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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"
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
Apparently not enough:
The AACS key is NOT 0xF606EEFD628B1CA427BEA93A9CA9773F
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.
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?
... $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.
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.
The Line Item Veto is not the cure-all that a lot of people think it is. I think here in Wisconsin we've proven its weaknesses and drawbacks.
It was enacted in the mid 80s and the first governor to use it was Tommy Thompson. Under him it became called the "Vanna White Veto" because he took letters from words and wrote totally different bills from the ones he recieved. The State Supreme Court ruled that's you have to use whole words and can't create new words.
Tommy found a new way around the veto by eliminating dollar amounts and writing in a smaller dollar amount. The Supreme Court said that was in the spirit of the law so that is now allowed. That basically allows the governor to cut funding to a large number of programs but give him an out politically because he doesn't have to totally eliminate the program. Nice for the governor huh?
Last year Doyle decided he would try something new. He cut out a bunch of pages of the budget but kept parts of numbers so that he could INCREASE state education funding by almost $500 million. While I like the outcome in this case, it shows how the power can be abused.
While people hate (or claim to hate) pork barrel spending sometimes its the much lesser of two evils. For example, if the only way a legislator will vote for a reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act is by giving a congressman $45,000 for a museum in their district about underwater basketweaving then I can't say I'd be totally against. I think the benefit far outweighs the expense. In the end less than 2% of the federal budget is earmarked to specific projects. Is that too much? Of course but its far outweighted by much larger portions of the federal budget (military, medicare, social security, etc.). While we should be vigilant to ensure that there aren't huge abuses of earmarking (Bridge to Nowhere), a little bit should just be expected and sometimes is the best way to get complex and controversial legislation passed.
I may not like that this has to be done but its also the reality considering the people we've elected.
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.
> 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