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

Humm

[rbarreira]

I guess every minute in which the ISS isn't doing anything is money thrown away...

construction

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:construction

[DrLang21]

However, this isn't allowing them to focus on construction anymore than they used to. The rerouted funds are simply coming out of the research and adding nothing to the construction project. This seems to be typical of Congressional thought processes. If only there was a feasible way to get the private sector to dumb as much money into space flight as the government used to, we could get so much more done.

Scientific research be damned

[BlackCobra43]

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.

Re:Scientific research be damned

[DrLang21]

Plus space travel poses a national security risk. If we keep at it, pretty soon we'll be getting terrorist illegal aliens jumping the border on space ships.

Re:Scientific research be damned

[Johnny5000]

. In fact, I think every American citizen shouldget his own bridge. The world needs more bridges

Politicians always say they're interested in "building bridges."
I think the problem is that most of us assumed they were being figurative.

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.

China

[astralbat]

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

Re:China

[tgd]

What this story is talking about is beuracratic nonsense... its the absolute right thing to do.

The only way we'll ever compete, or advance beyond the 70's in space technology, is to kill the shuttle and space station once and for all. Both were utter wastes of resources designed from the start to be nothing more than a civilian funding source for military research, then warped into corporate and international welfare programs with the fall of the cold war in the 80's.

The space station was never meant to be finished... it was meant to be as expensive and difficult to build as possible, to keep pumping billions into defense contractors, ensuring they were still around when the next big war came along.

It worked. Now our actions around the world more than support the funding of our defense contractors. Time to stop wasting money on the space station and put NASA's budget doing what it does best.

Re:China

[Guppy06]

"I can see China overtaking the US in space exploration within the next decade or so because of all the beurocratic nonesense"

Because China has no bureaucracy to speak of?

Re:China

[tomhudson]

"In fact, they wouldn't have half their navigation tech"

So where'd the other half come from?

The same could be said about the early American and Soviet space programs - they really needed the experience the Germans had. Or are you going to argue that the scientists and engineers from Peenemunde were not important?

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.

"pet" projects, nice troll

[Gothmolly]

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.

Re:"pet" projects, nice troll

[budgenator]

Nice troll is right;

Construction or renovation of dozens of museums, planetariums and science labs for colleges. Oh I see NASA is uniquely qualified to provide laser light shows to rock music and the presence of museums and planetariums are instrumental to the exploration of aeronaughtics and space.

Computers, classrooms and lab space for colleges and schools across the U.S. If you've checked the prices on tutition and contact hours recently you'd know that if a school wants something useful, they'd just cut a check and buy it, if a school wants something that's "well yeaah maybe it'll come in handy, I'm sure we'll figure out something to do with it" than why not get the money direct from congress and cut out the middle-man, doesn't the middle-man have better things to do than run community outreach when their primary mission is basicaly on hold?

A website and laboratory for the Gulf of Maine Aquarium. Fish in space, KEWL I wanta aquarium on ISS! That'll make one hell of a screen saver!

Re:"pet" projects, nice troll

[Anonymous Coward]

Are they directly related to space exploration and (related) research? If not, why are they coming out of the NASA budget? Surely the "Computers, classrooms and lab space for colleges and schools across the U.S." should come from a different budget? Similar with the Aquarium.

Theres "worthy choices", and then there are "worthy choices that are funded by the appropriate budget". These may be the former, but apart from the museums and planetariums I think they are not the latter. They sound to me more like there is no way in h*ll that federal money would otherwise be granted to the project, so they got NASA to spend its limited budget on it instead.

Good, Play Hardball

[GreggBz]

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.

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.

Pet projects are not the real problem

[kcurtis]

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.