Appropriations Bill Threatens Future Space Science Missions

ColdWetDog writes "A brief story in the Atlantic notes that the U.S. Senate's energy appropriations bill has failed to supply funds to continue Plutonium-238 production, needed for radioisotope generators for NASA's interplanetary probe programs. No PU-238 means no more missions like Cassini-Huygens, or ones that go places where solar cells won't produce enough power. The article notes that the only other source of PU-238 is Russia — either through the government or through trolling through Siberia and the Russian coastline looking for old Soviet Era lighthouses and power stations."

Comments

Re:No need for it, go SOLAR!

[Skarecrow77]

1st reply to dr trollbob!

way to fail science yet again Dr Bob, probably no less than 3 times in this one post!

Read the writing on the wall

[elrous0]

NASA is toast. No politician wants to say it out loud, but they've been setting this up for some time now. The space race is over and they've been scrapping various parts of NASA for the last few years now.

Re:Read the writing on the wall

[hedwards]

It's got nothing to do with the space race. NASA is one of the main agencies tracking climate change and it's a bit of an odd coincidence that the same party that denies climate change is the same party that seems to feel that NASA is no longer needed.

Re:Read the writing on the wall

[durrr]

NASA is toast, because with the next-gen USA the bankers will recive so much in never-ending bailouts they can start their own space agency.

Re:Read the writing on the wall

[Jiro]

The Democrats and Obama are denying climate change? Wow.

Re:Read the writing on the wall

[0racle]

Add to that that no one has the balls to look at defense or education spending. Cutting NASA's funding ($17b*) will totally make more of an impact than looking at Defense ($613b*). More money has been spent on Air Conditioning in Iraq and Afghanistan than is being spent on NASA.

Americans spend more on pizza every year than they do NASA.


* - 2009 budget levels.

Re:Read the writing on the wall

[Anonymous Coward]

space is the next financial bubble. we have all this space up there. we can never run out of space in space.
 

Re:Read the writing on the wall

[Kenja]

Did you know that the senate and the office of the president are not the same things? Most of us had this explained in grade school, but it seems some where bussy eating paste.

It is the senate republicans that are trying to do away with all science, art, education and health care under the guise of fixing the budget. Not sure why they're doing it, but they do seem keen on the idea.

Re:Read the writing on the wall

[Anonymous Coward]

It's got nothing to do with the space race. NASA is one of the main agencies tracking climate change and it's a bit of an odd coincidence that the same party that denies climate change is the same party that seems to feel that NASA is no longer needed.

This is a Senate bill. Take a quick look and see which party is in charge of the Senate right now.

Posting anonymously so I can mod you stupid.

Re:Read the writing on the wall

[Anonymous Coward]

yes, but i can eat pizza and it helps me sustain life... where as a picture of jupitar or a scan of neptune doesnt

Re:Read the writing on the wall

[MaWeiTao]

I think you're really over-thinking this. I don't think politicians are that sophisticated and I don't think climate change factors into thinking as much as you seem to think it does. If Republicans were so hung up on climate change why wouldn't they just cut funding to those specific agencies responsible for climate research. But it's irrelevant anyway given that climate research is done by far more people than simply NASA.

This is how NASA gets screwed:
Republicans demand spending is cut. They don't care how or what as long as it looks like they've cut something. Democrats refuse to cut government staff or social programs, anything that might secure votes, so they go after unpopular programs. The thing is that Democrats, like Republicans only care about the jobs of people who will keep them in power.

NASA happens to be one of those unpopular programs. You have the conservatives who think the money should go to defense to protect us from terrorists.. And liberals think all that money should be spend here on Earth. But sides balk at the big price takes, ignorant of all the work required to conduct a successful space program. They are also oblivious to the huge long-term benefits of a space program, that you can't just will new technology into existence.

The pathetic irony is that after all this we then have everyone lamenting about the loss of American technological superiority. Unfortunately, the problem starts at the bottom, with the American public's fixation on sports and celebrity culture. We've brought this on ourselves and we perpetuate it by resorting to checklist politics. God-forbid a liberal have some conservatives ideas, or a conservative some liberal ideas.

Re:Read the writing on the wall

[TopSpin]

spend more on pizza

Eating has a big constituency.

Re:Read the writing on the wall

[Attila Dimedici]

The article refers to the Senate approprations bill. Are you aware that the Senate is controlled by the Democrats? Which means that this appropriations bill was almost certainly written by a Democrat staffer.
It was an Obama appointee to head NASA who said that his number one priority as head of NASA was outreach to Muslims. That sort of priorities on the part of the Administration might explain why NASA is being dismantled. Well, that combined with the fact that most NASA employees are in Texas and Florida, states that most likely will vote against Obama next year (OK, Texas will certainly vote against Obama, and Florida will likely vote against Obama).

Re:Read the writing on the wall

[erroneus]

Yes. It's going from bad to worse. Some would argue that the government has never really supported the interests of the nation but have always supported the interests of business. I can't agree with this in its entirety or there never would have been a NASA and we would not have had child labor laws, the FDA and more. That's not saying they are doing what they should be doing or that they aren't doing enough, but they exist and at one time or another, did serve the interests of the people.

These days, we are seeing business interests trampling the public need all over the place while the government is paid to allow it to happen. Even after AT&T's lies were exposed, various parties in government are demanding an explanation as to why the AT&T merger is being blocked by the DoJ. They can't be that stupid. They are obviously being paid to put up a fight to enable the deal to go through despite the obvious problems with AT&T needing to explain themselves in a truthful and logical manner. So far, their lies have gone unexplained as far as I can tell.

And yes, I can see where certain parties who dislike the results would like to punish them for telling the truth. There are some amazingly short-sighted people in office who aren't interested in the truth and would seek to "change reality" rather than work within it. (BTW, congress is voting for exemptions on the law of gravity... write your congressman!!)

Re:Read the writing on the wall

[Anonymous Coward]

NASA is toast. No politician wants to say it out loud, but they've been setting this up for some time now. The space race is over and they've been scrapping various parts of NASA for the last few years now.

"America is toast. No politician wants to say it out loud, but they've been setting this up for some time now. The cultural race is over and they've been scrapping various parts of America for the last few years now."

This is just another in a long line of things in which America has been slowly getting rid of innovation, it's own ideals, and all of the things that made it great. Slowly turning into a country run by people who don't believe in science, and are racing to entrench their own narrow views into law.

The rest of the Western world, hopefully will not follow this example. Though, I have my doubts.

Re:Read the writing on the wall

[Anonymous Coward]

Last time I checked, the Senate was run by Dingy Harry. But kudos on the knee-jerk spin! Almost first out the gate!

Re:Read the writing on the wall

[Skarecrow77]

Scans of other planets so you know where to build that base on mars will come in pretty handy when the next giant asteroid comes by.

Don't think I'm anti-pizza though. I'm ok with there being a pizza joint on-base.

Re:Read the writing on the wall

[vlm]

It's got nothing to do with the space race. NASA is one of the main agencies tracking climate change and it's a bit of an odd coincidence that the same party that denies climate change is the same party that seems to feel that NASA is no longer needed.

For the religious types, facts opposing them encourage them, shows the devil cares enough to try to tempt them.

I think its probably more a factor of apathy. Some paleo-conservatives on the far left believe there was or currently is a garden of eden across the planet and if we have to commit civilizational suicide so New Orleans sinks beneath the waves in 200 years instead of 100 years, well then lets fire up the ovens and sharpen the hatchets. Everyone else is like "eh".

Where I live has been under a mile deep sheet of ice, and has been a tropical sea, in the distant past. In the distant future it will again be under a mile of ice or become a tropical sea again. Not seeing the supposedly obvious moral and ethical virtue of committing cultural suicide somewhere in between the two.

Very few people hear NASA and think climate change. Mostly hear NASA and think landing on the moon when grandpa was young, and exploding shuttles, if anything.

Re:Read the writing on the wall

[vlm]

The thing is that Democrats, like Republicans only care about the jobs of people who will keep them in power.

NASA and their infinite collection of subcontractors was always a decent source of STEM-type jobs. I suppose if the kids today are smart enough not to go into STEM fields because all those jobs already have or soon will go to Chindia, then there is little lost by getting rid of the govt cheese jobs.

They are also oblivious to the huge long-term benefits of a space program, that you can't just will new technology into existence.

Technology is for China and India. We will become a nation of small retailers at the low end, like "pirate costume stores" and at the middle-higher end we will become rich selling each other insurance policies and real estate. Meanwhile the rich will always have their fraction of the national net worth and income increase, always. I know this sounds idiotic, because it is, but its how our leaders think, which explains a lot.

Re:Read the writing on the wall

[vlm]

Well, that combined with the fact that most NASA employees are in Texas and Florida

Ah but they've got sub contractors all over the country. In fact you can't really do anything there without involving as many states and districts as humanly possible. Its actually getting to be a problem, as the intentional destruction of our industrial capabilities means more and more work simply can't be done here anymore, and its not like China or India need foreign aid.

Re:Read the writing on the wall

[Biff Stu]

It has nothing to do with climate change. Satellites in Earth orbit that study climate change can get plenty of power from solar panels and will eventually de-orbit. Nobody wants to release Pu when these satellites de-orbit. The Pu is reserved for missions to the outer planets where there is not enough sunlight to power the spacecraft.

Re:Read the writing on the wall

[jellomizer]

I don't think so. As some have pointed out.

Florida, and Texas are the states with the most to gain from NASA Existence and those are States that do have a history of switching parties and hold a good amount of votes.

If they are going to "Debunk the Myth of Global Warming" they are going to need more Complicated Facts in which they can twist around. NASA would be a great tool of that you get a lot of complex data, easy to "Mathify" (Like Quantify but used to obscure vs. enhance) to make your own personal conclusion.

NASA and the Military go hand and hand.

Corporations want to keep their satellites up and running and put new ones as some point.

The real problem isn't some grand scheme against NASA or a conspiracy. It is just the Right Wing has gotten Nutty Right and doesn't like any Government funding for anything.

Re:Read the writing on the wall

[Anonymous Coward]

"but it seems some where bussy eating paste."

Really? And were you bussy eating paste during English 101?

"It is the senate republicans that are trying to do away with all science, art, education and health care"

Wow, all that depends on NASA's RPGs? Amazing.

Re:Read the writing on the wall

[sumdumass]

appropriations, while authorized by the congress, is under the purview of the presidency.

Please, by all means show where republicans are trying to do away will +_all_science_art_education and health care.

You will not be able to honestly do it. What you will find is people who value certain things over others and think the limited form of government that the federal government was designed to be means something to this day.

Re:Read the writing on the wall

[asylumx]

God-forbid a liberal have some conservatives ideas, or a conservative some liberal ideas.

So true! It's hard to be a moderate because those liberals think you're a conservative, and those conservatives think you're a liberal!

Re:Read the writing on the wall

[Anonymous Coward]

It is the senate republicans that are trying to do away with all science, art, education and health care...

Did someone explain hyperbole to you in grade school, and how it actually makes your argument less credible?

Re:Read the writing on the wall

[Attila Dimedici]

Upon what do you base your belief that Senate Republicans are responsible for this spending cut? The Senate is controlled by the Democratic Party. The House, which is controlled by the Republicans, passed an appropriations bill which funded this program.

Re:Read the writing on the wall

[h4rr4r]

Perry. That nimrod thinks TX schools teach creationism. Which would be illegal if true. He sure is trying to get rid of all education.

Re:Read the writing on the wall

[0123456]

space is the next financial bubble. we have all this space up there. we can never run out of space in space.

I'm willing to sell you all the space you can cart away for only $10,000 a cubic meter. Get it now before the price doubles: they're not making any more space!

Re:Read the writing on the wall

[gtall]

Well, to be fair, they are doing it because science is in a vast conspiracy to destroy Christian values, capitalism's propensity to not put a value on the environment thus making it harder for Republican's to get elected on "jobs", and naughty thinking of SOME economists pointing out fallacies in Republo-Econ 101 theory as what's spewed during Republican debates (i.e., just about any of Ron Paul's ideas). Now if Scientists would just come clean and reveal the inner workings of this conspiracy, then we could have an honest debate over it. Well, it would be honest except the last thing the Republicans want is an honest debate over Science.

Re:Read the writing on the wall

[jd]

It's not even just long-term benefits. NASA does an awful lot of engineering work for American aviation (military and civilian), which has very immediate benefits for places like Boeing.

And, yes, you're absolutely right about the technological superiority thing. It's not limited to space tech - it's very debatable as to whether it would be even possible to re-import a lot of the tech jobs (such as plasma TVs, digital cameras, etc) back into the US due to the total lack of the necessary skills and experience. It's no good people whining about the problems caused by globalization if they then force both the local talent and the local jobs overseas. In the case of NASA, this would be to Europe and Russia, though to some extent India as well. The scientists want the same stuff done and if the former Soviet Union is going to be more obliging than Congress, then that money (and those scientists) won't wait on Congress. They'll go where the action is, same as everyone else.

Of course, this would not be such a catastrophe if America developed new industries and new skills to fill in the gaps every time work got exported. You can't do everything single-handed and it makes sense to export some things. Likewise, overseas markets take time to ramp up and have only finite workers with the necessary abilities. So long as you keep moving forwards, you don't lose anything by donating what is no longer practical. The catch is, you've got to move forwards for this to work.

Re-inventing the Saturn wouldn't have helped much, since the Russians could adapt Soyuz to do the same work for less. Projects like the Blended-Wing Body passenger jet NASA was working on, the turbine-assisted ramjet, or the now-abandoned hypersonic jet - these are the things that could have kept NASA ahead of the curve. In F1, the saying is that if you're not moving forwards, you're moving backwards. The current state of funding for NASA, combined with the brain-drain and transfer of funds to places more willing to venture into space, is a perfect demonstration of how this applies to every industry.

Re:Read the writing on the wall

[cyberchondriac]

Except that the Senate is majority Democrat, not right wing. The Right typically likes NASA, as you said, it goes hand in hand with the military. According to TFA, the House (Republican majority) recongnized the problem but didn't do anything about it, and the Senate just ignored it entirely. I don't think it makes sense to politically polarize this issue as they're both doing it.

Re:Read the writing on the wall

[jd]

It goes without saying that the two shuttles that exploded did so during political stunts where NASA was under extreme pressure from government to play up for the cameras rather than pay attention to the engineers. I don't know enough about the situation surrounding Apollo 1, but it wouldn't surprise me if grandstanding was a factor there as well. Hmmmm, come to think of it, how many actual (non-natural) disasters haven't happened due to grandstanding? The Titantic ploughed through a known ice field in order to meet the owner's deadlines. The R101 was known to have serious design flaws (including major hydrogen leaks) but it was more important to win the race against the R100 than fix them. Even with the global warming you mentioned, pollution is a resource bought by industry that makes no profit and produces no innovation, but you'll see more people concerned with looking good on TV.

That would seem to be the common denominator. Exotheatrical theatre.

Re:Read the writing on the wall

[gtall]

Keeping health care in the back pocket of insurance companies which cherry pick only healthy people to insure, I'd call that doing away with health care. Attempting to turn Social Security over to the private sector (that'd be the one that gave us the current economic crisis), that's simply attempting to hand more of the economy over to Wall Street..that's just anti-people. Cutting the budgets of NIH and NSF, that's anti-science. On a local level, attempting to get Creation "Science" taught as if it were somehow equal in theoretical prowess as Evolution, that's anti-science. A basic problem with the current Republican "Leadership" is that they do not believe humans can affect the planet. They appear to have no problems with pollution, overfishing the oceans, destroying habitat for critters, uninsured poor people, poor people, etc. The result of this will be an America that is too busy putting out fires caused by their incompetence to compete in the world economy.

Sure they aren't attempting to do away with ALL science and health care, just the parts they some how have a "philosophical" (read: monetary) disagreement with. It used to be we could trust the Republicans, I consider myself a conservative Republican of the Bill Buckley mold. However, the current crop of scientific and fiscal illiterates (Ron Paul, Rick Perry, Michele (I've talked to Jesus) Bachmann) reads like a cast from some perverted version of the Rocky Horror Picture show. Can't they all just go the hell away and leave us some decent candidates?

Re:Read the writing on the wall

[triffid_98]

Yes. It's going from bad to worse. Some would argue that the government has never really supported the interests of the nation but have always supported the interests of business. I can't agree with this in its entirety or there never would have been a NASA and we would not have had child labor laws, the FDA and more. That's not saying they are doing what they should be doing or that they aren't doing enough, but they exist and at one time or another, did serve the interests of the people.

As a matter of perspective, lets take a look back to how things were before AT&T (and the invention of the telephone)...unfortunately not that much better really.

"The money powers prey upon the nation in times of peace and conspire against it in times of adversity. The banking powers are more despotic than a monarchy, more insolent than autocracy, more selfish than bureaucracy. They denounce as public enemies all who question their methods or throw light upon their crimes"
-Abraham Lincoln

Re:Read the writing on the wall

[Zancarius]

Upon what do you base your belief that Senate Republicans are responsible for this spending cut? The Senate is controlled by the Democratic Party. The House, which is controlled by the Republicans, passed an appropriations bill which funded this program.

This is Slashdot where there are plenty of self-proclaimed "open-minded" individuals who profess to be without bias while simultaneously disbelieving anything that doesn't fit within the neat confines of their world view. Humorously, they place the blame of this activity upon the shoulders of those with whom they disagree.

Re:Read the writing on the wall

[sjames]

Besides that, we were supposed to be out of Iraq by now. I'm pretty sure the ROI on blowing up brown people is terrible.

It's fine and dandy if the world actually needs us to keep the peace, but I say let the market decide. Send out bills and wherever it's not paid, withdraw.

Re:Read the writing on the wall

[TheTyrannyOfForcedRe]

I'm pretty sure the ROI on blowing up brown people is terrible.

Not when they have a lot of oil.

Re:Read the writing on the wall

[sjames]

According to the price at the pump, we have gotten zero benefit there. So still a terrible ROI.

Re:Read the writing on the wall

[Anonymous Coward]

Posting Anon because, well, this is slashdot.

When it comes up, I describe myself as a pretty conservative guy. But I have to say, I haven't seen a Republican that even remotely represents my world view, and I know there are others out there like me. It's a miserable position to be in... unable to find any candidate that represents you.

Perry is a good example. I don't want our schools teaching our children ID/creationism bullshit. I do want us to get the hell out of Iraq and Afghanistan. I don't think we need to build a giant wall on the border with Mexico with sentry turrets on it... if only because I don't think "dem Mexi-caans is takin our jobs!" Someone wants to pick oranges? Great, let them. And in the rare event a well-trained engineer were to cross the border, I don't really have a problem with having another skilled engineer working in the US. Yes, I'd prefer if they could manage it legally, but I don't think illegal immigration really ranks among our biggest problems.

Some of us just want there to be some kind of old-school fiscal conservatism in Washington. Some think that the federal gov has presided over too many issues that should've been handled by the states. We think we should keep our second amendment rights. We aren't all batshit religious wackjobs. Et cetera.

Instead we get these "meet the new boss, same as the last" over-spending, loud-mouthed, antagonistic, openly racist, religious fanatics that spend all their time telling me that my neighbor is the enemy because he thinks we should have universal healthcare. I might disagree, but c'mon now... it's just disagreement. That's a dialog we should talk out, and see where it goes.

And not to rag too hard on the Republicans, I see this from the Democrats too, and it aggravates me more than any topical disagreement I have with anyone I know. Where are the sane, rational and decent options?!

Re:Read the writing on the wall

[John Bresnahan]

they're not making any more space!

Um... Yes they are.

Re:Read the writing on the wall

[jamstar7]

It is the senate republicans that are trying to do away with all science, art, education and health care under the guise of fixing the budget. Not sure why they're doing it, but they do seem keen on the idea.

The NeoCons are all for that, if you keep the population stupid and uninformed, they're more likely to take to the streets chanting "America! FUCK YEAH!!" right on cue.

Re:Read the writing on the wall

[gad_zuki!]

>It was an Obama appointee to head NASA who said that his number one priority as head of NASA was outreach to Muslims.

An appointee was talking about something about Muslims you say!?!

Show me the change in the mission statement, show me the change in the missions. Oh you can't. You're just parroting Hannity, Rush, and O'Reilly with your meaningless drivel.

>Well, that combined with the fact that most NASA employees are in Texas and Florida, states that most likely will vote against Obama next year.

Florida is a swing state. The big problem I see is that pork barrel GOP Senators "design rockets by commiteee" to keep the pork flowing in their states, but of course you're free to believe conspiracy theories about Muslims and elections. There's no shortage on conservatives on Slashdot to vote you up. No wonder this site is shedding users to quickly. Its "Fox News" chat for morons here.

Re:Read the writing on the wall

[erroneus]

I'm saving that quote.

Re:Read the writing on the wall

[jamstar7]

The real problem isn't some grand scheme against NASA or a conspiracy. It is just the Right Wing has gotten Nutty Right and doesn't like any Government funding for anything.

...that isn't connected to defense spending.

Fixed that for ya.

Re:Read the writing on the wall

[Attila Dimedici]

The NASA Administrator said that Obama told him he wanted him to do three things "third and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to Muslim nations..." http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/talktojazeera/2010/07/201071122234471970.html This is at about 1:20. The only one of the three things that belongs in the NASA Administrator's purview is the first one.
Yes, Florida is a swing state, but current polling (combined with last year's election results) suggests that it will swing Republican next year.

Re:Read the writing on the wall

[internerdj]

At the start of this administration, Alabama's 5th district (Marshall Space Flight Center) had a Representative on the Energy and Commerce Commitee. He, being an idiot, switched parties and lost his position on a powerful comittee and essentially was useless until he was voted out of office last November. I'm sure he wasn't the only NASA proponent in the House, but he certainly cost NASA.

Re:Read the writing on the wall

[Imrik]

When it comes up, I describe myself as a pretty conservative guy. But I have to say, I haven't seen a Republican that even remotely represents my world view, and I know there are others out there like me. It's a miserable position to be in... unable to find any candidate that represents you.

The vast majority of the population are in the same position, politicians represent themselves and their own interests, not the interests of the voters. (though the two may coincide) Many people don't notice because they vote for their party without paying any attention to what their party is doing, others notice but vote for the one they see as having a chance of winning who is only the second worst candidate.

Re:Read the writing on the wall

[Anonymous Coward]

"The senate is controlled by the Democratic Party." And the Democratic Party is controlled by the Republican Party, and both parties are controlled by those who deal the funds and influence that buy them controll of both.

Those want private enterprise to control space exploration, just as they want private enterprise to control Social Security, Health Insurance, Prisons and local governments. They used to want private enterpirse to control the post office, and had private enterprise controlling it. But now they have found they can't milk the public coffers for enough to keep the post office afloat profitably.

The same will happen with space exploration and Social Security, and health insurance, if they get those and then those turn insufficiently profitable. In space exploration this means money will go for exploitation of space resources, not for exploration of space phenomena.

It does not matter if you are Democrat or Republican, conservative or liberal. If you are a member of the United States public you will pay to the corporations for whatever you get and have to accept whatever you get.

As for who produces U-238, it will be the producer who will provide at lowest cost. Probably Iran or North Korea, who will be happy to be "of benefit to the world" and to have their nuclear progrrams paying some, if not all, their costs.

Re:Read the writing on the wall

[Attila Dimedici]

The House voted to appropriate the funds to continue this program.

Re:Read the writing on the wall

[idontgno]

Did you mean "posting REALLY anonymously", or did you just check the "Post Anonymously" checkbox while remaining logged in? Cuz if you did the latter, Slashdot isn't fooled, and you won't be able to moderate. OTOH, if you logged out to post that, good job. I hope it was worth the effort. (And, yeah, it's not much effort. Whether it's even worth that is open to debate.)

Re:Read the writing on the wall

[Anonymous Coward]

Where are the sane, rational and decent options?!

They aren't getting elected.

The media system we have profits based on viewership, therefore their job is to get as many people to continue following the endless political cycle as long and as closely as possible. So we start the November 2012 campaign cycle in February 2011. Look at Pawlenty. When he was in the game, he was going around making up ridiculous non-words like "Obam-ney-care". After he drops out, he goes on Colbert and literally tells everyone "the election has turned into a reality TV show and I didn't have enough money to keep playing."

Democracy is the system where the public knows what it wants and deserves to get it good and hard. And right now the public wants a good ol' shit-flinging contest. I predict that if this trend doesn't reverse itself as our economy continues sliding, we're going to see televised pro-wrestling duels between candidates in a few years.

Re:Read the writing on the wall

[Anonymous Coward]

Very very well said. glad someone sees it

Re:Read the writing on the wall

[hey!]

That doesn't seem so unreasonable to me. Apollo, after all, was about showing the non-aligned nations that communism wasn't the wave of the future.

There's a word for this. It's "spin-off". Nobody is saying don't do research, make nice with the Muslims. It's look for an opportunity to give the taxpayers more bang for their buck. And if you don't think that's possible, we've spent a lot of money over the last decade in Iraq and Afghanistan for geopolitical purposes. A tiny marginal improvement the efficacy of those efforts would be worth a lot of dough.

Re:Read the writing on the wall

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, your ignorance is astounding. Last I checked the Senate is controled by the Democrates. This has nothing to do with denying science, but in cost savings on a program that is too expensive for what it provides. If you can do something cheaper and safer, why wouldn't you?

Re:Read the writing on the wall

[anubi]

From what I have seen, the American situation is very similar to my neighbor's situation.

He lost his job. High income earner. She never had a job, she raised kids. 3 of 'em.

Their spending habits changed little. They still bought new cars, plasma TV's, vacations, restaurants, Disneyland. New strollers.

HELOCs paid it all.

Then, two months ago, the bank wouldn't accept any more charges. Payments were due, and they wanted something of substance, not promises.

The house now sits vacant. A bank's foreclosure sign waves on the front yard. I have no idea where the family is, or who would take them in. From what I hear, the bank is not happy. They bought the house for around 800K and Zillow lists it at 399K.

I am waiting for the same thing to happen to America when we dig ourselves in so deep into debt that we have to surrender any claim we have on our own natural resources in order to pay our debt. I see the day hungry people will see grain on Maersk ships, headed for China. I see the day I see cold people in barely warm houses mining coal to be sent overseas.

Competing for jobs with machines.

While rich people and the politicians who wrote law for them watch over closed circuit monitors with all the sympathy of a healthcare employee rescinding insurance to someone who had the ill luck to get sick.

I have already seen us become a nation which passes law to financially ruin a family for illegally downloading a song, yet find corporations harmless for accepting one's health insurance premium for years, then denying treatment.

Or internet service providers who deliver nowhere near the advertised performance, yet demand payment in full.

If our government is going to hold phrases like "the terms and conditions of this agreement can be changed at any time" and stuff like "advertised performance is not guaranteed", is valid businesstalk, then let me state "release to the public via public airwaves or internet constitutes permission to whomever receives it privileges to do whatever he/she wants to do with it."

There, I've said it. Written in Businesstalk just like a real contract.

Re:Read the writing on the wall

[sumdumass]

yawn.. just one sided dribble not worth a reply but i'll give you a short one anyways.

There are constitutional issues with the changes attempting to be made to the healthcare as it exists. Changing the constitution first, or changing the laws within the constitution is not doing away with health care. BTW, do you understand that the mess with health care right now is largely due to the HMO act of 68 and medicare? If anyone sorted by political party has done more to benefit insurance companies, you would have to say it is the democrats. But lets pout and complain when it isn't fixed the way you want it to be fixed while ignoring what got us here in the first place and reward those same idiots by bashing the political opposite.

But none of what you wrote is close to doing what was asked. "show where republicans are trying to do away will +_all_science_art_education and health care". You go on with your opinion about things but it's not even close. anti something even if there is some way to find credit for the statement is not doing away with all of it.,

As for creation being taught in Texas schools, it doesn't really matter does it? It's not being taught in stead of evolution and unless you think biological evolution theory is so weak on it's own merits that teaching about creation or any other purposes method of existence threatens it, there is nothing to worry about is there?

That's one thing that really has puzzled me. If evolution is so right, it's almost a fact, then why does an alternative method threaten you guys into a point of hysteria? I mean seriously, someone can hold both to be true and never have any problems in any field of work or part of life they encounter, yet the slightest mention of creation places some people so far on the defense it's hard to recognize them.

Re:Read the writing on the wall

[Attila Dimedici]

I'm sorry, but your top three priorities are not "spin-offs". In this case, the head of NASA is saying that things that might be legitimate secondary goals ("spin-offs") are actually his top priorities. So, I find it unreasonable.

Re:Read the writing on the wall

[Thing 1]

However, the current crop of scientific and fiscal illiterates (Ron Paul [...])

Please explain how Ron Paul is scientifically and fiscally illiterate? I find him the most literate in both these areas, so some illumination would clearly show which of us is correct.

Re:Read the writing on the wall

[Thing 1]

That's one thing that really has puzzled me. If evolution is so right, it's almost a fact, then why does an alternative method threaten you guys into a point of hysteria?

It's not that there's an alternative theory that might be superior. It's that there's an alternative theory that might sway reptilian brains which are not as trained (and/or, perhaps, "gifted") in the ways of science, that is terrorizing our intelligent sector. Because "being superior" in this realm is not the same as being scientifically superior. (Just as a virus that kills its host is still "superior".)

Re:Read the writing on the wall

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the thing with the Democrats: They aren't even in control when they are in control. ^^

As much as the Reps are crazy delusional madmen, the Dems are crazy spineless madmen.

Oh, and of course in reality, whether it's $strawParty1 and $strawParty2 is actually irrelevant. Look at the lobbies to know who's actually doing it.

Re:Read the writing on the wall

[Anonymous Coward]

B. S. Chuckleheads who religiously read trashy magazines found around checkout counters pay for them with their own dough. People who hang on every gee-whiz story NASA puts out thinking that it is vital to American "technological superiority" (more so than private industry, national defense, k-12 education, government solvency...?) aren't ready and willing to pay for Buck Rogers entirely out of their own pockets no matter how indescribably but unquestionably important it is.

Re:Read the writing on the wall

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, let's just keep spending a few extra trillion every year. How about $4 trillion for a guy who pisses in a bottle as art? Why not? It's so worthwhile. Let's just keep printing money until everything collapses again and China just fucking buys the entire country. But we'll all have our "Piss Christ," pathetic education system, and health care that takes 14 weeks to get into to see a doctor about some serious disease (and only if the government even approves you for cancer treatment because it "may be too expensive" and you're not worth it). Fuck yeah, sign me up for $100/kWatt electricy because everything is powered by hamster wheels and unicorn dreams. More bread and circuses for everyone! The % of people actually paying any income tax is slowing creeping to less than 50%, and which point they can vote themselves into free blowjobs and cocaine while anyone with a job just says "fuck it" and goes to Columbia to be a drug runner and actually keep your own money.

Re:Read the writing on the wall

[Anonymous Coward]

When it comes to issues of religion, economics or national defense, I do expect parties to divide over certain subjects. But what you said...

it's a bit of an odd coincidence that the same party that denies climate change

...struck me as a kind of absurdity that I've known, but hadn't really realized. How goddamned bizarre and absurd is it that a political party has a near-official opinion on the validity of a matter of science?

I mean, if the Republican party put a bullet list on their website of things they're for and against, wouldn't it be a little weird to see:

• We believe individuals are best served by the private healthcare industry.
• We think abortion is murder.
• We believe that unrestricted international trade is good for everyone.
• We don't believe that grass is green due to the presence of chlorophyll.

I guess I just never really thought about how odd it is.

Re:Read the writing on the wall

[sumdumass]

Are you making this up as you go? Or did you put some considerable thought into that tall tale?

Re:Read the writing on the wall

[tehcyder]

As for creation being taught in Texas schools, it doesn't really matter does it? It's not being taught in stead of evolution and unless you think biological evolution theory is so weak on it's own merits that teaching about creation or any other purposes method of existence threatens it, there is nothing to worry about is there?

Creationism should only be taugh as part of some sort of religious education course. It has the same role in a science class as for example the theory of Lamarkism, i.e. only as part of the history of science, as a now totally discredited idea.

Re:Read the writing on the wall

[sumdumass]

I partially agree. although Lamaism has lost it, it's important to some degree to mention it in order to know what has been there before. To understand science, in a lot of instances, you need a brief understand of how we got to the understandings we hold today. I see nothing wrong with mentioning religions or societies before X date when science started verifying observations held creation- brief explanation of what it is,- as the means or informational portion of the course. You simply have to make it clear that in science, evolutionary theory is what is used.

I seriously see it as no different then discussing, the geocentric earth and how it it became a heliocentric principle and how that's been modified and validated over the years.

Re:Read the writing on the wall

[CraftyJack]

NASA has major centers in Florida, Texas, California, Alabama, Mississippi, Maryland, Ohio, and Virgina. (I'm sure I'm forgetting one.) Thousands of jobs at each. It's better organized for political survival than anything else.

Re:Read the writing on the wall

[Anonymous Coward]

Who has proven that they can do it safer or cheaper? China?

The Senate has more Democrats in it, but they certainly don't control it since they have no spines.

Re:Read the writing on the wall

[Anonymous Coward]

If Republicans were so hung up on climate change why wouldn't they just cut funding to those specific agencies responsible for climate research.

They did. go look up what the spending cuts were for when they almost shut down the government down. All the cuts were thing like climate change research and EPA spending. Not one cut for the military.

Re:Read the writing on the wall

[stdarg]

So with Apollo it was "Our priority is showing that we're better than Communists."

Now it's "Our priority is reaching out to Muslims."

Huge difference. The first one is self-centered. We're showing that we're better by doing something they can't do. We never said stuff like "Let's work with them and highlight what they're capable of and make them feel better and more included so they like us more." In fact that's the exact opposite.

Re:Read the writing on the wall

[hedwards]

Yes, are you aware that you need 60 votes to get anything to move through the Senate with the GOP filibustering everything that they dislike?

It's ignorant people like you that allow them to get away with it. The Democrats are 9 votes minimum shy of overcoming those objections. Hence why you'd see a bill like this being introduced, it's the only one that's likely to get the cloture vote necessary to move it out of the Senate.

Re:Read the writing on the wall

[Attila Dimedici]

The House, which is controlled by the Republicans, passed a bill with funding for this program. Sorry, your argument that the Democrats didn't include funding for this program because otherwise the Republicans would filibuster it does not hold up to examination. The only way that a filibuster would work would be for the Republicans to oppose it either overwhelmingly, or for opposition to it to be a matter of Party discipline. In either case, the provision would not have made it through the House. Since the provision made it through the House, the responsibility for this provision not being in the Senate version rests squarely on the Democrats, with no logical way to shift it to the Republicans.

Re:Read the writing on the wall

[Anonymous Coward]

At this point, they're pretty much ignoring it, save for a little rhetoric directed at the remaining sympathetic ears.

Re:Read the writing on the wall

[mrchaotica]

Where are the sane, rational and decent options?!

I'm in exactly the same position as you -- and moreover, I feel like we probably represent the majority viewpoint in this country, but nobody realizes it because the politicians and media refuse to ask the right questions. Anyway, No Labels is about the closest thing I've seen to what we're looking for.

Deja Vu all over again:

[Hartree]

Not a problem. We'll just rely on the Russians just like with manned access to the ISS. What could possibly go wrong?

No more PU-238?

[Anonymous Coward]

That means no more Explosive Space Modulators for Marvin to use to threaten to blow Earth away!

Re:No more PU-238?

[Anonymous Coward]

That was PU-236 you insolent clod!

In Soviet Russia...

[Anonymous Coward]

In Soviet Russia, plutonium trolls you!

Re:In Soviet Russia...

[Hartree]

"plutonium trolls you!"

No, no. That was back on Usenet.

What, you've never hears of Ludwig Plutonium and the Plutonium Atom Totality?

Plutonium and Alexander Abian were the net loons supreme on sci.physics for years.

Re:No need for it, go SOLAR!

[lgw]

Why is this a bad thing? Plutonium is one of the most toxic subtances known. If a spacecraft carrying this stuff blew up after lift-off, the resulting radioactive debris field could be massive. That could potentially shower millions of people with radioactive dust. It would be in our clothes, in our eyes and, worst of all, inhaled into our lungs.

Sorry to reply to such an obvious troll, but the point is worth discussing. Pu is a really nasty poison - but then so is hydrazine. Rockets have some nasty stuff. However, a chunk of Pu metal isn't such a hazard - it becomes so toxic when reduced to dust.

Spacecraft carrying RTGs are designed with this hazard in mind (as well as the danger of "roll up") and if the rocket should explode the RTG system is designed to fall from any alitiude and remain a solid lump of Pu.

Re:No need for it, go SOLAR!

[Anonymous Coward]

At the moment, it still costs more to produce very very large solar panels to produce the amount of power needed for these spacecraft. Not only that, but if you account for the extra weight added to the craft from them, it would cost more in the long run to put those into orbit. Hopefully this will change in the next decade, but its still a problem. (Also the fact that a lot of the elements needed for solar cells like that come from places not too friendly to us at the moment. (eg China.) Sometimes I wonder. Cut budgets to spend more money in the long term. People do not seem to ever take the long range plans into account.

Don't worry.

[imric]

The magic invisible hand will save us by hiring the Russians and the Chinese to look after our interests. What could possibly go wrong?

Use anti-matter, shouldn't be that far off now :)

[youn]

well according to star trek at least... only about 50 years left until first contact

Have you asked the Libyans?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure they'd trade fox a box of old pinball parts

anti-nooks

[Anonymous Coward]

Democrat anti-nooks have been trying to end NASA's Pu238 RTG use for decades.

Leave space to the Chinese. They don't tolerate anti-nooks.

Re:anti-nooks

[imric]

Yup. Only paperbacks and kindles should be allowed in space.

Re:anti-nooks

[rossdee]

Why are the Democrats opposed to Barne&Noble eReaders? They are not really competing in the iPad market,, only against the Kindle and other low cost devices.

Re:anti-nooks

[jd]

It's only Barnes & Noble eReaders in space that are the problem. Since the grandparent post mentioned energy, maybe it's a battery thing.

Bah.

[jd]

Aside from the fact that the amount of plutonium involved would be so fantastically small that you couldn't detect it. (Scatter a few grams of anything over a few hundred square kilometers and the concentration really isn't that much.) You probably breath in a thousand times as much radioactive material as an entire decay-powered generator has every time you enter a city with a coal power plant. Further, most US cities have incredibly high levels of legal non-radioisotope carcinogens in the atmosphere from other sources. Besides, it certainly doesn't cost billions of dollars to make plutonium. It comes for free whenever you operate any of the older nuclear power stations.

Winding down the age of transmutation

[Animats]

Many short-lived isotopes are in short supply. There's very limited US tritium production, medical radioisotopes production is so limited that there are medical shortages, and there are fewer research reactors operating. Transmutation is almost a dying technology.

Most of the radioisotopes were made in facilities built for bomb programs. Both the US and the USSR now have far too much bomb-grade PU-239, which has a half-life of 24,000 years. The giant nuclear facilities of the Cold War are mostly idle, or are hazardous waste sites.

The smaller nuclear powers are mostly separating uranium isotopes, which today is a centrifuge operation carried out in plants of modest size. The old gaseous diffusion plants were huge - square miles of plant.

Brilliant Idea!

[Anonymous Coward]

How about we cut more money in the short term, so we can spend more in the long term? Plus we don't have to do anything, lets provide money to people who don't care about us too much and get what we need in return.
Price raising? Bah, who cares about that. Nobody likes science anyways.

Yet where is the highest employment?

[Shivetya]

Florida and Texas, not exactly bastions of Democrat support.

So I guess we could find any reason to support any outcome.

It is far simpler than that, NASA does not generate sufficient votes and every dollar is now too precious to "waste" on science when it could buy votes. Sorry for being cynical but you sometimes cannot help it when you watch what they do

Re:Yet where is the highest employment?

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of the jobs added in Texas were to State government.

Re:No need for it, go SOLAR!

[Anonymous Coward]

That Facebook link is member-only. Here's the text:

A massive email complaint campaign is under way regarding the Council on Chiropractic Education.
Many people have asked why should I be involved...read the article below
http://www.dynamicchiropractic.com/mpacms/dc/article.php?id=55252
http://www.chiropractic-biophysics.com/clinical_chiropractic/2010/9/15/cce-cartel-is-at-it-again.html

Basically, the CCE has eliminated two essential terms unique to chiropractic: subluxation and "without the use of drugs and surgery" in the new standards for chiropractic colleges. This of course means that even the best colleges that now address family care will be required to fill their curriculum with more ancillary requirements and deviate from core chiropractic care. Graduates will be at a greater deficit. This will affect our scope of practice and the public's ability to receive quality, drugless chiropractic. Our unique identity as "separate and distinct" will be will be lost.

In December, the National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity (NACIQI) will be holding its open meeting and reviewing the CCE. As a profession, we have the opportunity to respond..but our window of time is short. Letters of concern must be received by the Board of Education by September 16th, which is this Friday.

There are three ways to take action:

1- Doctor input:
Please write a personalized letter. This will take all of 10 minutes. That's a very short time to protect your future. Sample letter is below.

Once written, e-mail it immedietly to this address: aslrecordsmanager@ed.gov
with the subject line: Written Comments re Council on Chiropractic Education

blind cc steve_tullius@yahoo.com to ensure we have records of your complaint.

2- Patient input:
Have your patients sign this prepared petition. The USDOE is very concerned with consumer input, so this step is as important as your letter.
http://33dcs.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/CCE-Lay-People-Complaint-Final.pdf

scan and email to addresses above or fax the petition to (202) 219-7005 by Sept 16

3- Student input:
Please distribute this petition amongst students. Student rights are a direct concern of the USDOE.
http://33dcs.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/CCE-Student-Petition-Final.pdf

Students please write personal letters following the samples here.

If you are not yet convinced that you need to act now, or you are looking for more resources to understand why..visit these links and read up!

The CCE has ignored the profession's input to their new guidelines...

"In September 2010, the CCE Task Force on Accreditation Standards released a second draft to the public for comments. At the latest meeting on January 14th, the CCE met and adopted new educational standards that will become effective in January of next year. Dr. Welsh, who attended the public proceedings, reports that the CCE President announced that the Council had received two complaints. No details were provided. Council members were reminded of the need for complete confidentiality. In October 2010, it was reported by Welsh that the CCE had received approximately 3000 submissions from the profession."

Breaking News - CCE Ignores Input from Profession on Standards, January 25, 2011

http://vertebralsubluxation.mccoypress.net/2011/01/25/breaking-news---cce-ignores-input-from-profession-on-standards.aspx

Dr. Chris Kent, President of the Foundation for Vertebral Subluxation calls us to action:

"It is now up to the profession to ensure that the student of today graduates with a strong philosophical base and a keen awareness of the profound potential of chiropractic's contribution to human health. The fundamental issues are simple. Are we a profession with a clearly defined mission, or are we a profession simply seeking some niche which offers access to a slice of the health care pie? Are we driven by principles or politics? Is our political posit

So what's the whole list now?

[JoshuaZ]

So let's see, SSC canceled but that was a while ago. James Webb Telescope on the chopping block, probably gone. Tevatron closing (and yes, the Tevatron does a lot of work that can't be done at the LHC. It uses lower energy but a different set of collision types). And now this. At this point it really seems like the US is just giving up at doing interesting science when it has anything like a big price tag where a big price tag means a price tag that is a tiny fraction of the military budget.

Re:So what's the whole list now?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah the Rhic is still going strong BUT the rhic is also linked to the governments space radiation lab which also does research for the military . Maybe thats why it keeps getting funding.

Re:So what's the whole list now?

[lotho brandybuck]

Yep. It's like at some point we just sort made a collective decision in this country to just suck. Seems like we're giving up on big science and engineering altogether.

Re:So what's the whole list now?

[electron sponge]

Those of us who believe in science need to quit navel gazing and start calling people out. We do still live in a representative republic.

GOOD !! IT'S A BIG FUCKING WASTE OF MY MONEY !!

[Anonymous Coward]

Some pie in the sky 8 BILLION DOLLARS so a few hippie uglies can jump up and down for a few seconds 20 years from now is not in my plan !!

Re:GOOD !! IT'S A BIG FUCKING WASTE OF MY MONEY !!

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn straight! And all my tax money that goes to bridges and roads I'll never use.

Well FUCK THAT SHIT

Or the Iranians

[bigtrike]

They'll have plenty soon.

Re:Or the Iranians

[Hartree]

"They'll have plenty soon."

They might even be willing to deliver it.

Re:Or the Iranians

[Anonymous Coward]

In 30 minutes or less, or your money back!

Re:Or the Iranians

[rubycodez]

actually, that would be far beyond their abilities to produce, and at any rate useless for a bomb. while fissionable isn't fissile.

Re:Or the Iranians

[Hartree]

"actually, that would be far beyond their abilities to produce, and at any rate useless for a bomb. while fissionable isn't fissile."

Questionable how far beyond.

In quantity, yes it would be difficult but not because of lack of knowledge.

Natanz isn't set up for it (not got the right neutron spectrum being a light water power reactor). But, they have a reasearch reactor (forget the name of the site) that could be set up for it. Whether they've bothered, given all the work they've done on enriched uranium is an open question.

The problem with needing an implosion system rather than gun type no longer really applies. It's well known explosives engineering these days.

(And yes, I know that Pu 238 isn't bomb material. It was a joke. Laugh.)

Re:Or the Iranians

[Hartree]

Crud. Noticed that I typed Natanz. I meant Bushehr. That's the Russian built power reactor that just went online. Natanz is their main uranium separation plant. :P

Could we use tiny U235 fission reactors instead?

[Dr. Spork]

From what I understand, all the Pu238 really does is generate heat, which is used to power spacecraft. Aren't there designs for tiny fission reactors which will accomplish the same thing using enriched Uranium (of which we have plenty)? Wouldn't this be an excellent substitute? I don't think it's a safety issue: If they blow up on launch, it's still less radiation spilled than Pu238 logs that we use now, and if they melt down in deep space, it's not our problem.

What am I missing?

Re:No need for it, go SOLAR!

[Skarecrow77]

Bob you're good, you almost got me to reply taking you seriously!

Re:Could we use tiny U235 fission reactors instead

[ravenspear]

Yes, the Russians have been using these mini-reactors on some of their missions.

http://www.space4peace.org/ianus/npsm2.htm#2_2_1

Re:Could we use tiny U235 fission reactors instead

[MozeeToby]

Complexity and weight. A radioisotope thermal generator has exactly zero moving parts. It is almost literally a sphere of nuclear unstable metal, surrounded by some thermocouples. You really can't get much simpler and hardy than that.

Hurray for sanity

[DNS-and-BIND]

Has anyone here ever even considered the risks of sending a NUCLEAR REACTOR through the Earth's atmosphere on a rocket? What's the failure rate for rockets, 10%? That's a ten percent chance of spewing radioactivity all over the planet, totally unacceptable. Perhaps acceptable to teabaggers and other "America Firsters", but the rest of the sane population of the planet thinks differently. You can't differentiate between military application and those capabilities which are civil and commercial in nature. Nuclear anything is bad, according to leading environmental and climate change scientists (fully accredited with Ph.D's and serving as professors at elite universities, mind you). Don't forget that October 1-8 is "Keep Space for Peace Week".

Remember the 1989 launch of Galileo? The military-industrial complex made the decision for you, that such a horrible risk was "acceptable" and went through with launching a plutonium reactor through the biosphere even though dedicated, lifelong environmentalists evaluated the risk as unacceptable. There were those who bravely stood in protest of Galileo, but the American mainstream (i.e. right-wing) media portrayed the heroes as misguided idiots...just like today. Julian Assange, who has become such a big name due to his courageous work with Wiki Leaks, was moved enough by the campaign against the Galileo launch to feature it in the first chapter of his book.. Let's face it, if you're against WikiLeaks, you're pretty much a teabagger, or an anti-intellectual. How else do you justify disagreeing?

Protect the planet, no nukes in space! Again, this is an accredited opinion, backed by the best and most well-funded environmental NGOs, as well as university professors all across academia. The people on the other side of the argument are on the side of the Pentagon. Geekdom typically ignores its responsibilities to the planet in favor of "OOH, SHINY!" or the discredited triumphalism of the Apollo landings. All it takes is a "natural 1" on a d20 and the planet is fucked, permanently. What say you, geeks? Those of you on the political right may excuse yourselves from replying, as your opinions have already been pre-discredited by The Smart People in our society.

Re:Hurray for sanity

[MightyMartian]

Fine. Let's build the reactors in space.

Re:Hurray for sanity

[JoshuaZ]

There's a lot wrong with what you've said. First of all, these reactors are thermoelectric reactors. They don't have any moving parts and they don't have any highly radioactive components. Pu-238 is radioactive and nasty, but there's more danger from it being a heavy metal than it being radioactive. Moreover, one is talking about very small quantities of Pu-238, literally grams of matter. If a rocket with that explodes it will be a minor mess on the launch pad and not much else. Other than a very tiny easily cleaned up area, the total radiation level will not be beyond background even assuming the radioactive material does get breached (which is tough since it is very secured).

You are also confused about claiming this has something to do with the military. This sort of technology is not that useful for the military. Although Pu-238 has been used in some satellites the primary purpose is civilian space probes that need to go deep into space where the sun is dim from being so far away. The idea that you can't differentiate between military and commercial uses says more about you than it does about whether such differential is possible.

Your statement about Julian Assange is also worth discussing if in a marginal fashion. You are engaging in classic tribalism. Just because someone agrees with Assange on one thing or another is in no way a reason to think that one has a logical reason to agree with him on other things. For example, I can agree with Ron Paul on immigration issues and still think that his attitude about the Federal Reserve is deeply wrong. Similarly, your attempted comparison to people who disagree with you to Tea Partiers fails in a similar fashion. Reversed stupidity is not intelligence ahref=http://lesswrong.com/lw/lw/reversed_stupidity_is_not_intelligence/rel=url2html-23799http://lesswrong.com/lw/lw/reversed_stupidity_is_not_intelligence/>. Just because a position is taken up by a group that is frequently wrong or even morally repugnant does not mean that any position which they endorse is necessarily wrong. Indeed, given that the position in question is a trivial budget cut that has a large negative impact, this seems to be right up their alley.

Re:Hurray for sanity

[theJML]

DNS-and-BIND: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassini%E2%80%93Huygens#Plutonium_power_source

To quote the article: ASA's complete environmental impact study estimated that, in the worst case (with an acute angle of entry in which Cassini would gradually burn up), a significant fraction of the 32.7 kg[4] of plutonium-238 inside the RTGs would have been dispersed into the Earth's atmosphere so that up to five billion people (i.e. the entire terrestrial population) could have been exposed, causing up to an estimated 5,000 additional cancer deaths[21] (0.0005 per cent, i.e. a fraction 0.000005, of 1 billion cancer deaths expected anyway from other causes; the product is incorrectly calculated elsewhere[22] as 500,000 deaths), but the odds against that happening were more than 1 million to one.

In other words, there was a 1 million to 1 chance that the space craft might have caused an additional 5000 deaths due to radiation. NOT the 10% you came up with. iirc from the news at the time, a malfunction of the space craft in most probable consequences could have resulted in a small population receiving about what you'd get from one X-ray as the PU-238 ball would mostly just fall through the atmosphere.

Re:Hurray for sanity

[Anonymous Coward]

Has anyone here ever even considered the risks of sending a NUCLEAR REACTOR through the Earth's atmosphere on a rocket?

Yes. They've also considered RTGs, which are the topic of the article.

What's the failure rate for rockets, 10%?

More like 1% for typical launch platforms.

That's a ten percent chance of spewing radioactivity all over the planet, totally unacceptable.

Unless the RTG is designed to withstand a rocket failure and make it down in one piece, spewing nothing -- as they are.

Good troll so far -- great contrafactual density, sticking to technical points, and drawing /. pedants out to make any or all of the replies above. Especially the first one -- practically guaranteed that they'll throw in a personal opinion regarding reactor safety, whether for or against, which is a great opening for a follow-up

Perhaps acceptable to teabaggers and other "America Firsters", but the rest of the sane population of the planet thinks differently. You can't differentiate between military application and those capabilities which are civil and commercial in nature. Nuclear anything is bad, according to leading environmental and climate change scientists (fully accredited with Ph.D's and serving as professors at elite universities, mind you). Don't forget that October 1-8 is "Keep Space for Peace Week".

Remember the 1989 launch of Galileo? The military-industrial complex made the decision for you, that such a horrible risk was "acceptable" and went through with launching a plutonium reactor through the biosphere even though dedicated, lifelong environmentalists evaluated the risk as unacceptable. There were those who bravely stood in protest of Galileo, but the American mainstream (i.e. right-wing) media portrayed the heroes as misguided idiots...just like today. Julian Assange, who has become such a big name due to his courageous work with Wiki Leaks, was moved enough by the campaign against the Galileo launch to feature it in the first chapter of his book.. Let's face it, if you're against WikiLeaks, you're pretty much a teabagger, or an anti-intellectual. How else do you justify disagreeing?

Protect the planet, no nukes in space! Again, this is an accredited opinion, backed by the best and most well-funded environmental NGOs, as well as university professors all across academia. The people on the other side of the argument are on the side of the Pentagon. Geekdom typically ignores its responsibilities to the planet in favor of "OOH, SHINY!" or the discredited triumphalism of the Apollo landings. All it takes is a "natural 1" on a d20 and the planet is fucked, permanently. What say you, geeks? Those of you on the political right may excuse yourselves from replying, as your opinions have already been pre-discredited by The Smart People in our society.

But now you throw away that strong start by focusing on the political side. This is /., not freerepublic or dailykos, and a good troll will camoflage itself by reflecting the primarily technical nature of the local discussion, with a dash of political disparagement for color. Even noobs have at least 36% chance of marking any highly political post as a troll. (Good work with the Assange tie-in, though!)

Overall: 2.3/10

Re:Hurray for sanity

[DNS-and-BIND]

Just as I expected, the right-wing nutbag majority modded my post down to -1. Typical. If you agree with Ron Paul on immigration issues, I can only assume you're one of them. Get a fucking education at a real university, and learn what modern thought is on immigration. Hint: it's not fences, it's welcoming diversity.

Re:Hurray for sanity

[JoshuaZ]

Bad example then since I don't agree with Paul's stance on immigration but think his stance is more moderate than that of a lot of Republicans. If you prefer consider his stance on the Patriot Act where he voted against it. The basic point should be clear: I can agree with someone on some positions and disagree with them on others. Just because someone has bad positions in one issue doesn't make every position they have automatically bad.

Re:Hurray for sanity

[amRadioHed]

Hint: Ron Paul is also opposed to border fences.

Re:Hurray for sanity

[wagnerrp]

No. The scientific majority modded your post down to -1, because you sound like a reactionary nutjob who sounds like they have no idea what they're talking about.

First off, you're talking about a couple kilograms of material, at the largest. Second, it's an alpha emitter, meaning unless you ingest it, it is largely harmless. Assuming there was a worst case scenario, containment was breached, and ALL of the material was aerosolized, it would still not be as bad as reactor breaches such as Chernobyl or Fukashima.

Over the entire 50yr use of RTGs, there have been five losses of space-borne units. The US lost one in the early 60s, resulting in some contamination in the southern Indian ocean. The US lost two more, one recovered before any breach, and the other is several miles down in trench, expected to maintain containment until the fuel has decayed to an inert state. The Russians have lost two more, with minor containment breaches. None of these events have resulted in any serious environmental or health issues.

It's not like these are fragile, critical reactors we are putting up into space, although the US and Russians have tried those in the past. These are very rugged, solid state devices, encased in several layers of protective shielding, designed to withstand detonation of the rocket on the stand, orbital re-entry, high speed impact with the ground, crushing ocean pressures, and a whole slew of other eventualities. These people have done their homework. If you start throwing out fears of doom and gloom, with no evidence as to WHY they are unsafe, of course no one will take you seriously.

Re:Could we use tiny U235 fission reactors instead

[Anonymous Coward]

Even enriched uranium has far too long a half-life to make it useful enough to lug its weight around.

That said, other isotopes might work just as well, but those would have to be made, too.

--PM

Re:No need for it, go SOLAR!

[dyingtolive]

Yeah, he's sneaky. First time I saw him, I actually had an angry rant up DEFENDING him of all the things, and then I actually stopped and reread his post and the one ripping into him and said, "Hey... wait a second..."

World class troll, that one. World class.

Re:Could we use tiny U235 fission reactors instead

[gewalker]

What you are missing is how radioactive Pu-238 is compared to U-235 / U-238

Pu-238 half life 87.7 years. U-238 4.5 billion years, U-235 713 million years, so using pure U-235 the material is 8 million times less radioactive. -- So, you need a corresponding bigger lump of U-235. Needless to say, this is quite a different thing.

it's OK, China will do it.

[Anonymous Coward]

We're living in a period of transition of world power from the US (past) to China (future). China has been rapidly expanding its space exploration programs, just as the USA is gutting its. So this is quite OK - it just means that the drive to explore space is going to be coming from a different place. But it will still happen, and probably at a faster pace once China gets seriously ramped up, because unlike western powers, they aren't crippled by fear.

Some speculations

[Xacid]

I know we all love our space projects here and I'm no exception - but the reality is that part of recovering from this unfathomly huge deficit is cutting spending.

If you were looking at your finances and were trying to take care of your debt aggressively you'd cut damned near anything not necessary. I can't really fault the politicians for this per se, but if they're going to make the programs we love suffer they need to continue cutting elsewhere as well (which appears to be happening relatively slowly and painfully). I've heard them mention there'd be sacrifice and thus I'd also like to see them cut their own benefits and salaries; however, I haven't seen such occur yet. (If it has and I've somehow missed it by all means educate me).

My questions to you all:
-If we start slashing budgets in this manner how does this affect jobs? Obviously there will be layoffs but will it be on a scale that's more/less devastating to our economy as a whole?
-Would you approach this specific funding issue differently?
-What else would you cut?

Re:Some speculations

[Microlith]

I'd start with defense spending, as well as Social Security and Medicare reforms. For instance, would it not make sense for the government to negotiate the price of drugs and equipment they buy for Medicare/Medicaid, instead of being legally barred from doing so and paying whatever obscene price the manufacturer asks? Then I'd pare down in order of budget size.

Attacking NASA while refusing to even look at defense spending or Social Security is them saying "I refuse to even approach the problem," not that they are interested in solving it.

Re:Some speculations

[Anonymous Coward]

You realize that we spend more on air conditioning the troops for a week than on NASA for the year... right?

Now, go shove your priorities back up your ass -- the right direction this time.

You like clean water? NASA invented your water waste management.
Toothpaste that's not poison? NASA.
Flexible frame glasses? NASA.
Sports Helmets? NASA.

Get bent you douche. You have NO Idea what you're talking about.

Re:Some speculations

[robot256]

1) I heard recently that the reason unemployment remaining flat because the government as a whole is cutting jobs (mostly contractors) at the same rate the private sector is creating jobs. That sounds pretty significant to me, maybe you wouldn't call it "devastating" but it's definitely relevant to the discussion.

2) Science and technology investment, of which NASA is a part, is precisely that: an investment. Infrastructure, education, health care, and environmental regulations are also investments that increase productivity over the long term. Cut them, and you reduce economic output (and tax revenue) in decades to come.

3) Things that could be cut with fewer long-term consequences: tax breaks, subsidies, and foreign wars. Also social security reform with means testing, and a health care system that does not involve siphoning billions of dollars into the pockets of insurance executives.

BTW, I don't know why people (including Obama) think cutting business taxes will spur hiring. No business is going to hire unless they see demand for their services, and demand is spurred by consumer wealth, not business wealth. Unless the people who are actually employed get paid more, they will not increase demand and businesses won't hire, no matter how "cheap" employees become.

Re:Some speculations

[jd]

Actually, no. I side with Keynes to some extent on this. To cut deficits when in a recession, you have to increase spending (in the short term), but you should also increase taxes for the wealthy to cover the increase in spending (since resources don't vanish, a recession is ultimately a hoarding problem).

Re:Some speculations

[blueg3]

Well, if I scale the federal budget down to the size of a (relatively large) household budget, since "running government spending like household spending" seems to be a popular meme, I get that this program would cost me less than $1 a year.

I think if I was in debt and trying to cut spending, taking any appreciable amount of time to figure out how to cut $1 a year is not going to be a worthwhile investment, especially if that limits my future ability to do useful things. Kind of like saving money by not replacing a broken light bulb. Working out how to save $1 a year is exactly the kind of thing someone does when they want people to think that they're working hard to save money, when in reality they don't want to make the changes necessary to actually balance their budget. It's a money-saving measure for someone who refuses to accept reality. (Alternately, for someone who is really bad at mathematics.)

I'm thinking that the ~10% of my income that I'm willingly giving away to the wealthy is a great place to start if I want to balance my budget.

Re:Some speculations

[Anonymous Coward]

I would raise taxes.

Let's step back in our time machines ten years ago, before the Bush tax cuts. Federal government is running surpluses, paying down the debt. After the Bush tax cuts, government is running deficits with no end in sight.

Call me crazy, but maybe we should return to the tax rates that were, you know, WORKING? Jesus wept, you TEA party idiots drive me up the wall sometimes.

Re:Some speculations

[Overzeetop]

I've got bad news for you: Despite the current unemployment rate being "high," there are too many people working. Those people are getting paid, in part, by the trillion dollars a year the federal government is borrowing with no plan to ever pay it back.

Here's the funny thing about money the government spends: nearly every dollar ends up employing someone. Go ahead, let that sink in.

Every dollar the government "pays" is in salary for a federal worker (employment) or benefits (which employs people who provide services to that worker), or goes to a contractor for goods (which keeps people employed making said goods) or services (which employs people to do things for the government).

Obama and the Democrats know this, and so do the Republicans. The TEA Party representatives may not know this, but their handlers do. A correction will have to occur, and it's going to result in a spike in unemployment. If you're not in the White House, you'd really like that spike to happen now so that when the current occupant is gone, the worst part is over.

This is not a political post. It wouldn't matter who was in the White House. the stimulus would have happened under McCain, because it's the only way that the economy wouldn't have tumbled into an abyss. The challenge for each representative is to protect as much of their constituency from the effects. If unemployment goes to 12-13%, but your constituents don't feel the pinch much, you get re-elected. The game not to save or hurt the country, but to strategically choose how to make sure the other side takes the hit. And, if you're out of power, to make sure that hit comes before the next election cycle so you can capitolize on it.

It's all part of the game.

to answer your questions:

A minimum impact on the US (and the world be damned) would be to cut foreign programs, shut down all foreign military bases, and make an orderly but rapid pull out of the middle east. Halve most of the defense programs that involve research and development of new weapons. Shut down NASA manned space flight completely, keep the science. Shut down most of the Education grants to states, along with police, fire. Shut down DHS, scale back all TSA functions to pre 9/11/01 levels. Maintain Interior resources for existing installations (maintenance) but do not expand operations. Raise the Soc/Med age to the average age of mortality for people who live to 18, 6 months per year is too aggressive, 3 months is better. The social contract should be that if you plan your money to last a statistical lifetime, society will make sure you don't starve if you live too long. Might as well extend the payroll tax to all income with no cap.

Taxes should eliminate EIC, child tax deductions - hell - I think they should eliminate all deductions and go with a gross receipts tax. Corporate, individual, everyone. No deductions or exclusions means no loopholes and no under-the-table benefits.

The next ten years is not going to be pretty, but unless congress royally screws up (and even if they do) we'll get through.

Re:Some speculations

[suresk]

The simple fact is that budget cuts will be made based on what is politically easiest, not based on what will save the most money or will be best for our long-term future. Congress is trying to drum up loose change from the couch while ignoring where the bulk of our spending actually goes. We'll cut (comparatively) tiny amounts from research, while leaving intact hundreds of billions in spending to fight an enemy that stopped existing decades ago.

To put it into perspective, the CBO estimates NASA has cost us around $790 billion total (adjusted for inflation) since it was founded in the fifties. That resulted in decades and decades of research, education, new technology, national pride, and a whole host of other benefits. We are poised to spend almost that much on the military, just this *year*.

That figure ($790 billion) represents less than half of what we'll end up spending on the Iraq war. But, hey, at least we got Saddam, right?

Re:Some speculations

[Anonymous Coward]

How about cutting the wall street bonuses ($20.8 Billion in 2010) and wall street profits ($27.6 Billion in 2010) for a total save of $48 Billion, more than enough to cover NASA's $17 Billion budget?

http://money.cnn.com/2011/02/24/news/economy/wall_street_bonus/index.htm

Re:Some speculations

[Anonymous Coward]

How about cutting wall street bonuses ($20 Billion in 2010) and wall street profits ($27 Billion in 2010) for a total save of $48 Billion (http://money.cnn.com/2011/02/24/news/economy/wall_street_bonus/index.htm), more than enough to cover NASA's budget of $17 Billion?

Re:Some speculations

[blueg3]

Raise the Soc/Med age to the average age of mortality for people who live to 18

Since the SSA has historical data on survival probability going back to, roughly, its inception, there's a more clever way of adjusting this. Look at the probability of surviving to the retirement age when SSA was instituted, and pick the age such that you have the same probability of surviving to retirement now. (SSA already provides data limited to people who survive to adulthood.)

There's a bit of drift in men vs. women, but it works out to about 3 years, if I remember correctly. Oddly, that happens to be one of the two popular proposals for extending the Social Security age.

It makes sense to phase this in in some reasonable fashion. If you just make it proportional to time-to-retirement-age, starting at 18, you get that it adds about 3 weeks for every year until you retire, which seems pretty reasonable.

Re:Some speculations

[sjames]

Funny thing though, we're still in Iraq, which seems to offer no ROI at all. We're wasting billions on the TSA which is currently 0 for 2 and shows no sign of improvement.

So, get the hell out of Iraq and get the Corps of Engineers busy rebuilding infrastructure. It's cheaper, provides economic stimulus, and actually does offer a return on the investment.

A 10% cut in DoD spending would finance all of NASA 3 times over.

Where military action is actually necessary, drop cheap dumb bombs, not expensive smart ones. We don't even have to cut any people to get a 10% reduction.

Re:Some speculations

[gad_zuki!]

> but the reality is that part of recovering from this unfathomly huge deficit is cutting spending.

What? NASA is 17 billion annually, or less than 2 months in Iraq. Our defense budget is 600billion not counting our wars. Or war spending during Bush is in the TRILLIONS.

I hate fuckers who want to cut science or education or medicare because they voted GOP and wanted to go to war but now refuse to make rational cuts in defense and war spending. We're spending ourselves stupid because all the proposed cuts are for everything EXCEPT the military and the wars.

Re:Some speculations

[farmanb]

Quite frankly, I think we need to look at revenue before we even consider looking at aggressive spending cuts. Granted, the two may go hand in hand, but the amount of money we're losing to corporate tax loopholes and subsidies is staggering. Note: when I say losing, I don't just mean revenue we aren't collecting, but money being paid out in refunds to some of the largest corporations in the country/world. Here's a little food for thought on the subject.

http://sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/news/?id=67562604-8280-4d56-8af4-a27f59d70de5
http://www.ips-dc.org/reports/executive_excess_2011_the_massive_ceo_rewards_for_tax_dodging
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/15/opinion/stop-coddling-the-super-rich.html

Re:Some speculations

[Anonymous Coward]

Why so benign? Relatively speaking, that is. Might as well be radical about it seeing as even your ideas are unlikely to be implemented anytime soon (other than the manned space flight thing - but that's already done, other than renting a Russian over-sized missile once in a while). Might as well be, dare I say it, 'over zee top'!

Stop foreign aid. We've all seen that there's far too much corruption among aid groups, including those who shout the loudest that they are not corrupt - and even when they're not corrupt, the place the aid lands usually is.

Stop being weak in conflicts. Yes, the world will not look kindly upon you if you kill a dozen civilians to get to 1 bad guy - sucks to be the civilians who are near a bad guy, then. You know the story.. less-than-honorable fighters setting up camp in churches, hospitals, etc. because they know there will be international backlash for bombing a hospital even if that means you just took out a baddie assembling roadside bombs - so screw the international backlash, it's not like the U.S. is very popular as it is.

Speaking of which, stop supplying Israel. It costs far too much in backroom deals to keep throwing out a veto anytime something against Israel pops up at the UN and quite frankly it's starting to stress everybody the **** out. Check out the comments regarding Palestinians trying to seek their own state - most people think not only are the Palestinians silly for even suggesting such a thing, but they should bugger off from the 'occupied' territories and for that matter the face of the Earth, and if Egypt or Turkey would like to interfere, they'd meet the wrath of Israel as they have done in the past. Fine the - stop supporting them and let them fight it out amongst each other.
Yes, that means a strong ally in the region may possibly go up in a puff of smoke (and they're unlikely to remain allies, even though even Japan made amends pretty quickly after they got nuked - twice - the Israelis tend to be less forgiving), but then again why would you want to be in that region. Oil? Hey, that takes us to the next bit.

Go. Get. Oil. Not just out of Alaska and the Arctic (shoo, greens - go live in the rainforests if you like nature that much) - but anywhere you can get it. If that means suggesting that Venezuela should be U.S. occupied territory because they're still buddies with Khadaffi, go for it. Far less military resistance there and with the above points in mind, covering the entire country in bombs shouldn't be too much of an issue and gets rid of some surplus stock that is currently costly to maintain as well.

Going to need that oil to kickstart the technological industry again. The same applies to rare earth minerals and metals - go get 'm. The closer you can get them and the least resistance you have to squash, the better.

Also, kill off the elderly. What? Don't look at me like that - you know what I'm saying here. They had long fruitful lives (if they didn't, they should have tried harder), at the point where they become a financial burden, just kill 'm off. More to the point, make it like that Star Trek episode - if you're old, or can't work, etc. make it an option to voluntarily depart this world in exchange of half of what otherwise would have been your benefits to be left to whoever you name in your will - but with a cap (e.g. if you hit 80, the voluntary part is dropped - as a benefit, you know you'd only live to be 80 at best so maybe you'll plan to do all those things you always wanted to do before that age instead of thinking "there's still time" )

While we're at it - mandatory pregnancy screening. If your child is bound to be born with a medical or mental issue, abort. Coupled with pre-screening - yes, everybody's going to be a 'test tube' baby) - this means a far lower burden on society financially and emotionally. I know, I know.. people who are born with insert-affliction-here can lead long fulfilling lives, but practically always at some expense - be it modifications required to homes/ca

Re:Some speculations

[Solandri]

Every couple years the Congressional Budget Office puts out a new report on what programs are causing our budget problems. And in every report for more than a decade, the culprit has always been Medicare/Medicaid. Its growth far outstrips any other program, increases in Medicare payroll tax revenue falls far short of offsetting its costs, and under current rules it will all by itself exceed the historical average of total federal tax revenue (18% of GDP) in about 60 years.

But instead of rolling up our sleeves and fixing the problem, people get into arguments of what else we should cut. Seemingly anything except Medicare/Medicaid. If we're not allowed to alter the program that's causing the problem, then our budget is already screwed before we've begun. I've been posting this same thing here for nearly 3 years now, ever since Obama's health care plan was up for debate and I took the time to actually read the CBO reports. The people we hired to find the problems with the budget have been telling us the answer for over 10 years now. If we're just going to ignore them and argue based on which programs we personally like/dislike, why even task them with that job in the first place?

Re:Some speculations

[Huge_UID]

You say: "unfathomly huge deficit" It is not unfathomable. It is about 100% of GDP. It was higher as a percent of GDP during WWII. Grow the economy and it shrinks as a percentage of GDP. Folks say we should run the government like our households - don't spend more than we make. My mortgage is 200% of our annual household income. I wouldn't want the national debt to be 200% of GDP, but it isn't unfathomable nor unreasonable at the current level.

Re:Some speculations

[Anonymous Coward]

For every dollar the government "spends" to employ someone they have to take 1.50 out of the private sector. Net loss to jobs and economy. Let that sink in.

You also are forgetting the blatant corruption spending. $20 Million to "weatherize" 3 houses. $500 million for a CA solar company that offshored half their production to China and went under in 1 year, at something like $500,000 per job for less than a 1 year period. The $9 Billion UAW handout with the GM deal. $250,000 to buy AK-47s for Mexican drug cartels so they can shoot our own citizens.

Not sure why you think Tea party supporters are dumb. You obviously don't have a clue and they do. We can spout facts all day, but you really don't want that because the few I did put up show how flat out completely wrong you are. Add to that the "stimilus" promised less than 8% unemployment and now its stuck over 9% shows that it was a complete FAILURE according to the current White House projections. Not sure why you think repeating a failed program would do better, but Palin has you beat in IQ by at least 100 if you really believe that.

Re:Some speculations

[Xacid]

That's a good analogy for this.

"[...] when in reality they don't want to make the changes necessary to actually balance their budget."

This I think is the core of the problem. We have a pile of men and women in power who aren't working to solve problems so much as to push agendas. This applies to either side.

Re:Some speculations

[Xacid]

I agree. It wouldn't even have to be huge increases all at once. For me, cutting taxes is equally as bad as spending even more. Keeping taxes low is equally as effective as those $300 checks we got from Bush a while back.

Re:Some speculations

[Xacid]

Hell, just get rid of the stock market entirely. The way it operates now isn't built to actually invest in the future of a company and thus the economy.

Re:Some speculations

[Xacid]

I'm half curious if they're keeping the troops active as a way to keep more people employed.

Re:Some speculations

[endymon]

Best counter argument for supply side economics I've seen in a long while.

Re:Some speculations

[cyn1c77]

I know we all love our space projects here and I'm no exception - but the reality is that part of recovering from this unfathomly huge deficit is cutting spending.

If you were looking at your finances and were trying to take care of your debt aggressively you'd cut damned near anything not necessary. I can't really fault the politicians for this per se, but if they're going to make the programs we love suffer they need to continue cutting elsewhere as well (which appears to be happening relatively slowly and painfully). I've heard them mention there'd be sacrifice and thus I'd also like to see them cut their own benefits and salaries; however, I haven't seen such occur yet. (If it has and I've somehow missed it by all means educate me).

My questions to you all:
-If we start slashing budgets in this manner how does this affect jobs? Obviously there will be layoffs but will it be on a scale that's more/less devastating to our economy as a whole?
-Would you approach this specific funding issue differently?
-What else would you cut?

All good points, but we've spend a trillion dollars in Iraq and that doesn't seem to be getting cut.

As an American, I'd rather be in space in than in Iraq or Afghanistan.

How about you?

Re:Some speculations

[qmaqdk]

Or the 54% I'm spending at the gun shop.

Re:Some speculations

[Xacid]

Wont disagree in the slightest.

Re:Some speculations

[Anonymous Coward]

I know we all love our space projects here and I'm no exception - but the reality is that part of recovering from this unfathomly huge deficit is cutting spending.

If you were looking at your finances and were trying to take care of your debt aggressively you'd cut damned near anything not necessary.

Q: You are starving to death. Which part of your body will you cut off to reduce your caloric needs?

Anyone who asks what part of government needs to be eliminated has already tricked you by asking an intentionally stupid question.

Re:Some speculations

[khallow]

2) Science and technology investment, of which NASA is a part, is precisely that: an investment. Infrastructure, education, health care, and environmental regulations are also investments that increase productivity over the long term. Cut them, and you reduce economic output (and tax revenue) in decades to come.

"Investment" is a nice label. But unfortunately, it has a meaning inconsistent with your use of it. The real definition of an investment is something that is expected to produce more value than it costs. Increasing productivity doesn't generate value, if the productivity is increased merely by moving the less productive parts out of country. You'd just end up with the same economic activity, but more value being generated in other countries and hence, more investment in other countries.

Typically, NASA is rationalized via subjective value estimates, such as the value of education, international cooperation, space science, etc. But the system falls flat when you consider opportunity costs. When you could put up, for example, several ISS-class space stations for the cost of the one that was actually put up, then that indicates serious problems that can't be hidden with the usual tricks.

Infrastructure, education, health care, and environmental regulations are also investments that increase productivity over the long term.

You can also pay too much for what you get. The US has serious problems with education, health care, and environmental regulations precisely because the benefit, if any, is diluted by considerable cost. Education and health care inflation in the US is extraordinary, increasing several times faster than common measures of overall inflation. I think there's a large group of students and patients who get less value out than is paid, either by them or other parties.

Similarly, environmental regulation is associated with the hollowing out of US industry. It made business in the US expensive. That was ok when that was weighed against serious environmental problems such as existed in the 50s and 60s. But to treat environmental regulation now as an investment, is to ignore that the cost/benefit has changed from the early days. You no longer have low lying fruit where modest regulation generates great returns.

BTW, I don't know why people (including Obama) think cutting business taxes will spur hiring. No business is going to hire unless they see demand for their services, and demand is spurred by consumer wealth, not business wealth.

Businesses are the biggest consumers. And consumers often own part of businesses. The distinction between "business" and "consumer" is fairly artificial. Frankly, it is impossible to be a pure producer and very difficult without some form of coercion to be a pure consumer.

Re:Some speculations

[blueg3]

It's a many-faceted problem, but yes. Most people just don't have an intuitive grasp of the amounts involved, so cutting $15 million that seems like obvious waste gives them the sense of positive change, even though it's meaningless. Everything that would have to be changed to really balance the budget is sure to annoy some large set of voters. No politician will do that, since the best reward for them comes from doing things that sound good to voters and forcing other politicians to make the unpopular changes. Of course, we're ultimately responsible as voters, but "I wish other people voted smarter and had interests aligned with my own and that the whole system was better" is not a strategy for fixing things.

Re:Some speculations

[Xacid]

I guess haircuts are out of the question then, eh?

Re:Some speculations

[Anonymous Coward]

-What else would you cut?

How about the President's useless staff?

Re:Some speculations

[Xacid]

Be more specific. :)

Geeks say educate yourself before posting

[rubycodez]

a Pu-238 battery is not a nuclear reactor. It's just a heat source and some thermocouples to make electricity from heat. Pu-238 only gives off alphas which can be stopped by sheet metal, or your skin for that matter.

And NASA's budget is what?

[mange]

With a budget of $18 Billion (so says wikipedia), they can find a way to fit in the $15 Million if they are actually planning an interplanetary mission.

Re:And NASA's budget is what?

[robot256]

Problem is, there are so many other cuts in the budget that there are not much in the way of interplanetary missions being seriously considered. Either they already cut those programs and cutting the Pu enrichment followed naturally, or they are looking for excuses to cut the missions and making them pay for the enrichment directly is a way to make them go over-budget and get killed. Everybody at NASA is trying to get new projects rolling, but there is so little mission money left that most proposals are being turned down.

Oh noes

[rdpratt]

As a recent graduate of an Astronomy program, all these recent cuts are making me sweat. How can we really complain about "not enough engineers" and "American science isn't what it should be" when every day I read about more cuts to the industry? How can we really have anything to dream and hope for, as human beings, as space exploration comes to a halt? What are the millions of children who want to become Astronauts going to dream about at night? Becoming a movie or hip-hop star? As a culture we need ideals that can produce hopes and dreams for our future; otherwise we won't have much of a future at all. Cutting spending to the space industry is the quickest way to crush all these aspirations.

Re:Oh noes

[0123456]

What are the millions of children who want to become Astronauts going to dream about at night?

Kids used to dream about being astronauts when they did exciting stuff. Not so much now they just deliver pizza to the space station.

I doubt that many dream of being train drivers anymore either.

Re:Oh noes

[Anonymous Coward]

As a recent graduate of an Astronomy program, all these recent cuts are making me sweat.

I know this is hard to accept, but you are aren't so smart. If you were smart you would have graduated as a banker or IP lawyer, made your millions and then you could do all the space hippy stuff as a hobby. Instead, you are going to spend the rest of your life filling in TPS reports from some indian or chinese boss. If you are lucky you might get your own cubicle which might cut down a bit on the curry stench emanating from Rajan opposite you.

The good news: you say you are a recent graduate so maybe it's not too late to choose a more fitting career for a 21st century american. Moral of the story: money first, ideals later.

Re:Oh noes

[farmanb]

Moral of the story: money first, ideals later.

I'm hoping this particular instance is sarcasm, but this sort of hateful utilitarianism is the reason NASA is being defunded.

Re:Oh noes

[rdpratt]

I, too, hope you're just trolololololing. There ARE still jobs in astronomy; they may not pay as well as some fancy banker position, but I'd rather do something I actually enjoy instead of something I don't. I have a job currently, in the field, and make more than the dozens of business majors I knew in college do as well. That market is saturated with undereducated and overprivileged kids who all think they'll hit it big, when, in fact, they won't. Will some become millionaires? I'm sure. However, don't discredit me, or anyone else in a similar position (science and engineering in general), because your job was outsourced. Way to suggest that space isn't "21st century" enough.

Am-241 batteries better

[rubycodez]

Am-241, while only producing 1/4 the power of Pu-238 for a given volume, will output for centuries with its nearly 500 year half life. Much better for long term missions.

Re:Am-241 batteries better

[0123456]

Am-241, while only producing 1/4 the power of Pu-238 for a given volume, will output for centuries with its nearly 500 year half life. Much better for long term missions.

How many 500-year missions does NASA have planned right now?

America probably won't exist in 500 years, let alone NASA.

Re:Am-241 batteries better

[erice]

Who needs a probe that can remain electically powered for centuries? Most missions are limited by limited by fuel for maneuvering thrusters. Needing 4x the mass for electrical power likely means less fuel. You could switch to ion engines, which are thriftier but but then you need much more electrical power, which you won't have.

Re:Am-241 batteries better

[rubycodez]

after 25 years, you'll find your pu-238 battery is down to 80% of its original output, but the am-241 is still 96%.

Re:Am-241 batteries better

[rubycodez]

How about a probe that can remain electrically fully powered for 50 years? Pu-238 will have 66% of original power, but am-241 will be 93%.

Re:Am-241 batteries better

[Anonymous Coward]

after 25 years, you'll find your pu-238 battery is down to 80% of its original output, but the am-241 is still 96%.

NASA doesn't have many 25 year missions planned, and if you use the same amount of each fuel then the plutonium version will take a long time to drop to the initial level that the non-plutonium version produces. Based on the numbers here it looks like you'd need to run the plutonium generator for around 250 years for the power outputs to be equal.

Re:Am-241 batteries better

[compro01]

Closer to 1/5th the power, and that's not counting the inch of lead you need to surround the thing with.

Re:Am-241 batteries better

[Anonymous Coward]

You said 1/4 the power, right? So... 0.25*0.93=0.23, the Pu unit is still producing almost 3x as much (or is 1/3 the mass, if designed accordingly).

Re:Am-241 batteries better

[thrich81]

Half-life of the fuel is irrelevant. The reduction in RTG electrical output over time is mostly because of the deterioration of the thermocouples which convert the heat to electricity, not reduction in heat output of the fuel.

Re:Am-241 batteries better

[Anonymous Coward]

Are there many missions that need a >50 year power source? Pu-238 powers all the long-life space probes made so far and we still have telemetry from Voyager 1 after nearly 35 years. Balance that against the 4x increase in volume and 3x increase in mass.

Re:Am-241 batteries better

[Anonymous Coward]

It also requires about 7 times more shielding. Am-241 needs 18 mm compared to Pu-238's requirement of 2.5 mm. So you not only now need to make the probe bigger to support the 4 fold increase in fuel to keep the same power output and 7 fold increase in shielding to prevent the probe's payload from damage, you'd have to add even more fuel to make up for all the extra mass you just added to accommodate the new fuel type.

It'd basically then come down to which is cheaper? Producing x amount of Pu-238 or 4x+y amount of Am-241. Assuming there also isn't a bunch of other technical issues like probe size limitations, engineering requirements, radioactive decay by-products complications, to list a few.

Re:Am-241 batteries better

[rubycodez]

compared to the rest of the craft, weight is negligible in any case

Re:Am-241 batteries better

[Anonymous Coward]

A kg is a kg -- whether you're replacing it with more science payload or thruster fuel, or outright saving it to get more delta-V (and freer launch windows) from the same launch vehicle, the 100s of kg you want to bolt on are a very big deal. (For reference, Cassini-Huygens had 3x GPHS-RTGs massing 57kg each, so your proposal adds roughly 300kg to a 2500kg vehicle.)

And if you wind up using ion engines (electrical power + a little reaction mass, vs. lots of fuel providing chemical power + reaction mass), your power source, whether RTG or PV, becomes a much bigger chunk of your total mass budget -- and I do think ion engines + RTGs are the direction we'll be going for future outer solar system probes.

Unless you're running missions out to ~150 years, Pu is better in every way I can see; you haven't provided a single reason we would want to switch to Am on shorter missions, just repeated claims that the actual deficiencies don't matter much. Even assuming you're correct, that just makes them "practically" equivalent at best... so why would we switch?

Re:Could we use tiny U235 fission reactors instead

[vlm]

Fundamental minimum mass of a fission reactor is immense compared to the minimum size of a RTG. Also "no moving parts" fission reactors are hardly off the shelf, although there are theoretical ideas based on pebble beds. I would imagine a pebble bed reactor in zero-G transitioning to midcourse thruster acceleration would be quite a handful to theoretically simulate.

THIS

[Caviller]

This is what scares the living shit out of me 100 times more over then ANY nuclear reactor launch could ever do. People who say "Smart person A says this, it's what i believe too, so it's the only truth outthere and everyone else is WRONG!!!"

God save humanity...

Re:THIS

[Anonymous Coward]

Obvious trolls scare you? Really?

Not cheap

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

You get 239Pu from power plants, along with 240Pu in high-burnup fuel. 238 is a small fraction and impractical to separate.

238 requires custom production, for example by separating and irradiating Neptunium 238. Which means reprocessing infrastructure, which is seriously expensive to build, and not exactly cheap to operate if you've already built it for other purposes.

Re:Not cheap

[jd]

But the French and British already have reprocessing infrastructure and plenty of it. (And, for that matter, most of the reason the US has masses of extremely hazardous nuclear waste is that it hasn't been reprocessing. It's far cheaper to build a reprocessing plant than to hollow out a mountain range.) If the US hasn't put aside any money, then NASA can't even send over waste to those people with reprocessing plants to get the 238. The British government is incredibly stupid at times, but it's not going to foot the bill.

Fuck Science!

[Anonymous Coward]

Lets go bomb some third world countries at great expense instead!

Re:No need for it, go SOLAR!

[Mechafishy]

Hes a real trooper that one

http://media.photobucket.com/image/successful+troll+/Daveed75/Memes/successful-troll-is-successful.jpg

Re:No need for it, go SOLAR!

[gtall]

C'mon, it isn't that high. Dr. Bob's more on the level of Creation Science....ack, gag me with a spoon....

Re:Use anti-matter, shouldn't be that far off now

[confused one]

Star Trek also said WWIII occured before first contact...

From wikipedia:

[Anonymous Coward]

The United States currently has limited facilities to produce plutonium-238.[2] Since 1993, all of the plutonium-238 the U.S. has used in space probes has been purchased from Russia.

So exactly how is this dooming space probes?

You forgot: Sunken U.S. or Soviet

[Anonymous Coward]

submarines.

Yours In Moscow,
K. Trout, PatRIOT

Re:No need for it, go SOLAR!

[oh_my_080980980]

Solar panels do just fine. The problem is the father away you travel from the sun the less energy you can produce. So unless you move from one star to another star as a source you need nuclear.

But please stop the bull shit that it costs too much to build solar panels. It doesn't. In the confines of a NASA budget the cost is nothing and yes we have the material here in the US.

Sellafiled?

[turgid]

Have they tried the Brits? They had a very extensive nuclear power programme and there are all kinds of used nuclear fuels from all the magnox and AGRs lying around at Sellafield.

Surely there must be something there that they can use?

Maybe there is a better answer

[paul42]

http://nickelenergy.wordpress.com/2011/06/02/chief-scientist-at-nasa-langley-acknowledges-andrea-rossi-e-cat/

Re:Could we use tiny U235 fission reactors instead

[LWATCDR]

ummm no.
With P-238 you are using the radioactive decay, alpha I believe to create heat that you convert to electricity using a thermocouple.
With a reactor you are actually fissioning uranium and are making a lot more power. The problem is that reactors do not scale down well. http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/11/08/29/1337258/Developing-Nuclear-Power-Plant-Tech-For-the-Moon-and-Mars
Is a link about using space based reactors.
The US also flew some during the 60s as part of the SNAP project.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_for_Nuclear_Auxiliary_Power
You can not make a reactor that is as small as an RTG but as the power out put goes up their mass to power increases and beats an RTG.

Do you feel like a pirate, punk?

[Anonymous Coward]

either through the government or through trolling through Siberia and the Russian coastline looking for old Soviet Era lighthouses and power stations."

Now do yea? The mafia will be at your service, punk!

Here's the big opportunity

[Gordonjcp]

"Hello Iran, you want a nuclear programme? Well I'll tell you what, how about we lend you some gear, and we'll send over some guys to help you run it? Great! Now, when you get pretty good at Pu-238 we're going to want to buy everything you make. Oil? Nah, keep it..."

Re:Here's the big opportunity

[Hartree]

Peace through superior capitalism.

By one (1) senator.

[FatSean]

But yeah, you know, good point.

Social Security in not part of the Federal budget

[erice]

It is financed entirely by dedicated taxes and presently has a surplus. There is certainly trouble ahead but in the near to mid term Social Security spending does not contribute to the Federal deficit and cutting Social Security spending will not reduce the Federal deficit.

On Defence, I agree with you.

Re:Could we use tiny U235 fission reactors instead

[LWATCDR]

Your are right. You can make RTGs the size of a coin. But the you can make reactors pretty dang small. The Snap-10a was only 600+ pounds.

FUD?

[Anonymous Coward]

Summary:

The article notes that the only other source of PU-238 is Russia

Wikipedia:

Since 1993, all of the plutonium-238 the U.S. has used in space probes has been purchased from Russia. (http://nuclear.inl.gov/spacenuclear/docs/final72005faqs.pdf)

So the only option is to do what has been done since 1993. All right, so how is this article not FUD?

What??

[Anonymous Coward]

Democrats cutting science spending? I thought only Republicans did that! Or so we were told by left-wing blogs.

Re:No need for it, go SOLAR!

[tibit]

OK-dokey, so presume we're trying to put solar panels on Cassini.

Solar flux @ 1 A.U. (Earth's orbit) -- round to 1kW/m^2
Solar flux @ 10 A.U. (Saturn's aphelion) -- 10W/m^2

Power needed: 700W (to be generated by solar panels instead of RTGs)
Space-rated solar panel efficiency: ~10% (conservative figure takes into account degradation due to age and radiation)

Needed area: (700W)/(0.1)/(10W/m^2) = 700m^2

That's a freaking huge panel, almost as big as a pair of U.S. wing arrays on ISS. For a sense of scale, here's how big the darn things are.

Besides, you need extra fuel or energy to keep the damn things oriented towards the sun. This would likely add more weight since Cassini had to, first and foremost, take lots of pictures. Good luck with taking pics *and* pointing the solar panels. Of course you can have batteries like ISS does. All of this hassle adds significant risk to the mission.

Re:Could we use tiny U235 fission reactors instead

[compro01]

Great, that's only 20 times the mass of the trio of RTGs on Cassini. And it produced a whole 3/4s the power. And was supposed to work for a whole year (vs. 13 and counting for the RTGs).

Illudium Q-36

[si3n4]

from Wikipedia "Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator" (sometimes pronounced "Illudium Pu-36") what a stupe I was as a child - just getting the Illudium joke now ....

Manufacturing creates jobs..

[Anonymous Coward]

Cutting corporate taxes that encourage companies to bring manufacturing and jobs back to the Western world is a good thing. Less then 30% of the US economy is manufacturing now. During the US boom years manufacturing was 50% of GDP. Not everyone can work at Wal-Mart. Bring some lost jobs back home and we'll all see the economy improve.

Re:Manufacturing creates jobs..

[Anonymous Coward]

If your goal is to bring back manufacturing that went overseas then you are going to have reduce that companies operating costs to less than (cost of chinese workers + investment in existing factories + transport of goods + lack of regulation). If you are going to remove all company taxes, environment regulation and reduce minimum wage to 25c an hour, you may succeed but the question becomes "is it worth it?". [Repeal the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments if you really want an edge]*

If you give up your standard of living and live like a Chinese peasant then the 1900s boom may happen again but it turns out that most people are happy to have left that behind. The only hope for manufacturing jobs is high tech/high skill, low end mass market stuff is already being done cheaper, new tech with new factories is the only way forward on that front.

* (Yes, that does re-legalise slavery. This is something that annoys me about this discussion, people put jobs on a pedestal as though being employed is the be all and end all, that the conditions [physical, mental and legal/contractual] are somehow irrelevant)

"almost literally"?

[fantomas]

"almost literally" - that would be "not really" then?

Am-241 kills better

[Anonymous Coward]

It just kills you better, and probably disperses much better in case of an accidental re-entry...

Re:Social Security in not part of the Federal budg

[Solandri]

Social Security began running at a deficit (benefits payouts exceeds SS tax revenue) last year. Unless your plan is to cut benefits payments to exactly match the drop in SS tax revenue, its shortfall most certainly makes it part of the overall Federal budget we need to be worried about.

Re:Social Security in not part of the Federal budg

[CrimsonAvenger]

It is financed entirely by dedicated taxes and presently has a surplus. There is certainly trouble ahead but in the near to mid term Social Security spending does not contribute to the Federal deficit and cutting Social Security spending will not reduce the Federal deficit.

The money from Social Security taxes are tossed into the General Fund just like all other tax revenue.

And then that money is spent.

Which means, among other things, that if SS taxes don't go to paying SS, they will be spent on other things, thus reducing the total amount of money that needs to be borrowed.

Hence, the deficit reduction implicit in reducing SS outlays.

Re:No need for it, go SOLAR!

[electron sponge]

go fuck yourself you snake oil huckster

Is it me?

[IMightB]

Or haven't there been more than a few semi-recent slashdot articles that have warned of (NASA/USA in general) running out of it (stuff to make RTG's) in the near future? This article just couches the same information but in a political text and everyone's going: OMG! Republican's are the Devil and Democrat's are the Anti-Christ!

Re:No need for it, go SOLAR!

[gumbi west]

A chunk of Pu isn't so dangerous? It ignites when exposed to air. The stuff is aptly named after the god of hell.

week / cheap rivets sank titantic

[Joe_Dragon]

week / cheap rivets sank titantic.

At the time of the collision it is thought that Titanic was at her normal cruising speed of about 21 knots (39 km/h), which was less than her top speed of around 23 knots (43 km/h). At the time it was common (but not universal) practice to maintain normal speed in areas where icebergs were expected.

Re:Could we use tiny U235 fission reactors instead

[zippthorne]

Fission != Decay. Pu-238 RTGs use decay heat, which is possible because of their short half-lives as you said, but the parent poster was positing the existence of some kind of micro-sized fission pile, which if it exists, would certainly extract energy from U-235 more quickly than natural decay.

However, any kind of active mechanical device, whether solar or nuclear for the heat source, will have significant longevity problems. You can't exactly do routine maintenance and lubrication a billion miles from the nearest service station. Might be useful for near-earth projects, but deep space probes are where RTGs are king, and probably always will be.

avoidable

[Anonymous Coward]

I seem to remember a test facility that was setup that could produce extremely high quality rare radioisotopes, oh wait a hole was drilled through it...
Link text

Good rideance.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ejecting highly radioactive and poisonous isotopes into space and then using earth as a slingshot is not only fool-hardy, but irresponsible. Find a different way of powering the probes, or do without. All you Trekky idiots aughta like this comment.

Decadal Survey one step ahead

[zoso1132]

Per the 2010 Decadal Survey... "The committee is alarmed at the status of plutonium-238 availability for planetary exploration. Without a restart of plutonium-238 production, it will be impossible for the United States, or any other country, to conduct certain important types of planetary missions after this decade."

And isnt that ok.

[drolli]

Well lets buy it from Russia then. IMHO one plant to produce Pu238 is enough.

Surely Daiichi?

[Julz]

Given that the Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Fukushima is spewing radioactive isotopes like there's no tomorrow (soon won't be if it keeps it up) can't the PU-238 coming from there be captured and "appropriated"?

Maybe it's because they're tracking climate change

[Quila]

They're wasting their limited budget on that instead of doing their job of aircraft and space exploration.

Climate change would be the job of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Mission creep is a killer.

Re:Social Security in not part of the Federal budg

[imric]

Funny, there's a record of how much I've paid into Social Security.

Tell me how to find out (to the dollar) how much I've paid for highways or defense?

No?

See - just because the funds are fungible does NOT mean that it's just another tax. That's just what the Republicans want you to believe so that when they eliminate Social Security (I'm looking at YOU, Perry!) they can just steal the money for their own projects (tax breaks for the wealthy, military spending, etc) without paying any back to the citizens that need it.

Re:Could we use tiny U235 fission reactors instead

[LWATCDR]

As I said reactors do not scale down as well.
The Topaz reactor that the USSR flew does a bit better.
The GPHS-RTG that Cassini uses makes around 500W for a mass of 57Kg.
Topaz made 5KW or ten times the power for a mass of 370Kg
So with Topaz one you have a better power output to weight than with the GPHS-RTG.
So if you need more power but for a short period of time a reactor is a better solution at about 5KW of output.
As I said reactors do not scale down well and RTGs do not scale up very well.
Oh and SNAP-10a is early 1960s tech, Topaz is 1980s tech. I have no idea what the specks on a modern system wold be like.

Space science

[Anonymous Coward]

No earth gravitation & earth rotation ( in some conditions )

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