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NASA and DoE Team On Dark Energy Research
Roland Piquepaille writes "NASA and the U.S. Department of Energy have teamed up to operate the future Joint Dark Energy Mission. As you probably know, recent astronomical measurements have showed that about 72% of the total energy in the universe is dark energy, even if scientists don't know much about it, but speculate that it is present almost since the beginning of our Universe more than 13 billion years ago. The JDEM 'mission will make precise measurements of the expansion rate of the universe to understand how this rate has changed with time. These measurements will yield vital clues about the nature of dark energy.' The launch of a spacecraft for the JDEM mission is not planned before 2015."
Seriously if I was the person managing the DoE budget and I saw something that say "dark energy research" I would think it was a practical joke.
I know it's called dark energy, but since when has astronomic phenomenon been within the realm of the Department of Energy. The DoE is responsible for energy policies. I could understand investment in potential energy producing technologies, but there is not one scientist who could tell me how to harness dark energy. Let NASA figure out what it is and when NASA says we can harness it then get the DoE involved.