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"

Comments

Re:Excuse me?

[rbarreira]

yes, I RTFA'd, wow

Apparently not enough:

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.

  A website and laboratory for the Gulf of Maine Aquarium.

  A sprawling headquarters building for a non-profit research group in West Virginia created by U.S. Rep. Alan Mollohan. The Democrat is now subject of a broader congressional ethics probe.

This is exactly what many Slashdotters supported

[guanxi]

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:

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. html) -- conveniently for Republican environmental policy -- and made manned spaceflight its top prioirty (http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/02/ 17/1415223).

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?

Re:Rest Assured

[Junior Samples]

According to msnbc, the Iraq war is costing $200 million per day. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11880954/ A half day of war funding would take care of NASA's immediate shortfall.

Re:Why is it called pork?

[Ohreally_factor]

Wikipedia has one theory.

I think it has more to do with politicians buying votes by delivering actual barrels of salt pork to their constituents. There's also a related term, "Bringing home the bacon", but this is more general, and is more a reference to earning a wage.

Re:China

[Mr. Slippery]

They are not technology deveopers, merely technology copiers.

Do you think that status will last forever?

It was China that first developed gunpowder, printing, the magnetic compass, and the planetarium. When they recover from the effects of a few centuries of colonialism and Maoism - really just a blip on the course of Chinese history - expect China to be a dominant world power, technologically and politically.

In fact, they wouldn't have half their navigation tech if Clinton hadn't circumvented security recommendations for campaign contributions.

Clinton merely continued the policies of Reagan and Bush I with respect to "technology transfer" to China.