private enterprises, I daresay that the government will end up with more money taxing profits from space companies than it will trying to be the only transportation option.
Someone tell them there is no state of Indialantic and kick this clown out of the Congress. Ok well his stuff wasn't bad and seems like a good guy from the rest of the article, so if he is from a real state I don't mind.
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In looking this up, I found what everyone else found about barrels of salted pork, slaves, etc., but I also found this bit from the Straight Dope about the term slush fund, which is a related term frequently used in American politcs.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
All repeat after me:
"Line item Veto"
Repeat after me: McCain's Anti-Torture Amendment.
Repeat after me: Patriot Act Oversight Rules.
Bush already thinks he has a line-item veto in the form of signing statements. Let's not actually give him the power to further neuter Congress and expand executive power in the ways that he's been striving to do by legitimizing his acts with an actual line-item veto power.
No, I used to sort of support the line-item veto, but I'll never support it again. Even if just restricted to budgetary affairs, it's too much power.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
NASA is a smokescreen... The ISS is a joke... and The Shuttle is an outright con job...
The time will come when all of this will become apparent for what it is - a smoke and mirrors game meant to stifle and control space travel - not advance it.
I know several good men and women at NASA who do not see the forrest for the trees - but they just assume all the incompetence and irrationality is due to bureacracy and political maneuvering.
What most Americans fail to see is the more sinister manipulations that NASA is responsible for world wide.
Might I ask how "A website and laboratory for the Gulf of Maine Aquarium" has anything to do with NASA's mission? It's like the congressional hearings for steroids in baseball: a complete mis-management of resources.
Jeez, just $100 million, let's just not bomb in Iraq for about a half hour, that should save it. What about that $9 billion that went missing in Iraq, that's 90 times as much down the drain!
Wow. Somebody give this guy an insightful mod...you know, just to be ironic. Hey, I love Arthur C. Clarke as much as the next nerd. Guys like him had a great overall understanding of the potential of space, but if they genuinely knew how to build mile-wide spinning space cities complete with swimming pools, they wouldn't have wasted his time writing books. They would've been planning out their retirement homes at the L2.
While I too am often frustrated that we haven't landed a man on Mars yet or don't have a big ol' casino on the moon, I occasionally look up from the pages of my sci-fi books and notice a thing called reality getting in the way. It's great to see DARPA funding a competition where a bunch of modified cars drive 100 miles in 6 hours without human intervention, but that ain't beans compared to accelerating 17,500 mph, and staying alive for an appreciable amount of time on only as much food, water, and air as you can take with you, then falling 200 miles at Mach 20. Sure NASA has its faults, but you can't point to very many people beating them at their own game.
Since the crippled space station can support a maximum of three occupents at time, because NASA-Russia delayed funding for a crew module, the space station now becomes the universes most expensive hotel. No, because the station is so buggy, it takes two people fulltime to maintain it, so occupants are more like janitors.
I guess some other country can step to the plate and surpass the US in space exploration. Maybe the EU or China will take the lead and shame the US into spending money on science instead of desctruction.