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NASA Think Tank to be Shut Down
Matthew Sparkes writes "NASA will likely shut down its Institute for Advanced Concepts, which funds research into futuristic ideas in spaceflight and aeronautics. The move highlights the budget problems the agency is facing as it struggles to retire the space shuttles and develop a replacement. The institute receives $4 million per year from NASA, whose annual budget is $17 billion. Most of that is used to fund research into innovative technologies; recent grants include the conceptual development of spacecraft that could surf the solar system on magnetic fields, motion-sensitive spacesuits that could generate power and tiny, spherical robots that could explore Mars."
...of recent technologies they've come up with that have made it into practical use?
I see the value of research for research's sake, but you've got to come up with things that have a practical use once in a while, even if by accident, otherwise that value goes away...
I'm not saying this lab hasn't come up with such things, but if they have, what are they and why aren't some of them listed in the story summary?
Can some helpful person explain how the NASA budget is drawn up? The wikipedia article covers the facts and outcomes, and not the political angles.
I guess I'm asking:
* where the money is going instead? To different NASA projects or to other state projects outside [stable economy]
* is there less money overall? [shrinking economy]
* is the budget determined by the President or the Senate?
* how frequently are these budgets determined? - how soon could all this budget shrinking really be turned around?
* is there consensus on the role of NASA, or is there variation between Democrats and Republicans?
* if there had been less spent on Defense [say Iraq war], would that have been allocatable to NASA? Sometimes budgets are drawn from several pools... e.g. Road Tax in Australia is only spent on roads.
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