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U.S. In Danger of Losing Earth-Observing Satellite Capability
New submitter crazyjj writes "As reported in Wired, a recent National Research Council report indicates a growing concern for NASA, the NOAA, and USGS. While there are currently 22 Earth-observing satellites in orbit, this number is expected to drop to as low as six by the year 2020. The U.S. relies on this network of satellites for weather forecasting, climate change data, and important geologic and oceanographic information. As with most things space and NASA these days, the root cause is funding cuts. The program to maintain this network was funded at $2 billion as recently as 2002, but has since been scaled back to a current funding level of $1.3 billion, with only two replacement satellites having definite launch dates."
of Short-Sightedness.
The anti-science crowd will soon be racking up an impressive body count - including their own voting-against-their-own-interest constituencies in hurricane and tornado country.
Public and Scientific earth viewing satellites are dwindling. The military has plenty of money to launch all they need.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
We'll just outsource it all to India and China.
A growing percentage of our GDP is going to taking care of senior citizens.
A growing percentage of our GDP is going to health care.
A growing percentage of our GDP is going to the military.
Either find ways to spend less on the above, increase income dramatically or deal with decreasing other services. Fourth option is a combinationation of the first three. I see no other choices.
This is a simple problem to solve. All they have to do is label the satellites as "anti-terrorist", or something like that, and they'll get all the funding they need.
Proverbs 21:19
It is worse than that. There is a group of people in the US Congress who just hate anything that the "other side" supports. It does not matter what it is they will work against anything that they think the other side wants to support. They care more about the success of their party than they do the country they swore to serve. The sad thing is that it has gone on long enough that two such groups have formed. We just have a bunch of obstinate dick heads now due to gerrymandering and an absent media.
This is the perfect tin-foil-hat scenario!
The "Global Warming Alarmists" will say it's a plot to prevent the study of of anthropogenic climate change by the "Deniers" and prove just how bad it is.
And the "Deniers" will say it's a plot to keep the "Alarmists" evil lie from coming to light.
Pass the popcorn!
I think it is the Left that is big on NASA cuts, as NASA is under mostly military spending. The problem is a failure to educate the public about the importance of these areas, If you leave it to average voter they will see NASA as a waste of tax payer money, because the government does nothing to really explain the importance to the general public. It was easy during the Cold war where we can go In Your Face USSR... But now our greatest enemies cannot even get a missile to go a few hundred miles, it seems less of a priority. Why does big business have control much greater then the government... It is easy, they know how to market to the average Joe.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
1. Cut Taxes
2. ????
3. Jesus Comes
Perhaps the GOP-dominated Congress will soon suggest the Miracle of the Market place for all weather satellites. Not only hire them to build and launch, give them a sweet no-bid contract to run the service (behind a paywall, of course). Hey, it's worked so well for the Prison-Industrial complex, right?
In the interest of corporate profits, the Invisible Hand is now the Invisible Middle Finger.
There is a group of people in the US Congress who just hate anything that the "other side" supports. It does not matter what it is they will work against anything that they think the other side wants to support.
There are 536 people in this 'group'.
After all, the money to pay for F-22s that have never flown a combat mission and cost a year's salary to fly for an hour was FAR more important than trivial things like weather forecasting.
But just you wait and see what gets cut to pay for the F-35s!
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
I wouldn't be surprised if 6 new sats designed and launched between now and then could actually do the job of the 18 mission the TFA mentions . TFA was long on hype and short on details.
The right hates science and it's conclusions, and the problem with these satellites is that they promote science and the conclusions scientists reach.
The right doesn't mind science R&D (i.e. the fraction of research that private companies can get an immediate ROI on.) It's just the pesky fundamental research with no foreseeable application and no quarterly profit that gets them upset; but without the fundamental research, there are no more breakthroughs.
Funny, I've always seen it as the "fiscal conservatives" want us to quit "wasting" money in space so instead things have to be billed under the military to get anything done.
Find me a liberal who opposes NASA funding based off of it going to military purposes, cause I think you are full of shit.
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
It's only natural that as regulations, unnecessary wars, and spending for giveaways rise, less money is available for other purposes.
It's only natural that as repeatedly denied, government funded science scandals occur, the public loses faith in government funded science
It's only natural that as government spying increases, people lose interesting funding anything global with surveillence.
Basically, we're f&*$#d.
While I've heard a lot about how NASA is undergoing drastic spending cuts, I haven't found any hard numbers for it. In fact, a cursory look at wikipedia and NASA's own published budget shows the opposite; NASA's current budget is actually historically above average. It is certainly higher then it was for most of the 1990s and 1980s. In fact according to wikipedia the average budget of NASA has been 15 billion, and yet it sits at around 17 billion today, actually increasing from 15 billion to 17 billion in 2007 and maintaining that level of spending for the foreseeable future. This seems to be backed up by NASA's own numbers (http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/622643main_FY%2013%20Budget%20Presentation.pdf). So my question is, what are we really talking about here? What am I missing? They only way that NASA is getting less funding right now is if you take it as a percentage of Federal spending in general, but that's more a sign that Federal spending has ballooned the last ten years rather then NASA not being funded. Is there really a NASA budget crisis, and if so why are they having time operating despite ending the fairly expensive shuttle program and despite receiving more money then they have historically since the space race?
We don't need no fancy satellites -- I bet they were dreamed up by some liberal thinker at a UNIVERSITY.
Jesus and the Bible tell us everything we need to know about climate changes, and that's that the world is going to burn. Judgment Day is approaching and those who aren't saved are going to burn to death forever.
USA! USA! USA!
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
The U.S. relies on this network of satellites for ...climate change data
'Nuff said.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
It's been demonstrated that the cost of launching small shiny objects into space has dropped drastically. The Mars rovers (Opportunity and Spirit) continued operational cost has cost under a billion dollars total (and that's including the projected 5th mission for them).
Yet, they were launched in 2003 - before Xprize, before UAVs and the many long-run high altitude planes/UAVs, and a myriad of other advancements. They weren't just a payload and delivery system, they were multiple payloads with multiple delivery systems.
Considering an amateur can go from nothing to a satellite in space for a fairly paltry sum (under $100k), and you can build some fairly impressive optics and com gear for a lot less than you could 10 years ago. There is absolutely no reason it should cost as much today to do the same thing we were doing 10 years ago. Moores Law applies here too. Just as a sysadmin today is expected to be able to do what would have been considered be absurdly complex/expansive things 10 years ago, a developer is expected to have more 'resulting output' than 10 years ago due to better tools, and so on. I mean, shit.
I can build a UAV for under $500 with a more capable, diverse 'monitoring' pattern than the first generation of prototype UAVs made by the big military contractors (post-Gulf War, early aughts) now, and look where the actual military UAVs are: they look like something out of a Cyberdyne future.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
There are 536 people in this 'group'.
Give or take a handful of independents who are likely fed up the apparent inability of either majority party congresscritters to not act like spoiled fucking children.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Much like the early voyages of discovery that put America on the map were a waste, right? Why waste money on exploration when there are petty tribal wars to be fought?
NASA's budget is a rounding error compared to the military's budget, and yet I would put "landing a man on the moon" far higher than "My Lai" on the list of things America can be proud of. If exploration of space is a waste, then count me and millions of others as an ardent supporter of that kind of waste.
Procrastination Man strikes again!
I wouldn't be surprised if 6 new sats designed and launched between now and then could actually do the job of the 18 mission the TFA mentions .
The number of satellites required is more a function of geometry than technology: In close, there's only so much surface visible and only so much area covered per day. Farther out, there's more area covered (albeit at lower resolution) but less per day goes under the eye.
Barring SF-novel grade technology that can count pubic hairs from the orbit of Uranus, there's only so much that you can do to counter those constraints.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Actually, 538, one of which doesn't get to do much unless ther'es a tie.
But I get your point. It's such a big problem that we can no nothing about it.
If only aerospace had more profit potential. Then the Government would be much more interested.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
That may be so, but very few Republicans these days are fiscal conservatives. Many more are only social conservatives, like Rick Santorum: ready and willing to tell other people how to live their lives.
Corporations, on the other hand, get free rein.
Maybe if NASA said they can use them to track terrorists, they could divert some funding from the DoD.
Yup. Now that companies have their own satellites it would make more sense to privatise weather stuff. NASA is there for the long term research that is too risky for the corporate sector. You know, Mars missions, Moon missions in '69, that kind of thing.
It's the decline of the holy roman empire 2.0
The US is rapidly becoming a has-been, and at this point it may be irreversible. The tea-party and other opportunists wanting bread and circus are just a symptom of the decline, not the cause.
Once people are more interested in preserving what they have and not risk wasting anything than taking a risk at investing in the future, then the decline has already started.
I dunno. The Democrats *did* pass Romney's health care plan.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I think it is the Left that is big on NASA cuts, as NASA is under mostly military spending.
Odd... If NASA were military, someone would just say it's to fight the TERRORISTS! and it would receive unlimited funding.
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/hqlibrary/ic/faqs.html
Is NASA a part of the Department of Defense?
NASA is not a part of the Department of Defense, nor of any other Cabinet-level department. NASA's administrator reports directly to the White House.
"You want to know how to help your kids? Leave them the fuck alone." -George Carlin
Do you really think this is by accident? "Starving the Beast" is the conservative methodology for killing things they don't like. Got satellites all up in God's face doing elitist science stuff like providing data to scientists who insist on saying blasphemous things like humans are changing the climate or polluting the oceans? Well, there's an easy fix for that; kill the funding. The Republicans want this outcome. Why do people not see this?
On an aggregate level, R&D has a much better ROI than war. The problem is that the profits from an investment in basic science are realized by society as a whole, instead of the individuals involved in doing or funding the research.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
You're not really right about the independents in Congress: Joe Lieberman is probably the ultimate spoiled child. He lost in the Connecticut Democratic primary back in 2006, went whining to the national Democratic leadership, and convinced them to back him rather than the guy who was ostensibly their party's candidate.
The other independent is Bernie Sanders. Like him or not, he definitely sticks to his socialist positions. He's willing to make deals with strange bedfellows though - for instance, he worked with Ron Paul on the Fed audit that uncovered trillions of dollars going to major banks.
I am officially gone from
Apparently everyone forgot that NASA doesn't exist any longer. It's now MASO - Muslim Aeronautics and Space Outreach. How could we forget that? It's what our Dear Leader decreed after all.
Massive flamebait. My god what happened to you as a child?
That was on the state side. His plan was not a federal plan.
Truly spiritual christian types do not have a lot of time or room for hate.
You seem to have a lot of room for ad hominem, though. Nice troll.
Fiscal conservatives want us to quit wasting money. Space has nothing to do with it other than it is one place that can be cut easily. If you ask most conservatives, we would rather spend money on space exploration than social wellfare programs. Unfortunately, those programs can't be cut without much pain to the folks who need/want to depend on them.
Some days I get the sinking feeling Orwell was an optimist.
Bullshit. The Dems wasted a lot of time trying to reach out to the Republicans by supporting their ideas. The individual mandate, end of life counseling (now called death panels), cap and trade, the DREAM act... all of those were Republican ideas that they turned violently against as soon as the Democrats supported them.
The whole reason NASA is even being cut is because the GOP took the country hostage last summer over the debt ceiling. Nevermind that most of the debt comes from the wars they supported and the tax cuts they demanded.
The really sick thing is the first time I remember hearing the mandate as a serious proposal was by some Republicans offering an alternative just after Hillary released her healthcare proposal in the early 90s.
Warped world, that Washington.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
It is very difficult to look at the Bush presidency - some of it including control of both houses of congress - and come away with a feeling that the Republicans represent fiscal discipline.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Seriously? The LEFT is against NASA? Bush tried to kill the Voyager programs for a measly $4 million/year in savings. The 2 single farthest things we've ever sent into space sending back data we won't be able to reproduce for literally 40 years and he wanted to kill the program for that little bit of savings.
The LEFT is all about funding NASA, the problem is the RIGHT's obstinate blocking of anything related to INVESTMENT in our future. Why don't we have a Shuttle program? Yet give out more than NASA's ENTIRE budget to the oil industry EVERY YEAR?
The LEFT is not the problem.
On a more rational note, gerrymandered districts are a major problem on both sides of the aisle. But that's a more fundamentally broken part of our government.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
Yes, spending money on one of the nation's biggest technology incubators is a poor use of taxpayer dollars.
State funding for scientific research is something that should only happen in "communist" China and Socialist Europe. I'm sure private industry will step in as soon as the heavy hand of the state stops meddling in the highly competitive weather satellite markets.
Our government should get back to doing the things it does best, like telling citizens what to do with their bodies.
Hence the phrase, "give or take." Also, use of the word "likely."
My avoidance of definites was deliberate.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
We can just install WeatherPro on the iPhone! Right?
Windows 2000 - from the guys who brought us edlin
As low as six
OK, but how many satellites are really needed, at the minimum? 6? 8? 10?
NASA is a civilian agency and does not fall under the auspices of the department of defense. Its budget isn't a part of the Defense budget; it's its own separate line item.
NASA does get some money from the military whenever NASA launches or services DoD hardware, but that's from the DoD side of the ledger, not NASA's.
Those are just the U.S. Government satellites. They're ignoring WorldView-1, WorldView-2, GeoEye-1, RapidEye 1 through 5, Spot 2,4, and 5, EROS A and B... This is an area in which the private sector is doing quite well.
I think it is the Left that is big on NASA cuts, as NASA is under mostly military spending. The problem is a failure to educate the public about the importance of these areas, If you leave it to average voter they will see NASA as a waste of tax payer money, because the government does nothing to really explain the importance to the general public. It was easy during the Cold war where we can go In Your Face USSR... But now our greatest enemies cannot even get a missile to go a few hundred miles, it seems less of a priority. Why does big business have control much greater then the government... It is easy, they know how to market to the average Joe.
Funny, I've always seen it as the "fiscal conservatives" want us to quit "wasting" money in space so instead things have to be billed under the military to get anything done. Find me a liberal who opposes NASA funding based off of it going to military purposes, cause I think you are full of shit.
It's funny, and sad, that you are both full of shit. The world is not "blue" or "red". "left" or "right". It's somewhere in between, or maybe outside of these stupid simplifications all together. The entire point of the US was for everyone to find some kind of common ground and work together from that starting point. Somehow this has been warped into splitting the country into polar halves and finding the most divisive issues on either side. Followed by screaming these views at each other until someone loses their voice. I can't say I recall much prior to the early 1970's, but the level of discourse is currently worse than I can remember it in my lifetime.
It is worse than that. There is a group of people in the US Congress who just hate anything that the "other side" supports. It does not matter what it is they will work against anything that they think the other side wants to support. They care more about the success of their party than they do the country they swore to serve. The sad thing is that it has gone on long enough that two such groups have formed. We just have a bunch of obstinate dick heads now due to gerrymandering and an absent media.
Close. The media isn't absent, it's just serving its corporate masters which causes the "obstinate dickheads" in the "'two such groups" to pretend to be gerrymandering. Example: You have two friends. Friend A is a close friend and you also do some limited business together, which you like and the extra cash comes in handy. Friend B is a friend and has been there for you, but there's no real advantage to this friend, other than the occasional pat on the back. Friend A and B know each other, but aren't super close. Now, say something comes up and Friend A and B have conflicting opinions and you have to actually please A, but placate B. Well, that's where the gerrymandering comes in...or just not bringing the topic up much (NAFTA?). Friend A is Corporations, Friend B is Voters. Using that formula, you can pretty much predict the outcome of anything. Note: Friend A usually wins, but Friend B actually has all the power, he's just a little schizoid.
Reading the comments:
Obama proposes budget.
Nasa takes a hit.
Fault = republicans?
-Styopa
From 1991 on, NASA's budget has steadily gone down, through Democratic controlled congresses AND Republican controlled congresses. I think this is more of a reflection of the US becoming lax after the fall of the Soviet Union than some destruction committed by your anti-science boogeyman. Consider that the ISS began in the early mid 1990s and continued to be funded through consecutive Republican majorities from 1995 onwards, one cannot reasonably put all the credit on the LEFT and all the fault on the RIGHT.
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
Bullshit. The Dems wasted a lot of time trying to reach out to the Republicans by supporting their ideas. The individual mandate, end of life counseling (now called death panels), cap and trade, the DREAM act... all of those were Republican ideas that they turned violently against as soon as the Democrats supported them.
The whole reason NASA is even being cut is because the GOP took the country hostage last summer over the debt ceiling. Nevermind that most of the debt comes from the wars they supported and the tax cuts they demanded.
Sorry, but the $2-3 trillion in war funding over 10 years doesn't make a dent in the $1.5 Trillion added to the deficit every year.
Try again. Your boogie man is a lie.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
The other independent is Bernie Sanders. Like him or not, he definitely sticks to his socialist positions. He's willing to make deals with strange bedfellows though - for instance, he worked with Ron Paul on the Fed audit that uncovered trillions of dollars going to major banks.
This is not strange to me. Progressives want government to do more and libertarians want government to do less, but neither wants the corporatism that we have today. At least in the short term, progressives and libertarians should be cooperating. Unfortunately, most people in both groups are too busy hating the other side to think this one through.
Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
Funny, I've always seen it as the "fiscal conservatives" want us to quit "wasting" money in space so instead things have to be billed under the military to get anything done.
Find me a liberal who opposes NASA funding based off of it going to military purposes, cause I think you are full of shit.
Really? I wonder because it has not been the "fiscal conservatives" in charge of the White House and Congress these past few years. Hell, back in 2006 when Republicans held both houses and the White House, the shuttles were still flying and there was a funded plan to replace them, and the deficit was 1/5 of what it is today.
It makes me wonder, though. If liberals don't oppose NASA, as you say, and I know that conservatives don't oppose NASA, then why the cuts? I think the difference is that conservatives consider NASA more important than, say, social programs, where as liberals think it's more important to fund the social programs. Liberals see social programs as feeding the poor, conservatives see social programs as rewarding the lazy. It's a difference of opinion that we will probably never resolve.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
That may be so, but very few Republicans these days are fiscal conservatives. Many more are only social conservatives, like Rick Santorum: ready and willing to tell other people how to live their lives.
Corporations, on the other hand, get free rein.
That's because as soon as a group tries to steer the Republican party to being "fiscal conservatives", they are labeled "racists" by Democrats. Take THIS group for example.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
It is very difficult to look at the Bush presidency - some of it including control of both houses of congress - and come away with a feeling that the Republicans represent fiscal discipline.
Deficits:
FY 2007: $161 billion
FY 2011: $1,300 billion
I don't think it's that difficult. You are just not trying.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
...they let them slip on the floor. If only they could be a little more careful...
Hey America! So Sorry!!! Nobody had the heart to say... the money is all gone. We print more, but now it doesn't mean anything any more. The several hundred people at the top of the economic pyramid own everything, have all the money, and are now confronted with how to keep the whole damn thing going without actually putting any real amount of wealth back in the system. So until they all get together this summer in the Hamptons, and figure out what they're willing to fund, new satellites are not on the menu. Come back this fall for an updated budget.
Exactly. They always take credit for the successes but assign blame for the failures (i.e. Solyndra). Without *some* failures you can't have progress.
Solar is bad has been the mantra of the GOP for a long time. Now they're complaining that China has all the manufacturing of solar panels. Well, uh, if you'd invested in what the ENTIRE WORLD was clamoring for instead of denying global warming we might actually be the leading producer.
And the GOP call themselves the party of 'business' - it's laughable if not so sad and destructive for the country.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
Maybe not, but $2 Trillion in war spending, plus $2 Trillion in unfunded Bush tax cuts (Funny the republicans didn't think it necessary to pay for the extension of their tax cuts) does make a sizable dent in our national deficit. Here's an interesting article on exactly this topic. Go look at historic trends of deficit spending and it's surprising that republicans are responsible for some of the largest rises in debt.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/ezra-klein-doing-the-math-on-obamas-deficits/2012/01/31/gIQAnRs7fQ_story.html
Yeah -- Obamacare is really Romneycare is really Bob Dole's 1993 plan.
People like to say there's no real difference between the Democrats and Republicans, but that's not true. Democrats vote *for* Republican initiatives, Republicans vote against them.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
In general, the 'we're going to the Moon, and then to Mars' was the start of it ... Added the stuff that NASA had to do, but no money to pay for it, so other departments got canibalized.
There was a lot of press about the folks in Florida who lost their jobs after the last shuttle lanuch ... but nothing about the people who were let go years before because their discipline had cuts so that the shuttle could continue going up past its planned life without any funding to pay for it.
And for JWST, there was a bit of a flap back in September ... search for 'james webb space telescope controversy' in your preferred search engine.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
I would buy this argument if the Dems (or the GOP) were trying to even attempt to balance the budget. That way we could look to the future with hope for stopping fund cuts like these.
Instead, both sides - and 99% of Americans, for that matter - aren't willing to make the sacrifices necessary.
The lower income people who aren't paying a penny in income taxes but getting thousands back each year as Earned Income Credits... (Ask some of them what they do with that money... "It's vacation time, baby!"... GUILTY
The corporations shielding their billions in income overseas... GUILTY
The Dems that won't lower the corporate tax rate and at least get a large chunk of the money being held overseas... GUILTY
The politicians who keep giving the 99% their cash "they deserve" by simply having a pulse... GUILTY
The GOP for invading Iraq without good evidence and dropping a cool trillion plus on it... GUILTY
The Defense Department's never-ending war machine (the amount spent on four or five F-22s - that will never see combat, BTW - would cover the satellite funding difference)... GUILTY
The Dems who do nothing to stop the millions of illegal immigrants from coming here to cut local costs (violent crime, ID theft, social program costs) - possibly because they see a giant block of future, loyal Dem voters - all in the name of "stopping racism", of course - GUILTY
The American public as a whole, for not giving a crap about others, all while lying/cheating/stealing a little more than the day before and saying, "the banks did it - why not us?", and ignoring the imminent destruction of the dollar and/or the American economy... "Just keep the time bomb going somehow, and I don't care how..." GUILTY
It's really sad to watch our American empire slowly dying as it has been for decades now, with us - the American people - doing all the wrong things (or nothing at all) to stop it. We might as well rename our country The Neo Roman Empire (or for you Asimov fans, Trantor)...
The real solution is for people to really start caring about each other again, but anybody talking all "faggy and shit" like that is laughed out of town...
Maybe not, but $2 Trillion in war spending, plus $2 Trillion in unfunded Bush tax cuts (Funny the republicans didn't think it necessary to pay for the extension of their tax cuts) does make a sizable dent in our national deficit. Here's an interesting article on exactly this topic. Go look at historic trends of deficit spending and it's surprising that republicans are responsible for some of the largest rises in debt.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/ezra-klein-doing-the-math-on-obamas-deficits/2012/01/31/gIQAnRs7fQ_story.html
Deficits:
FY 2007: $161 billion (R Congress R Whitehouse)
FY 2011: $1,300 billion (D Congress D Whitehouse)
It should also be noted that the US took in MORE money after the Bush tax cuts than before. This is because the economy boomed and the unemployment rate was under 5% much of the time. You actually get a bigger piece when you take a smaller piece from a large pie than when you take a larger piece from a smaller one.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
The really hilarious thing isn't that you cherry-picked data. It's that you linked back to the un-cherry-picked table:
Obama Deficits
FY 2013*: $901 billion
FY 2012*: $1,327 billion
FY 2011: $1,300 billion
FY 2010: $1,293 billion
Bush Deficits
FY 2009: $1,413 billion
FY 2008: $459 billion
FY 2007: $161 billion
Now, I won't ding Bush too badly for the bailout-derived deficit... but of course I'd have to give Obama the same latitude there. Now compare him to Clinton:
Year GDP-US $ billion Federal Deficit-fed $ billion
1990 5800.5 221.03 a
1991 5992.1 269.24 a
1992 6342.3 290.32 a
1993 6667.4 255.05 a
1994 7085.2 203.18 a
1995 7414.7 163.95 a
1996 7838.5 107.43 a
1997 8332.4 21.89 a
1998 8793.5 -69.27 a
1999 9353.5 -125.61 a
2000 9951.5 -236.24 a
2001 10286.2 -128.23 a
2002 10642.3 157.75 a
2003 11142.2 377.59 a
2004 11853.3 412.73 a
2005 12623 318.35 a
2006 13377.2 248.18 a
2007 14028.7 160.71 a
2008 14369.1 458.55 a
2009 13939 1412.69 a
2010 14526.5 1293.49 a
2011 15094 1299.59 a
2012 15601.5 1326.95 b
Legend:
a - actual reported
b - budgeted estimate in US fy13 budget
Clinton gets the blame for 1993-2001. His maximum deficit was 255 billion, his first year. His best year was 2000 with a 236 billion surplus. Now look at those Bush years again...
Now to be totally fair, Clinton did benefit from a tax and cost cutting package that cost Bush I his 2nd term. He also had a nice dot-com bubble at the end there.
Of course, Bush inherited an actual surplus and benefited from a much larger housing bubble.
So yeah, Bush cannot claim to be a fiscal conservative. Republicans have zero claim to that title right now.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Why not the 2009 budget that included the first TARP passed under Bush?
Or the fact that Bush enacted policies with $5.07 trillion of new cost
With Obama at far under $2 trillion
"Nimis exaltatus rex sedet in vertice - caveat ruinam!"
It is very difficult to look at the Bush presidency - some of it including control of both houses of congress - and come away with a feeling that the Republicans represent fiscal discipline.
Deficits: FY 2007: $161 billion FY 2011: $1,300 billion
I don't think it's that difficult. You are just not trying.
Wow. That's about as bald an example of fact-picking as I think I've ever seen here. I'm no fan of Obama (or of Bush) -- in fact I've taken to calling them Obushma, because I really can't see much difference between them, but still... here's rest of the list from your link:
FY 2011: $1,300 billion (Obama)
FY 2010: $1,293 billion (Obama)
FY 2009: $1,413 billion (Bush)
FY 2008: $459 billion (Bush)
FY 2007: $161 billion (Bush)
I agree that the Republicans don't represent the voice of fiscal conservatism. AFAICT there is no significant voice of fiscal conservatism in American politics today. If there were, we'd have people discussing how we're going to achieve and maintain a few hundred billion in annual surpluses, to begin paying down the debt.
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Hmm.
It is good that you can be racist if it is against whites.
That makes it appropriate I am sure. To get past you racist hatred toward those you do not agree with though I have not seen many Christians pooping on stuff at OWS rallies.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
Didn't you get the memo? It is only hate, if it implies the slightest criticism of evangelical fundamentalism or overprivileged white males. Anything else is reasonable criticism, dripping with Christian Love (TM).
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
Obviously, finger-pointing is the answer. Just look at nearly every comment on this news story. The consensus solution for NASA's problems is clearly finger-pointing and trying to find someone to blame.
Religion-haters are sure it's the fault of the religionists. Military-haters aren't sure whose fault it is, but did they mention they hate the military? Ditto for the banker-haters and the millionaire-haters. Leftists are sure it's the fault of the right. Rightists are sure it's the fault of the left. The "use Science as a wedge issue" crowd are sure it's because of the War on Science (tm). No one has mentioned the War on Women (tm) yet, so I guess NASA doesn't poll well with women.
Here's an alternate idea -- NASA isn't getting funded for three reasons:
1. NASA doesn't have very many votes to sell
2. There's a lot less uncommitted money in the GDP. The money that is there is already over-committed to retirement spending, health-care spending, and repayment of debt. Investments in the future are hard to justify because ROIs are down.
3. The US no longer has a culture that can unify. On anything. Ever. So all government spending is either for "our side" or "their side", never for the common good. This leads some (including me) to the conclusion that very little money should be spent by government -- until the culture swings back to where we can unify on some things again.
A number of conservatives have vested interest in the space program as well. Alabama, Texas, and Florida are all beneficiaries of a strong federal space program. A NASA employee and friend of mine described it this way: NASA is a lasting legacy program. It is a program to support when a president is considering his legacy in the history of the nation. Practically, that makes it a second term issue for any party.
But the largest deficit spending happens when we have a Republican president and Democrat Congress. I don't know what that means, except that they're all spending too much of our money
I don't think that word means what you think it means.
Not that I am overly pleased with the Republican performance recently but... it was not Republicans who had control of the purse strings in the from 2007 and forward. Democrats controlled both the house and senate.
The really hilarious thing isn't that you cherry-picked data. It's that you linked back to the un-cherry-picked table:
Obama Deficits
FY 2013*: $901 billion
FY 2012*: $1,327 billion
FY 2011: $1,300 billion
FY 2010: $1,293 billion
Bush Deficits
FY 2009: $1,413 billion
FY 2008: $459 billion
FY 2007: $161 billion
I'm not trying to cherry pick. That's why I linked the whole page.
The key here is who spends the money. It's not the president. Now go back to your data and calculate who was in charge of congress by year. The president means nothing. That's why I chose 2007. 2007 was the last budget passed by a Republican Congress before Pelosi and Reid took over in Jan 2007.
THIS chart is much better as it shows the party in Congress as well as the party that controls the White House. It shows that, at lest over the past 20 years, that Republicans tend to be better stewards of the treasury than Democrats, with some exceptions, of course.
Also, I tend not to look at "projected" deficits of 2012 and 2013.
Of course, Bush inherited an actual surplus and benefited from a much larger housing bubble.
I actually think the surplus was the cause of the increase during the early Bush years. It's hard to say, "We can't afford that. There's no money in the budget." when you are coming off of a surplus. It also doesn't help when congress is evenly split. This is when compromise happens. "We'll fund your pet projects if you fund ours." kinda thing.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Maybe not, but $2 Trillion in war spending, plus $2 Trillion in unfunded Bush tax cuts (Funny the republicans didn't think it necessary to pay for the extension of their tax cuts) does make a sizable dent in our national deficit. Here's an interesting article on exactly this topic. Go look at historic trends of deficit spending and it's surprising that republicans are responsible for some of the largest rises in debt.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/ezra-klein-doing-the-math-on-obamas-deficits/2012/01/31/gIQAnRs7fQ_story.html
Deficits:
FY 2007: $161 billion (R Congress R Whitehouse)
FY 2011: $1,300 billion (D Congress D Whitehouse)
It should also be noted that the US took in MORE money after the Bush tax cuts than before. This is because the economy boomed and the unemployment rate was under 5% much of the time. You actually get a bigger piece when you take a smaller piece from a large pie than when you take a larger piece from a smaller one.
Modded (Score -1, Fact)
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Right. I used years where the same party controlled both congress and the White House. 2007 was the last budget year for Republicans. 2011 was the last budget year for Democrats. In 2008 and 2009, Democrats held both houses of Congress and Bush was in the White House. Remember, Congress controls the purse strings.
If I wanted to cherry pick, I would have used the 2012 projection of $1,327 billion.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Interesting how you think this is a centre vs right issue (there is no left in American) when Neil DeGrasse Tyson knows why and has stated why. A simple video search on Youtube explains the situation you perceive as is. Though you're close.
Jonathanjk.com
Sure, but all this was accomplished with unrealistic budgeting. Here's what the independent review board studying Constellation had to say:
[HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT Plans Committee]
The report goes on to say:
Constellation was architecturally sound, but the program management and planning were a disaster. Constellation was never funded enough to get done on time, and the plans didn't account for having to pick up fixed costs borne by the Shuttle program after that program wound down. In a nutshell, Constellation Program delays were going to be much more costly than the plans suggested, and its funding pretty much guaranteed delays. The story is much the same with the Webb telescope: good idea, lousy financial planning control.
This doesn't mean that Bush was anti-NASA or anti-space exploration. It just means it was more important to them to state an ambitious goal than to actually achieve it. That is manifest by its budgeting. They spent an enormous amount of money to be able to claim they were were making progress, but not enough to actually accomplish something.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I'll give you a hint. They aren't honestly social conservatives any more than they are fiscal conservatives. They're fiscal and social conservatives only when it applies to someone else.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
But the largest deficit spending happens when we have a Republican president and Democrat Congress. I don't know what that means, except that they're all spending too much of our money
Compromise! Democrats tell a Republican President, "You'll get the money to fund your projects (military, wars, NASA), but only if you sign off on the money we want to fund ours (social programs, unemployment benefits, planned parenthood, NPR)." Republicans tell a Democratic President, "We'll fund your project (interest rate cuts for student loans) with funds we cut from another one of your projects (Obamacare "slush fund")."
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
So three trillion doesn't make a dent in fifteen trillion? Maybe we have different definitions of "dent". I'll tell you what... take a 20% pay cut and tell me it's not a dent.
And it's funny that you completely ignored the other half of the equation: the massive tax cuts. Whatsamatter? Don't like the conclusion they lead you to?
He's talking about NASA administrator Charles Bolden's comments in 2010 that Obama charged him as his “foremost” mission to improve relations in the Muslim world. I am no fan of the pres but even I have to assume that Bolden was talking out of his ass and whatever Obama said to him was taken out of context.
I mean, I'm all for increasing NASA funding, but can't we just reuse our old outdated black-ops surveillance satellites now that the CIA has launched shiny new ones? It should be simple enough to turn down the resolution and turn off the ASAT weapons systems. I mean, that's just a firmware update right?
The economy boomed because it was fueled by unsustainable mortgages and credit card debt. And then before that, we had an Internet bubble.
Bush cut taxes and we had a boom. Bush Sr and Clinton raised taxes and we had a boom. Both booms were followed by a bust. IMHO, bumping or lowering the tax rate by a few percent doesn't really affect the economy as much as people claim, and probably a lot less than say the Fed's monetary policy. It does significantly affect government revenues though, all other things being equal (e.g. without a crash or boom).
He's willing to make deals with strange bedfellows though
What's wrong with that?
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
SpaceX!
Yeah, but spending money to wage war while not raising any taxes to fund it is not exactly sound either, and you're really skirting the point.
Besides, your $2 trillion over 10 years, assuming that it is an accurate number (I've heard bigger numbers), is still nothing to sniff at. At the very least, it would've put us one year and change of deficit less than where we are now.
So the question is, are you supporting fighting a war while cutting taxes? Or are you just nit picking on GP's numbers having nothing else of relevancy to say?
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
I would point out however that the people who make Earth-Observing Satellites are also the very military contractors that you blame for taking money away from these programs. They build the buses, the optics, electronics and launch vehicles that put these satellites into orbit, and these companies are in fact pretty desperately looking for money to keep their currently under-capacity satellite factories busy. The real problem is that the US elected leadership runs on a four year cycle that does not deal well with projects that go beyond a four or even two year cycle. So I wouldn't pin the blame on them for starving this program... unless you believe that the satellite industry is a failed business model.
"Under current law, CBO projects, budget deficits will drop markedly over the next few years—to $1.1 trillion in 2012, $704 billion in 2013, and $533 billion in 2014."
And that's without letting the Bush tax cuts expire, or raising taxes on the 1%.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
"It should also be noted that the US took in MORE money after the Bush tax cuts than before."
Like there's a cause and effect? That also happens to be the period during which the financial sector ran amok and banks and mortgage lenders encouraged people to cash in -- and spend -- their home equity.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
He's talking about NASA administrator Charles Bolden's comments in 2010 that Obama charged him as his “foremost” mission to improve relations in the Muslim world. I am no fan of the pres but even I have to assume that Bolden was talking out of his ass and whatever Obama said to him was taken out of context.
Yes, but to repeat that BS is trolling and flamebait.
The Dems who do nothing to stop the millions of illegal immigrants from coming here to cut local costs (violent crime, ID theft, social program costs) - possibly because they see a giant block of future, loyal Dem voters - all in the name of "stopping racism", of course - GUILTY
You said some stuff I agree with, and some stuff I don't. This one, though, annoys me.
What the hell have the Republicans done? Building a very expensive, and completely ineffective, wall doesn't count. The Republicans even adopted a very nonsensical policy of "We must keep them all out, before we can do anything about the ones that are here".
Both sides LOVE illegal immigrants. Democrats love the idea of the eternally-forthcoming, yet never coming, wave of Latino liberal voters. Republicans love them because they are an infinite font of cheap labor, which can suppress wages and break unions. No one wants to kill illegal immigration.
our American empire
For some reason this phrase doesn't fill me with the glee I suppose it should.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
So say the hippies, greens and liberals as well as all the RonPaulBots. I say why not. We're not a knowledge country anymore, haven't been for years. We're a sell insurance to each other country now.
Embrace The Suck.
The key here is who spends the money. It's not the president.
I'm not convinced. Bush pushed Medicare expansion very heavily. He pushed the Iraq War very heavily. The across-the-board tax cuts were his. In short, his programs and policies cost a lot of money, and he (or congress) did not make any of the offsetting cuts now demanded by the Tea Party. Interestingly, the Tea Party never would have happened without Bush's spending. Or the spending under Bush, if you prefer more congressional blame.
Bush also went for big government. He expanded the federal government into local education. He created the Dept. of Homeland Security. And of course there was the Medicare expansion that I mentioned earlier.
Very odd for a supposedly "conservative" President.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Sure sounds like GLONASS in the 90's to me.
I swear though, if I lose GPS and have to rely on COMPASS, I'm gonna march down there myself and beat Republicans until I've painted the White House Red.
Progressives see libertarians as either Republicans or anarchists, and libertarians see Progressives as big-government people who don't realize they've already won.
Replying to a few comments at one time
First, ISS cost, per wikipedia: "As of 2010 NASA budgeted $58.7 billion for the station from 1985 to 2015, or $72.4 billion in 2010 dollars. The cost is $150 billion including 36 shuttle flights at $1.4 billion each, Russia's $12 billion ISS budget, Europe's $5 billion, Japan's $5 billion, and Canada's $2 billion. Assuming 20,000 person-days of use from 2000 to 2015 by two to six-person crews, each person-day would cost $7.5 million, about 60% less than the $19.6 million per person-day on Skylab"
Hardly trivial and with little to show for it with no major scientific or technological breakthroughs.
As to 'technological incubator' - there is nothing which has been done in the space program which would not otherwise have happened here on planet earth. Did the very large outlays on the Apollo program speed up the delivery of some? Perhaps. Could all the money have gone to other things with a positive effect on the lives of US citizens? Probably. Then again most of you probably were not alive in the 60s and 70s to remember just how great things were back then.
As to the 'exploration' argument for wasting trillions to try to do manned Mars missions.. pardon the pun, but what plannet are you on? Exploring the Earth had immediate benefit to people on Earth. Not just in terms of scientific understanding of our surroundings but also in material gain (ie, getting new and more resources found in the then unexplored Earth.) None of that holds for Mars. A man on Mars is the equivalent of climbing Everest or skiing a double diamond - you did it because you wanted to and could, not because it advanced your life or anyone elses.
Jesus will worry us, stop saving.
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A basic problem is that there's no strong constituency for earth environment monitoring from space. Anyone who thinks NASA is in this business is just fooling themselves. NASA is in the research and metal-bending business - build new satellite to do new things. All the space-is-the-place supporters are in this camp. The agency who has the responsibility for routine monitoring, but utterly lacks in both political clout and cojones, is NOAA. Aside from a vocal constituency, the other things missing is a coherent plan for: what monitoring is needed, what space assets are needing to do this long-term monitoring, and how we're going to pay for it. Given that politicians can't see beyond the next election I don't see this being fixed.
As for an earlier post about the military launching everything they need, this is a laugher when it comes to environment monitoring. The DOD needs environment monitoring at least as much as the civilian side of things, yet they have not real plans for weather satellites beyond the two remaining DMSP weather satellites sitting in nitrogen cans awaiting launch. When those guys go, and they're old technology, that's it for a long while.
We'll just buy the info from other countries at $3 billion a year. 'Cause the US government is just that stupid. (Either party)
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
I would buy this argument if the Dems (or the GOP) were trying to even attempt to balance the budget. That way we could look to the future with hope for stopping fund cuts like these.
Instead, both sides - and 99% of Americans, for that matter - aren't willing to make the sacrifices necessary.
Last week there was someone collecting signatures at the local grocery store "Make it harder for them to raise taxes." Uhmmm WHY????
Uh, which party likes to 'spend' money again, and which created the worst deficits in history? That would be the Dems in the former and the GOP in the later.
Tax and Spend liberals is used like an epithet by the GOP yet it's actually called fiscal responsibility. The GOP spend like drunken sailors on tax cuts which only serve to increase the debt and make the rich richer and the rest of us holding the bag.
Literally HALF of the debt under Obama is Bush anyway, since we were losing a trillion dollars a year on 2009, in 3 years that's 3 trillion of the 6 trillion increase. So under Bush, we went from 4 trillion in debt (and a SURPLUS budget), again mostly by GOP priorities with some Democratic help, to 13 billion assuming the 1 trillion a year deficits he created and left for us since 2009.
I agree that both parties have a hand in cuts, but you can't with a straight face say that the Dems are the ones who would initiate and implement cuts when they are routinely tarred as the people who spend too much. Granted they don't have the spine to call the GOP corporatists what they are so they are culpable in that regard, but both parties spend. One does it with tax cuts and the other does it with investments in the country; i.e. stimulus that actually creates jobs.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
Move along... If you can't see it then it can't be happening. Keep sucking that black gold. Spewing that hot air. Throw up your glowing energy. Let it drift and fall over us all. "I see said the blind man to the deaf dog."
When shit hits the fan get some of these https://youtu.be/pY-GncsZ-UE
Fear not: I am sure those old-worlders, with their evil state subsidies of Science, including EO, will share their data ;-)
This, a million times this. The authors here are not some group of crunchy, kumbayaa-strumming hemp-skirt wearing lefties; they are straight out of right-wing "think-tanks" so one would assume their opinions would have some degree of relevance to the workings of the Republican party.
I'd like to overlook all of the political arguments on this thread, but this statement "About the only thing NASA can do now is put a satellite in low orbit" is simply false, either intentionally so or misinformed. I don't know why such sentiment keeps appearing here at Slashdot of all places. Let's take a look at the recent record;
Kepler - increases by something like an order of magnitude the number of known exoplanets. Way into extended mission time now.
Spirit and Opportunity rovers - nominal thirty day mission, they've now been operating on Mars' service for over eight years.
New Horizons - on its way to be the first spacecraft to visit Pluto and (potentially) other Kuiper Belt objects
MESSENGER - first spacecraft to orbit Mercury, been there for over a year now.
NEAR Shoemaker - orbits and lands on asteroid 433 Eros (a first?)
Cassini - discovers open liquid lakes and oceans on Titan, cryovolcanoes on Enceladus, new dynamics in Saturn's rings, and on and on. A freaking awesome mission.
Hubble - still working, still doing real science. 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics (dark energy, expansion of the universe is accelerating) largely done using Hubble data.
STEREO - just captured incidental images of a new Nova. Returning new data on the Sun every day.
JUNO - on it's way to Jupiter, first solar powered mission to that planet.
Mars Science Laboratory - over budget, yes, but on its way to Mars, and by far the most sophisticated robot ever to be sent to another planet.
Keep in mind that space is hard. Let's take a look at what other space programs have been up to lately -
- JAXA's Akatsuki-Venus mission failed to enter orbit around Venus last year
- Russia's Phobos-Grunt mission to Martian satellites failed to even escape Earth's orbit
- Russia's resupply mission to ISS exploded less than six minutes after takeoff (August 2011)
- ESA's Mars Express mission lost it's Beagle-2 lander (crashed? nobody knows)
- Cassini's Huygens probe (ESA) had a fair number of problems, including, at one point, its spinning in the opposite to intended direction during descent
- India's Chandrayaan lunar probe operated for 312 days before failing, rather than its nominal 2-year mission (probably for thermal reasons)
For the record, other current NASA missions up for extensions include EPOXI, GRAIL, MRO, Mars Odyssey Orbiter, and LRO.
Yes I'm cherry-picking a bit here, but overlooking dozens of other functioning programs also. It's not my job to document all this - but before posting snide little "NASA's not good for anything anymore" comments, maybe do a minimal amount of search.
And? Care to mention that inconsequential 2008 economic fiasco that CAUSED this 1300 billions of deficit? No? Yeah, fact cherry-picking is fun.
Would it help if someone gives you keys to elevator while you're already falling off the Empire State Building? By the time Democrats got control of the Congress it was too late to do anything. By the same token, dotcom crash happened during the Bush II era, but it can't be blamed on him - there simply was not time for him to do anything.
Ah, that does make more sense than looking just at the White House.
However, I stand by my assertion that neither party represents fiscal responsibility. Somewhat different degrees of fiscal irresponsibility, perhaps.
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More specifically, Libertarians want government to do less *for everyone but themselves*. They're much like Republicans in this respect.
I've hung around libertarians for twenty years, and that's false for all the ones I can remember.
Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
It's very true for the two that I know personally. Smaller government blah blah blah. So you don't want roads? Oh yeah I want them smooth as glass. So you don't want water safety? Law enforcement? Oh yeah I want those. What don't you want, then? Umm...
What the hell man, I read that whole post in Bill Cosby's voice! Now everything I read is in Bill Cosby's voice!!
Both sides LOVE illegal immigrants ... Republicans love them because they are an infinite font of cheap labor, which can suppress wages and break unions. No one wants to kill illegal immigration.
This is a belated response - sorry. That's a great point about the GOP and the cheap labor pool that I didn't think to add. I agree 100%.
Well, a hurricane did just hit Mass recently, but I guess it missed the Hamptons, Cape Cod and New York...
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
So, in 2007 the National Research Council recommended that annual spending on these satellites should be increased from $1.5 billion to $2.0 billion... but this never happened.
Which political party controlled both houses of Congress in 2007, and 2008, and 2009, and 2010? And still controls the Senate?
So, which party of slack-jawed yokels should be blamed for this deficiency?