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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...
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.
the U.S and Canada will realize they'll have to step up in order to maintain or become world super powers
Canada? I'm Canadian - We're fun and have good beer and all, but we'll never be a 'world super power.'
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.
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.
(And when a junior reporter from Slashdot realized he forgot to uncheck the "Post Anonymously" button one Saturday morning, he blamed it upon invaders from Mars stealthily occupying positions of high import within the Terran economy, including a range of positions from his local bartender to high-ranking positions within the NASA bureaucracy. Seems the most likely hypothesis these days, doesn't it?)
Only time will tell my fellow canuck. The recent census put us at 33.5 million but give us a few more years and increase in population. Our politicians btw are just as corrupt as the states and civil liberties erroding just as fast. U can keep your face in that beer and ignore the reality of the situation: canada is just as bad as the states, with as much ambition. We march lockstep with them, for now though we're content to let them be the bad guys while we work on our own nefarious goals. Just ask Harper :)
$action = empty(PHP) ? backToC() : unset(PHP) ; "when the concrete cases are understood, the abstractions are readily
Our politicians btw are just as corrupt as the states and civil liberties erroding just as fast
You, my friend, need to take out a subscription to Macleans and start reading - Canada's system is so much better than the USA in so many ways. Why is America so broken? Campaign financing rules that are illegal in Canada. Our judges aren't elected, which means they don't pander and our Supreme Court judges don't go through the wringer like they do in the USA. Most MPs are hardworking Joe and Jane Averages - I know mine is, and I don't even support his party. As for civil liberties, I can still leave my shoes on when I fly to Toronto - I ride the SkyTrain daily and I have never once seen the police looking through people's bags and on and on.... Could Canada do better? Sure, but so could every Western democracy.
However, the fact remains that we're no superpower and never will be, eh?
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.
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
Our judges aren't elected, which means they don't pander and our Supreme Court judges don't go through the wringer like they do in the USA.
1) Federal judges are not elected in the US and most do not encounter serious opposition in the Senate. Even when they do, it is not *always* political theater. State and local judges many times are elected, however.
2) Elected judges may result in pandering, but appointed judges are prone to "bench rot" (basically getting out of touch with reality because your job is guaranteed--similar to problems with faculty tenure). Both lead to stupid decisions.
The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
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.
We're not a superpower but we act like we are. If our system is so much fairer than the States then why was a Canadian Muslim detained by the Quebec Provincial Police (and no cracks about, "well, it was in Quebec, then.") his house searched, his wife browbeaten with statements that her husband was a terrorist just because he tweeted a "let's blow up the competition" rah-rah statement to the rest of his sales team before heading to some sort of trade show in New York. We're all going to have to learn to communicate in passive politically correct phrases or find ourselves being arrested for things we might do not for things we've done.
Oh, yeah, it is post 1984, after all.
No, we're just as paranoid, just as terrified and just as over reactive as the folks in the States. God help the whole damn world. With any luck, the paranoia will finally lead someone to press the big red button and we'll have an end to all this. People, if there are any left, can get back to just scratching out a living without worrying about what someone is thinking on the other side of the planet.
A good question to ask would be.. do you consider the people of India to be 'black'? Then re-ask your questions.
Human Rights Commission - 'nuff said.
Please don't fall into the same trap of "we're better than X, so all is good", that Americans are so prone to.
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.
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
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
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.