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NASA To Drastically Cut Mars Mission Funding
DesScorp writes "Faced with budget cuts, and forced to choose between deep space observation or a mission to Mars, CBS reports that NASA will kill most of its Mars exploration programs. Sources in NASA say that of the $300 million being cut from the space agency's budget, two-thirds were for a joint US-EU program for Martian exploration. NASA spokesman David Weaver said that, just like the rest of the federal government, the space agency has to make 'tough choices and live within our means.'"
We're never going to Mars at this rate. Well, America isn't at least. Good thing there are other, less short-sighted countries that will inevitably get there.
I heard there is a US agency called the NRO which has a large number of Hubbles pointed the wrong way. - Could they not just start rumours about alien terrorists, and offload this task in question?
And fund a Mars program? No brainer, to me. (No offense, Alaska)
The days of America's manned space program are over now that Medicare and Social Security are running deep into the red.
If only there were a bank on Mars that needed bailed out... by god then we would get there! I wonder if there is enough atmosphere on the red planet to fly a helicopter from which we could drop money.. or lacking the funds... turkeys.
Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats. -HLM
Newt Gingrich does not approve.
Put a NASA Mars mission on Kickstarter?
I'm just shocked by this. Who would expect that NASA would be underfunded by Congress and have to cut the grandiose plans NASA has been telling us about?
Seriously, who expects anything out of NASA these days? Congress has been trying to kill NASA off since the 80s. Now that private space flight is looking more and more like a reality, what good is a government run space program? ( I say that as a cynic. I know NASA is good for science. When was the last time science was a priority for the US government?)
Space Shuttle was a program that strapped humans to an explosion and tried to stab through the sky with fire and math
with 18 billion dollar budget you'd think there would be enough waste and nonsense to deal with that 300 million cut without cutting programs.
Not too sure why JWST is being blamed for this. JWST does impact support for other astronomy missions, but planetary exploration is its own program. Might just as well say that not closing the space station is to blame if these kinds of games are going to be played.
I expected the colonization of Mars to start in the 60's, atmospheric mining on Venus to start the 70's, and the U.S. to become proficient in math and science by 80's. Sadly, I have come to believe none of the above will ever happen.
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
Didn't Obama repeatedly say in the past that he was going to increase NASA's budgets over the next five years? What became of that? Is it all going to be funneled into earthbound stuff? Or into that heavy-lift launcher that congress demanded?
The real priorities of NASA should be to inspire kids to learn math and science, expand our international relationships, and to get involved in Muslim outreach.
How can NASA inspire children to be interested in math and science when NASA is busy wasting time on some Mars mission? You think any kids in this country cared when we landed people on the moon? Or that the moon landings inspired hundreds if not thousands of hours of films and documentaries and books that have immeasurable academic value especially for kids.
And how does going to Mars help NASA with its international diplomatic goals? When is NASA going to become IASA? We need to reach out to other countries with diplomacy before we can reach out to Mars.
And there are no Muslims on Mars. (Or are there? I'm not really an expert). So that's not going to help with the critically important 'Muslim outreach' program that is a top priority for the space teams. How can we possibly waste the time and effort of our nation's leading scientists and minds when the Muslim world doesn't feel good about its contribution to science.
Let's face it. NASA is slowly, or rapidly, becoming nothing more than a political punching bag to beat up on during election cycles. The government floats the organization enough to keep a lot of people in work but won't commit to anything extraordinary like the Apollo Program. And every few years a politician gets to make some insane claim like 'Moon Bases' to excite people into getting out the vote.
NASA is a bankrupt bureaucracy plain and simple. Instead of axing the funding (many billions) on space adventures for man (mars, moon, whatever) and 'heavy lift' vehicles they axe funding in the one area where one could say they have a legitimate role - pure scientific exploration. There are no good reasons to race to get men on Mars. And there is no reason any longer for NASA to be developing rockets when private industry can take over and perhaps profit now that the government funded competition is out of the way. Imagine taking just 25% of what is planned for manned missions and associated vehicles and applying it to basic exploration like voyager, cassini, etc. NASA would have more than enough funding to focus on the things they do best.
"Anti-Piracy" campaigns, handouts to religious organizations, wellfare for illegal aliens who don't even pay taxes, bailouts, corn/pork/cheese subsidies, etc.
But fuck it America, throw away the future! Live in the now! Run up your debt while you throw away anything related to education and science. Maybe you could go loan some money to the arabas again and then start some wars with them again. How about you keep bitching about communist China while you increasingly become a socialist nanny-state. Set your future on a whole generation of poorly-educated obese children who write in texting abbreviations and speak like they gangstas. That'll totally work out!
that has more oil on it...
With China rising and everything that comes with it, the U.S and Canada will realize they'll have to step up in order to maintain or become world super powers. The same rule applies here as it does in business. Competition is good for everyone.
$action = empty(PHP) ? backToC() : unset(PHP) ; "when the concrete cases are understood, the abstractions are readily
Sounds like someone needs to start a new project on Kickstarter. The lander will be covered in GoDaddy and IBM logos, and the astronauts will be drinking Coke (tm) and eating Hormel Chili.
I suspect it's being strangled, like most oversized organizations, by people in the administration who focus on preserving jobs, salaries, and benefits of all the little people whose fate is in their hands, rather than the goals of the organization.
Look, we have republicans working to gut NASA, but at the same time, trying to keep the SLS going. The problem is, that space launch is no longer about capabilities, but about economics. As such, we NEED cheap redundant launch systems. The SLS is NOT IT. It is a 20 Billion boondoggle with a 1-2 billion launch cost, and that is just to get 70 tonnes to orbit.
OTOH, if we halt major projects for a short time, AND get private space going, THEN, we can obtain CHEAP ECONOMIC LAUNCHES. In addition, we would have red dragon quickly available. With red dragon and Falcon Heavy, we can send new missions to mars every 2 years for less than 300 million. Keep in mind that falcon heavy will allow MULTIPLE sats and a lander to go to mars. That is huge.
If you are going to whine, then whine about the fact that neo-cons are gutting NASA by turning it into a job's bill, rather than keep it as a National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Today marks a glorious day of initiative reassessment! Rejoice, Democrats, Republicrats, and Bureaucrats alike, for today, NASA embarks on a new mission - the maximization of the achievable through the reassessment of initiatives! ONWARDS TO RE-ELECTION! VICTORY IN 2012!
When a former associate administrator for science named Edward Weiler, suggested that the cuts were "totally irrational and unjustified. We are the only country on this planet that has the demonstrated ability to land on another planet, namely Mars. It is a national prestige issue", Speaker Weaver reminded him that "having one's title removed was a dignified means of ending a career, certainly less painful than having one's gelsac.... no, wait, you call them something different here... what's the word... nerds, narf, na-- ah, there we go! ...less painful than having one's national prestige fall to the floor", other members of the press corps stared in blank confusion, and omitted the mysterious comment from the CBS news report.
They released that damned "John Carter" trailer. And now it's perfectly obviously that there won't be ANY naked slave girls [sniff].
Adios, Barsoom! Alas, we'll never see those wondrous canals, the city ruins, the four-armed barbarians, Dejah Thoris in all her buxom fleshy glory ..
http://www.cartermovie.com/borisjc10.jpg
Sigh ...
The question is whether you're from western Pennsylvania.
Obama to drastically cut mars funding
I think the only reasonable expectation of seeing humans on Mars any time soon is a one-way trip. There must be husband-wife geologists of retirement age who would like to live out their days in a low-gravity marsological paradise.
Their they're doing there hair.
I think NASA should get rid of its cadre of bureaucrats who do NOTHING but squabble over budgets, kill programs, and buy staplers. That way, they can let the brilliant (and I do NOT mean this sarcastically) engineers who still work there do their job.
Here's a rule of thumb:
If you're a civil servant and you have not worked on anything that has left the ground in the last 5 years, you get fired, and the engineers you manage get assigned to someone who HAS worked on something that has gone into space.
10 NASA cuts projects laypeople can relate to in favor of obscure ones that only astronomers care about
20 Come budget review time, constituents aren't asking their representatives to fund NASA, corporations aren't lobbying for it either
30 NASA's budget is again cut
40 GOTO 10
Now, to be fair, NASA is favoring more cost effective programs. Discovering planets lightyears away is of great use to fields outside of astronomy and causes advancement in human-usable technologies I'm sure. But garnering funding requires appealing to the masses, and I doubt many laypeople would be able to name even one of NASA's currently planned projects.
... the past moon missions have birthed a lot of technology ...
More importantly the Apollo program got a lot of young kids interest in science and engineering. Which led to a following generation or two's worth of technology and economic activity.
We're sacrificing every great thing we have in this country. Never the military though. We need to have a bigger military than every country on earth x 2.
... Well-funded Black Projects from shady Corporate entities in the military industrial complex continue to make routine space trips to Mars daily.
All NASA needs to do is author a report about the possibility of oil on Mars. I'm certain a few companies would then pay to have some drilling rigs sent over there.
Fuck Beta
NASA is useless at this point and has been since the 1970's, unfortunately. They should cut their budget to 0.
So that would eliminate many active missions. MESSENGER, for example,left the ground over seven years ago and is doing fantastic science, but has been in Mercury orbit less than a year. Cassini is still doing all kinds of stuff at Saturn, but it launched fifteen years ago.
Hey guess what. You're just a simple minded racist!
That corrupt gasbag New Gingrich screwed it all up for NASA by pandering to Florida Republicans with lies about how he'd establish a permanent Lunar base (by the end of his "second term" - what a jerk). Yet another good programme that's good for the country, and so popular with voters, grabbed by a lying megalomaniac who'd never do it once elected.
Newt collapsed in the Florida election that week, and gave a Moon base a bad name. It's easy now in DC to mock NASA expansions, and Newt helped make that happen.
--
make install -not war
The comments here are really scraping the bottom of the barrel. "taxes are theft", "NASA is welfare", blah blah blah. I get sick of reading the same lame talking points that came right out of the CATO institute or Reason.
These are the type of people that would have been fighting as mercs for the East India Company.
Except the military, who gets to spend as much as they like making the world a more dangerous and exploded place.
The driving force for space exploration, besides simple curiosity was the idea that mankind would eventually expand out and live on other p[lanets, perhaps even in other solar systems. Population and resource pressures drove this. It's all unnecessary now. We're going to cut back our expectations, our life styles, our populations and our technological requirements so we can live a nice sustenance level sustainable life for whoever is left right here on this planet.
Don't let all the doom sayers that by staying on one planet we leave ourselves open to extinction through natural or man made cataclysm that wipes out life on this planet make you think that there's still a good reason to move off this rock and onto another. The idea of Mankind as a cancer on the planet Earth is easily extended to Mankind being a cancer in the universe so our eventual demise will be a positive thing. Just enjoy what time you have left with whatever technology you can save for yourself and say to H*ll with the rest.
A good question to ask would be.. do you consider the people of India to be 'black'? Then re-ask your questions.
Good point. Perhaps restrict this to Civil Servants who have NEVER worked on a flying mission -- it'd still either get rid of a lot of useless people or give them incentive to be useful :)
You must be new here. Or, for that matter, on any tech blog / website / discussion board. Geeks tend to be more politically extreme on average, on both sides of the spectrum. On the right, this means more libertarians. You can find a few real communists hereabouts, too - who'd have thought? Heck, we even have a resident fundamentalist Muslim, who will gladly explain to you how that whole worldwide Caliphate thing will work once it's established.
In a purely political move the federal government destroyed the creditably of anyone having a space station on the moon. we should relocate our resources to protect against flying rocks in space .
America's dumb-ass, anti-science trailer park party.
Never thought I'd say this, but Mitt for President
Given that it's the anti-racists that seem to be oblivious to the obvious, who's really simple minded?
I guess you'd like to wind up like South Africa?
Have fun!
Let's face it -- what we're learning from Mars is a snooze compared to what we're learning from our various deep space probes. I find myself far more fixated on the latest exoplanet findings than the latest "there might be water or microbial life on Mars" schtick.
Mars is a dead planet... move on.
Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
Mars nears Earth each two years aprox.
Earth nears Mars each two years aprox.
These shortest distances are smallest costs when they are traveling to each other, so that many goverments normally wasted giant peaks of money for accomplishing their space exploration purposes.
After of each two year peak, they did lose interest in the investment of money, so that they often do cuts of funds for another purposes: to force the national economy for remaining periods of time.
JCPM: U.S. wasted much money in the Iraq war and NASA is in lack of cut with the risks of higher cuts.
Cut school budget? (try to) Eliminate football.
Cut city budget? (try to) Fire policemen.
Earth'll last FOREVER (same as these asshats that think oil will just keep flowing FOREVER). *rolls eyes*
alive to the universe, dead to the world
We need a funding system which guarantees funding for long-term projects--regardless of who's in power.
Shuttle development cutbacks resulted in the choice of an inferior design for the shuttle...worse, one with insufficient cargo capacity.
When we start a 30 year project, it's chances of success diminish with every budget review. Congress is unable to keep their hands off of any resource available--remember "tax-free" IRA;s?
Now while I happen to think going to Mars is important. There are other projects which ought to come first which would make Mars a safer and less expensive project.
To start with, a lunar production facility to turn out solar power satellites, and an orbital 'dry-dock' in orbit to assemble them.
Each such satellite, producing gigawatts of electricity, permits the elimination of the same production value of coal/oil fired generators. Each unit helps make our planet cleaner, and the speed at which they can be constructed can be ramped up to a very rapid pace.
Energy is key. Not air, nor water, nor food, nor materials,. With energy anything physically possible is possible--since our current production methods are killing us and other life, we cannot switch to any other source as clean as this fast enough. Unfortunately, those who control the energy system seem to believe that they must maximize the profit on their supplies of hydrocarbon--evidently completely ignorant of the much higher vale it has as a manufacturing feedstock--they also seem unaware of the fact that if the ecosystem which they live in is destroyed, they will not survive.
Among other things, SPSS power can be used to provide thrust for a Mars-bound mission, greatly increasing it's cargo capacity and lowering the cost per tonne significantly.
With the energy and materials available in our own binary planet, we can generate u imaginable amounts of power. It's cleaner and cheaper than any other system, once you add in the costs to the environment of extracting and moving fuel and cleaning up the waste products of production,
Thanks, US government. Assholes.
I have heard that these joint missions would be launched on Russian rockets....the next time the Russians have a successful Mars mission will be the first so I can understand the reluctance, but it is still an idiotic move on NASA's part. We are on the verge of some exciting discoveries on Mars; it is just plain stupid to pull out the rug why still wasting billions on the manned space flight.... Romney, you have my vote; maybe you understand the need for science.
Personally I find Mars much more interesting and tangible. But it is not a matter of deep space versus Mars but rather manned missions versus robotic probes. Houston versus JPL. Waste & dead astronauts versus scientific blockbusters such as Voyager Cassini & Opportunity. Manned mission have accomplished almost nothing compared to robotic missions and have wasted billions & killed astronauts. But NASA is run by pilots who trivialize science. Sure they will show up to take credit when there is a breakthrough but then stab the programs in the back.