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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."
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.
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.
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).
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
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.
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?
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.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
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?