US Astronomy Facing Severe Budget Cuts and Facility Closures

Nancy_A writes "The U.S. astronomy budget is facing unprecedented cuts, including the potential closure of several facilities. A new report by the National Science Foundation's Division of Astronomical Sciences says available funding for ground-based astronomy could undershoot projected budgets by as much as 50%. The report recommends the closure – called 'divestment' in the new document — of iconic facilities such as the Very Long Baseline Array and the Green Bank Radio Telescope, as well as shutting down four different telescopes at the Kitt Peak Observatory by 2017."

Comments

But we can have ..

[ackthpt]

All the rockets we want, as long as they are ordered by the Pentagon.

Science, it's now for total warfare.

Re:But we can have ..

[Anonymous Coward]

You think we rode to the moon on civilian hardware? Those were repurposed ICBMs made to blow up cities. The SALT treaties put an end to them.

MOST of the cool stuff NASA did in the 60's was on military hardware or tests for the air force (using air force hardware).

You seem shocked as if this is a new thing. The same people who build the NASA hardware (what they do build) are the same ones who build the military hardware. NASA has always been getting other agencies leftovers... Pretty much the shuttle is the only BIG project that they did all by themselves.

Re:But we can have ..

[bwintx]

Pretty much the shuttle is the only BIG project that they did all by themselves.

Um, Saturn 5?

Re:But we can have ..

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop strawmanning. You are a liberal, and everyone can tell. You're not the clever trickster you're imagining yourself to be.

Re:But we can have ..

[arth1]

What, you mean the series of rockets developed by Wernher von Braun, based on the German V-2 rocket?

Re:But we can have ..

[michaelmalak]

Pretty much the shuttle is the only BIG project that they did all by themselves.

Military influence in the shuttle design process caused the shuttle to be oversized, and thus mounted horizontally relative to the fuel instead of on top of it. This led to the deaths of two crews.

Re:But we can have ..

[Bill_the_Engineer]

You think we rode to the moon on civilian hardware? Those were repurposed ICBMs made to blow up cities. The SALT treaties put an end to them.

Cool story bro. Too bad it's completely wrong.

The Saturn series rockets were designed by Von Braun's team to launch military satellites into low earth orbit. Every single one of them was launched from Cape Canaveral. The Saturn V was the largest of the Saturn series and was built for the purpose of launching astronauts into space. NASA never launched astronauts on rockets that were not designed to be human-rated.

The Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) treaty (more specifically SALT I) agreement was made in May 1971 which is a little late for the Saturn V to repurposed since it flew from Nov 9, 1967 to Dec 6, 1972.

BTW, ICBM were originally mounted on Atlas rockets then were replaced by the Titan II rockets.

Re:But we can have ..

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong. Saturn V was not based on the V-2. Redstone and Jupiter-C were based on the V-2.

Re:But we can have ..

[Nethemas the Great]

The Saturn V was very much yet another military pissing contest project, specifically with the Russians and used the usual suspects, Boeing, North American Aviation (of P-51 fame) and Douglas Aircraft as contractors, and Nazi scientists providing the brains. All technologies developed were also very much developed by and intended for subsequent military application. The shuttle, inherited much of the Saturn V technology and was also NOT a NASA project, but another cabal of MIC contractors from the Saturn V project as well as now a few others. NASA hasn't done any significant launch vehicles on their own.

Re:But we can have ..

[Baloroth]

The Saturn 5 used the F-1 engine which was initially developed for the Air Force. They halted that when they realized they didn't need an engine that big, but initial development was for military purposes. And of course it was developed by German scientists who headed the whole Saturn family, from experience they had from developing the V-2 rockets. So really, it was, at least indirectly, developed by the Nazis.

Re:But we can have ..

[Baloroth]

BTW, ICBM were originally mounted on Atlas rockets then were replaced by the Titan II rockets.

And those Atlas rockets carried the first Americans into orbit. Slightly modified to be "man rated", of course, but it was based on the ICBM and was most certainly not designed from the ground up for manned missions. Of course NASA would never launch astronauts on non-man-rated rockets, that's the whole point of "man rated".

Re:But we can have ..

[Bill_the_Engineer]

You are correct the Mercury missions used the Atlas LV-3B rockets. The LV-3B were derived from the Atlas SM-65D design (as noted in your wikipedia link). The mercury missions were orbital missions. The grand parent posts referred to Lunar mission which was the Apollo missions done on Saturn rockets. Both Mercury and Apollo missions were done prior to the Salt I treaty agreement.

Also I forgot to mention that the rockets used in our nuclear defense program are still being repurposed for non-manned science missions.

Re:But we can have ..

[arth1]

Then I suggest you update the Wikipedia page and cite some sources, cause right now it states:

"The Saturn V's design stemmed from the designs of the V-2 and Jupiter series rockets. As the success of the Jupiter series became evident, the Saturn series emerged."

Re:But we can have ..

[cheesybagel]

The Saturn V was not a repurposed ICBM. It was specifically designed for space launch.

Re:But we can have ..

[Anonymous Coward]

Pretty much the shuttle is the only BIG project that they did all by themselves.

Ahhh, no. The shuttle was built to launch and recover KH=11 spy satellites. Wasn't used for very many that are public knowledge though.

Re:But we can have ..

[Anonymous Coward]

It's kind of silly to say that Saturn V "stemmed from the designs," given that they didn't use the same engines, the engines were of completely different thrust classes, they didn't even use the same propellants (Kerolox for the 1st stage and LH2/LOx for the 2nd and 3rd stages), and certainly the tankage and other structures used on the Saturn V weren't based on anything related to the V-2 and Jupiter rockets at least as far as I know. One could maybe make a case that the Saturn I/Ib was "Jupiter/Redstone derived" given that the S1 stage used a cluster of Jupiter and Redstone tanks and used engines derived from those used on Jupiter, but this case could not be made for Saturn V because it used none of that. So yes, Wikipedia is quite wrong, Saturn V was not derived from V2 or Jupiter and if you discount the S-IVB stage (developed as a second stage for the Saturn IB, but originally intended for Saturn V), no major components from Saturn V flew on Saturn I or any other rocket. It was a clean sheet design.

Try here if you want to know more about Saturn's history: http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4206/sp4206.htm

Re:But we can have ..

[Anonymous Coward]

The OP said that we went to the moon on repurposed ICBMs. "Rocket developed for military purposes" does not equate to "ICBM."

Re:But we can have ..

[Anonymous Coward]

Mercury and Gemini were launched on repurposed ballistic missile platforms (Redstone, Atlas, Titan). Apollo wasn't.

Re:But we can have ..

[ukemike]

the Saturn V technology and was also NOT a NASA project, but another cabal of MIC contractors from the Saturn V project as well as now a few others. NASA hasn't done any significant launch vehicles on their own.

If your opinion mattered what you said would be a huge slap in the face of the THOUSANDS of American engineers and scientists who worked on the space program.

Re:But we can have ..

[khallow]

You think we rode to the moon on civilian hardware?

Who wouldn't think that? It's true after all. The taint of private enterprise is all over any government endeavor, much less Apollo.

Re:But we can have ..

[ukemike]

The F-1 engine is about as close to the V1 as a 1985 Porsche 911 is to a 1951 VW beetle.

Re:But we can have ..

[flyingsquid]

You think we rode to the moon on civilian hardware? Those were repurposed ICBMs made to blow up cities. The SALT treaties put an end to them.

MOST of the cool stuff NASA did in the 60's was on military hardware or tests for the air force (using air force hardware).

Nobody's going to dispute that the military has produced some major technological breakthroughs. A lot of the early efforts in computing were military cryptographic efforts, the military played a critical role in developing navigational technologies like radar and later GPS, and of course, DARPA brought us the internet.

But there are a couple of things to keep in mind here. First, I'd argue it's pretty hard *not* to have one or two major technological breakthroughs when you're spending $700 billion per year. The question isn't whether the military produces major technological advances, the question is whether it would be more cost-effective to fund pure research, rather than hope that pissing away trillions in Iraq and Afghanistan somehow nets us an innovative technology. If your goal is research ,distributing $700 billion to civilians to do blue-sky research and R&D would probably create a lot more of that.

Second, while the military may have driven civilian technology in the past, that seems to be less true today. These days, we see the military increasingly using civilian technology- hooking together PlayStation processors to create a supercomputer, using Xbox controllers to pilot predator drones, using iPods as ballistics computers for sniper rifles... that kind of thing. More and more, we see that the military is leapfrogging on civilian technology, not the other way around. So even if funding the military may have produced innovation in the past, that seems less true today.

Re:But we can have ..

[Anonymous Coward]

Pretty much the shuttle is the only BIG project that they did all by themselves.

Um, Saturn 5?

I don't know about the Saturn 5 specifically, but the early Saturn series were originally designed to carry the huge railroad-car sized hydrogen bombs of the 60's.

This is sad, but not unexpected. The Obama administration has proven over the last 4 years that it is heavily anti-education and specifically anti-science. It's like they fear that an enlightened population might not blindly believe whatever the Ministry of Truth (i.e. broadcast news) has to say.

Re:But we can have ..

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's look at some facts, yes I know I know we don't want to confuse everyone with facts. Using the federal governments definitions.

Safety Net programs:
These programs include: the refundable portion of the earned-income and child tax credits, which assist low- and moderate-income working families through the tax code; programs that provide cash payments to eligible individuals or households, including Supplemental Security Income for the elderly or disabled poor and unemployment insurance; various forms of in-kind assistance for low-income families and individuals, including food stamps, school meals, low-income housing assistance, child-care assistance, and assistance in meeting home energy bills; and various other programs such as those that aid abused and neglected children. Spending on safety programs declined in both nominal and real terms between 2010 and 2011 as the economy continued to improve and initiatives funded by the 2009 Recovery Act began to expire. Without any government income assistance from the safety net programs the poverty rate would have been nearly double in 2010 (28.6 rather than 15.5 percent).

If you are specifically referring to "welfare," in the usual sense meaning the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families program (TANF), which provides funds to families with children while encouraging parents to find employment so they do not need the assistance long-term. TANF replaced Aid to Families with Dependent Children, a New Deal program that also helped poor families but had fewer work requirements. AFDC was abolished and TANF established in 1996, under Bill Clinton's welfare reform effort. TANF is a federal-state joint program, with the federal government providing a block grant and states spending "Maintenance of Effort" (MOE) funds, which have to amount to a set percentage of what states paid for AFDC before its abolition. The most recent data are from fiscal 2008, when the federal government spent $20.5 billion, and federal and state governments combined spent $31 billion. As a percentage of the $2.9 trillion (PDF) in federal spending in fiscal 2008, this is minuscule. Federal TANF spending made up a mere 0.7 percent of the budget.

PLEASE NOTE THE NUMBERS THOSE NASTY OLD "WELFARE QUEENS" THE RIGHT WING KEEPS RANTING ABOUT COSTS 0.7% OF THE BUDGET, EVEN LESS THAN THE TOTAL SCIENCE BUDGET OF 2%

I'll gladly pay 0.7 cents for welfare if I can get back 10 cents from the defense budget (20% of total budget and RAPIDLY increasing)

Re:But we can have ..

[Nethemas the Great]

For which part? That our space program's roots are in pissing contests with Russia? That the American engineers served under former NAZI party members of whom many (most?) belonged to the SS? Or that the engineers and scientists responsible for launch vehicle development were employed by DoD contractors? I'm not entirely certain why any of it would be a slap in their face?

Most engineers and scientists don't give a damn about politics and just want to play with their toys and pursue their craft to its utmost. I'm sure the same was true of the Germans we harvested in operation Paper Clip. Once they realized what was going on they had a choice, kill a few Jews and create the technology that rained death on the world, or be executed for treason. Perhaps more accurately it's an insult to the "golden age" nostalgia that cause Americans to beam with arrogance and pride over things they neither know nor understand. The truth is always uglier than government propaganda. It's more pleasant to hide from it but often it has a nasty habit of coming back around to bite you in the a**.

Re:But we can have ..

[tsotha]

He said V-2. And he's right - the F-1 is a direct descendent of the V-2.

Re:But we can have ..

[tsotha]

Well, that's half true. The Air Force was forced to use the shuttle because NASA lied to Congress about, well, pretty much every aspect of its performance. The USAF wanted nothing to do with it, but NASA was able to hijack a large piece of their space budget by pretending the shuttle could handle military missions. Finally the Air Force gave up and said "Fine. We can use it if it will do this...," desperately hoping Congress would change its mind and allow them to go back to cheaper and more reliable disposables.

NASA forced the military to use the shuttle. If you're going to assign blame you should assign it where it belongs.

Re:But we can have ..

[ukemike]

Von Braun may have lead the effort, but it was done with the support of countless engineers and scientists, some that I know personally, that wanted nothing more than to fulfill Kennedy's promise to put a man on the moon. They did it. For the most part these were men who launched their own rockets when they were boys, who hot rodded model A fords, who dreamed of exploring space. Sure some of the lead engineers were former Nazis but by then they were American citizens, immigrants like so many other Americans, and those were just a handful of the thousands that contributed. Perhaps you are so jaded that you can't see the wonder in the fact that actual people walked on the moon and came back, but I'm not. It is a wonder and a tremendous achievement. Would it have been better if we had squandered the knowledge of Von Braun because he was tained with his Nazi party membership? WW2 and the holocaust are one of our darkest chapters, I'm glad that one worthy achievement came out of it. So you can just sit in your armchair and snipe at people who did something beautiful and worthwhile, but the world would be better if you went out and actually did something worthwhile like the engineers who put people on the moon.

Re:But we can have ..

[ukemike]

I got the v1 v2 bit wrong. And the 911 is a direct descendant of the original beetle. But the F-1 contained the contributions of an army of skilled engineers who were rocket geeks and never Nazis.

Re:But we can have ..

[tsotha]

The 911 is a direct descendant of the original beetle? Seems hard to believe. I agree the F-1 wasn't wholly developed by Germans. But without the V-2 I doubt it would have existed at all.

Re:But we can have ..

[rtb61]

Blame it on insane over funding on the military basically spending money hand over fist to smash it, burn it, blow it up and throw any remains away. Military spending beyond the bare necessitates is a total obscene waste. Infrastructure spending in when over done still has long term purpose and value. Spending on space could have an enormous beyond imagining pay off.

Re:But we can have ..

[Anonymous Coward]

All the money you want if you are an illegal and/or Obama supporter

Re:But we can have ..

[HArchH]

You can either fund trade unions and old people or you can fund some investments. But with $16T in debt the cash flow just has to be slowed.

You people feeding at the public trough need to get a private sector job and start helping to solve our real and pressing debt problem.

(And I'm ok with taking a big bite out of defense spending, too. In fact, I am excited about hitting that debt limit trip wire and bringing the whole government crashing down! Good times!)

There is nothing more inefficient at fiscal management than someone spending other people's money.

Re:But we can have ..

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's look at some facts, yes I know I know we don't want to confuse everyone with facts. .....snip....
  this is minuscule. Federal TANF spending made up a mere 0.7 percent of the budget.

PLEASE NOTE THE NUMBERS THOSE NASTY OLD "WELFARE QUEENS" THE RIGHT WING KEEPS RANTING ABOUT COSTS 0.7% OF THE BUDGET, EVEN LESS THAN THE TOTAL SCIENCE BUDGET OF 2%

I'll gladly pay 0.7 cents for welfare if I can get back 10 cents from the defense budget (20% of total budget and RAPIDLY increasing)

While correct your have missed a critical issue that triggers resentment.

Many of these well justified safety net programs are administered in a vacuum plural.

That is to say that the program reports the criteria and the expenses but the recipients
are not required to report on their end many if any of the services received.

One easy to identify service is BMR (below market rate) housing.
It is an undocumented tax on the landlord.... hidden cost of business.
It is unreported by the recipient as 'income'. The gross up value is
thus uncomputed and hidden.

In too many cases the net sum value of all the city, county, state, federal, and church
programs is far larger than any program manager would want you to discover because
the obvious result is the supporters would balk and reduce the program budget as
well as demand an overhead accounting.

As a delivery kid decades ago I was delivering prescription drugs to people on "programs"
and then the payment process made it obvious that my delivery was 'free'. I would be at
the door and see a large color TV when color TVs were rare and expensive. I would see
a spacious apartment well furnished.... all provided by tax payers.

The disposable income of many is astounding, further it is hidden because
it gets spent on illegal drugs and goes underground and fuels crime.

I do not wish to punish these people but I do want their situation
to be measured, uniform across the nation, yet tight enough that getting
a job has value. Sadly getting a job even minimum wage disqualifies
most programs so a minimum wage job costs the individual LOTS perhaps
as much as +$40/hour pretax. Oh and they have to go to work....

The sad net result is that expectations are set that do not match reality.
They think they are poor but are not by any honest measure.

It is "honest measure" that I would like to see.
With an honest measure we will have facts in a new light.

Re:But we can have ..

[tsotha]

Blame it on insane over funding on the military basically spending money hand over fist to smash it, burn it, blow it up and throw any remains away. Military spending beyond the bare necessitates is a total obscene waste.

Before you get too carried away, remember GPS, which is the most useful thing ever done in space, is a military system. Hell, liquid fueled rockets probably wouldn't be more than a hobbyist's toy without the military. Same with jet engines.

Spending on space could have an enormous beyond imagining pay off.

Oh bullshit. What payoff? As long as we're using chemical rockets there isn't much worth doing in space. I'm all for spending money on some other technology that might get us there more cheaply, since that would make things like space-based solar practical. But that's not what we're spending money on.

Re:But we can have ..

[Anonymous Coward]

The Fed has constitutional authority to be prepared for war.
The Fed has *no* constitutional authority to spend money to pay people looking at stars.

Simple solution

[fiannaFailMan]

Tell congress we're under attack from space A-rabs and we need surveillance equipment pronto. We also need drones to go up there and find out what's going on. And manned craft as well just for good measure in case the drones miss anything.

Hey NASA, idea:

[Shikaku]

Kickstarter

Re:Hey NASA, idea:

[ackthpt]

Kickstarter

Y'know, I'd really like to see the government take an approach like that on things. Not just assume we're all going to keep paying out taxes for whatever that bunch of idiots in Congress deems fit and proper. When I look at some budgets and calculate my share, I'm not sure I really feel like paying that much for some things.

Re:Hey NASA, idea:

[h4rr4r]

It sounds neat, but lots of stuff would end up unfunded. I predict the same things that are being unfunded today.

Re:Hey NASA, idea:

[geekoid]

Typical. You have no clue how much something takes to do, so naturally you assume your share is tooo much.

Here is a clue: Tax dollars aren't yours. Ever. They are all ours, societies. DO you really want New York, Detroit and Dallas and California to be the effective determination for all tax money?

Re:Hey NASA, idea:

[ackthpt]

Typical. You have no clue how much something takes to do, so naturally you assume your share is tooo much.

Here is a clue: Tax dollars aren't yours. Ever. They are all ours, societies. DO you really want New York, Detroit and Dallas and California to be the effective determination for all tax money?

Figure this: WW II was funded by the sale of bonds. Bond drives went on everywhere and were widely supported by the entertainment industry to underwrite the massive expense of a massive undertaking. But today we don't buy War Bonds, it's assumed we are all going to pony up $5,000 (on average) for our share of the annual Pentagon Budget, for whatever they decide they need. Let. Me. Tell. You. $5,000 is probably what I could have afforded for war bonds, had I lived in the 1940's in 1940's adjusted dollars. But this has been on-going since after the war ended and is still eating up a high percentage of our GDP, for years on end, even when we are at complete peace.

Re:Hey NASA, idea:

[gatkinso]

Better idea: vote.

Re:Hey NASA, idea:

[Mitreya]

even when we are at complete peace.

We must be bombing a dozen foreign countries on regular basis (now with drones). We are hardly "at peace". Oh, and we are in "War on Terror" which is projected to end approximately never.
Congress needs to man up and demand that the Administration has to get damn permission and issue official war declaration in order to bomb anyone. And de-fund any and all money that goes toward "unofficial" offensive military action.

Re:Hey NASA, idea:

[gatkinso]

Last I checked there was still a war on.

While I served in Iraq and never have stepped foot in Afghanistan... I suspect those who have would take umbrage with your stated position.

Re:Hey NASA, idea:

[ackthpt]

even when we are at complete peace.

We must be bombing a dozen foreign countries on regular basis (now with drones). We are hardly "at peace". Oh, and we are in "War on Terror" which is projected to end approximately never.

Congress needs to man up and demand that the Administration has to get damn permission and issue official war declaration in order to bomb anyone. And de-fund any and all money that goes toward "unofficial" offensive military action.

Before 2001 we were at peace, with the only event since 1991 (Desert Storm) being a few cruise missles lobbed into Serbia to bring them to heel. Yet our military spending, despite cuts and closures, still ranked high while the Pentagon found all manner of toys in its version of the Sears & Roebucks Catalog that it just couldn't live without. Even when we're not at war, we're preparing for total war.

Re:Hey NASA, idea:

[hsmith]

Yes, we are all slaves to society. You have no right to your labor, only what the government lets you keep.

Re:Hey NASA, idea:

[Bill_the_Engineer]

To bad the current war on two fronts are not only unfunded with bonds earmarked for the war effort, but the republican president that started them gave a huge tax break to the wealthy at the same time. This set up the US government to have a huge spike in debt which has gotten us in this mess in the first place.

Re:Hey NASA, idea:

[KGIII]

For whom? /votes third party almost exclusively

Re:Hey NASA, idea:

[Electricity Likes Me]

even when we are at complete peace.

We must be bombing a dozen foreign countries on regular basis (now with drones). We are hardly "at peace". Oh, and we are in "War on Terror" which is projected to end approximately never.

Congress needs to man up and demand that the Administration has to get damn permission and issue official war declaration in order to bomb anyone. And de-fund any and all money that goes toward "unofficial" offensive military action.

Before 2001 we were at peace, with the only event since 1991 (Desert Storm) being a few cruise missles lobbed into Serbia to bring them to heel. Yet our military spending, despite cuts and closures, still ranked high while the Pentagon found all manner of toys in its version of the Sears & Roebucks Catalog that it just couldn't live without. Even when we're not at war, we're preparing for total war.

Also the cost of a bombing campaign like the one in Libya was "only" about $US1 billion for the US side of things.

The DOD's annual budget for 2012 was $US683 billion.

Re:Hey NASA, idea:

[Electricity Likes Me]

Also one has to wonder how enthusiastic people would have been for the war if in the lead up to it the US government were front loading some of the tax costs. If every time it came up, the future annual tax increases for "Iraq invasion" were mentioned.

Re:Hey NASA, idea:

[publiclurker]

How about a nice war tax. A simple, flat, per person amount for the previous years war costs. Heck, I'd even let them space each year out over 5-10 plus interest. Do that and I can assure you that the chicken hawks starting these wars would be a lot quieter.

Re:Hey NASA, idea:

[Electricity Likes Me]

Actually they wouldn't be - flat tax's are disproportionately regressive, and military-industrial complex has made out like bandits from the wars. Halliburton would get the army's of lobbyists in.

Although, you're right in the sense that the people we need to reach on these issues are not the upper 1%, but the masses of people who either don't care to vote against them or perversely keep voting for them. But I'd much rather target the people who tend to profit from the current wars in the only language they understand and simply tax progressively. But make sure that every single person in the country saw a little "War Costs" itemized breakdown on their tax bill, with a note for which conflict it was.

Re:Hey NASA, idea:

[khallow]

Here is a clue: Tax dollars aren't yours. Ever. They are all ours, societies.

Sure, I grant that my tax dollars are gone squandered on whatever fads we think we need. But I'll also strive to make sure as much of my pre-tax income (and everyone else's pre-tax income) doesn't fall into our incompetent, greedy hands.

Re:Hey NASA, idea:

[ukemike]

even when we are at complete peace.

We have never been at "complete peace." Certainly not since WW2. To state otherwise is to betray your completely inadequate history education. Sorry.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_United_States_military_operations

Re:Hey NASA, idea:

[ukemike]

Before 2001 we were at peace, with the only event since 1991 (Desert Storm) being a few cruise missles lobbed into Serbia to bring them to heel.

Seriously!?!? I agree with you that were we ever at peace we would continue to arm ourselves (we're a bit pathological that way), but to suggest we were at peace in the 1990s is one of the stupidest things I have heard in a long time (and this is a presidential campaign year!).

During the 1990s the US:
Bombed Iraq and patrolled the no-fly zone continuously,
Lead the UN occupation of Somalia for two years,
Lead a Naval Blockade of Serbia and Montenegro for 2 years,
Patrolled a no fly zone over Bosnia for most of the decade (shooting down planes and bombing targets),
Blockaded Haiti and put Aristide back in power with troops on the ground,
Had troops on the ground in Rwanda in 1996 and 1997,
Bombed a pharmaceutical factory in Sudan in 1998,
Bombed Afghanistan in 1998,
Bombed Iraq intensively for 4 days in 1998, and
Bombed the hell out of Serbia in 1999 including hitting the Chinese embassy.

You can make whatever justifications you want about any of the above military actions but to say we were at peace before 2001 is just plain wrong.

Re:Hey NASA, idea:

[ukemike]

Yes, we are all slaves to society. You have no right to your labor, only what the government lets you keep.

My employer keeps most of the value of my labor and distributes it to shareholders long before the government gets its cut. The healthcare industry also takes its cut before the government.

Re:Hey NASA, idea:

[Anonymous Coward]

You seem to have difficulty forming plurals. It took me a few times to try to decrypt your writing before I realized that "tax's" wasn't something that belonged to a tax, but rather "taxes". The plural of army is armies. It boggles me that you didn't write mass's or war's or Cost's. Why the different rules?

Re:Hey NASA, idea:

[tsotha]

Military spending is about 5% of GDP, about half what it was at the end of the cold war. We're not broke because of the military. We're broke because of social spending, particularly Medicare.

Re:Hey NASA, idea:

[tsotha]

Two fronts? You realize the US military left Iraq in December of last year. So we have A-stand and... where?

Re:Hey NASA, idea:

[tsotha]

Great idea. Then how about a Medicare tax that actually pays for Medicare as well? And a NASA tax? How about a farm subsidy tax?

Re:Hey NASA, idea:

[tsotha]

You're trying to be facetious, but that's pretty much how it works now. Wasn't always that way, not even in my lifetime. But that's the way it is now.

Re:Hey NASA, idea:

[Bill_the_Engineer]

Two fronts? You realize the US military left Iraq in December of last year. So we have A-stand and... where?

You do realize that our military were in Iraq from March 2003 to December 2011, and cost the US $845 billion. This is not including what Nobel-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz estimates is $3 trillion for the true cost of the war which takes into account the interest paid on the debt to finance the Iraq war, health care costs for returning war veterans, and replacing/repairing the munitions used during the war.

What you thought the expense magically disappeared after the troops left Iraq? You believe we aren't still funding "nation building" in Iraq? Even if you actually believe those two things, the fact still remains the the Bush administration didn't adequately fund the war effort while simultaneously handing out tax breaks to the wealthy and yes we were fighting two fronts during his administration.

Now what was your point?

Re:Hey NASA, idea:

[tsotha]

My point was "current war on two fronts" is, you know, inaccurate because it's not current.

Re:Hey NASA, idea:

[Bill_the_Engineer]

And how does this pedantry affect the argument?

Re:Hey NASA, idea:

[gl4ss]

actually you have 100 circulars fronts in Afghanistan.

It's considered to be a kinda bad tactic traditionally, but whatever.

Re:Hey NASA, idea:

[tsotha]

You started out your comment by saying we're in "current war on two fronts". If I were being a pedant, I would have said even in, say, 2007 we were in two wars and not a war on two fronts. I could even have said we weren't in any wars but rather we're conducting two occupations.

But to answer your question, it affects the argument because it's a hell of a lot cheaper to maintain a few thousand contractors plus some trainers in Iraq than it is to conduct a war there, so you were exaggerating the cost by quite a bit pretending it was part of a "current war".

Re:Hey NASA, idea:

[tsotha]

Because it's not a war in the traditional sense. It's an occupation, and that's how occupations work.

Get the public interested.

[stevenh2]

The interest of the general public could help keep funding. If people never heard of it, they will not notice or care.

Re:Get the public interested.

[Forty Two Tenfold]

Interesting? SyFy is WAY more interesting. Got it? The real Universe? Pretty irrelevant. In scale just as much as every single one of us is irrelevant to It.

Re:Get the public interested.

[ackthpt]

The interest of the general public could help keep funding. If people never heard of it, they will not notice or care.

I think that's one thing behind getting more pretty pictures out to the public as quick as they can. But we had a speaker at our astronomy club from the Little SDO and the advances in solar observing are startling (and quite likely of considerable value) and I don't think some people are as aware of these programs as I wish they were.

Re:Get the public interested.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's just easier to make snide remarks than to get active in showing our "leadership" what really matters to us.

Re:Get the public interested.

[ackthpt]

Interesting? SyFy is WAY more interesting. Got it? The real Universe? Pretty irrelevant. In scale just as much as every single one of us is irrelevant to It.

The difference is, when a few Redshirts are dusted on Star Trek the nation doesn't stop what its doing. When we landed on the Moon the world watched. When we landed Curiousity on Mars a lot of people around the world still paid attention. High profile things are still able to get funding, but when an new telescope is proposed to study how the universe was made, it comes in pretty distant down the list. Some people don't care and some people don't want answers which challenge the answers they've already accepted.

Re:Get the public interested.

[CohibaVancouver]

but when an new telescope is proposed to study how the universe was made, it comes in pretty distant down the list

That's because the politicians & taxpayers already *know* how the universe was made: Jesus's daddy waved it into being one afternoon. Case closed.

Re:Get the public interested.

[Keith111]

Even though its been however many years since SciFi channel renamed themselves, everytime I read "Syfy" it still causes me brief intellectual pain and suffering.

Can't have it all

[zerosomething]

You can't have everything you want. Subsidize this worthy project, pay for that worthy endeavor, save this thing or that. There's a limited amount of money the Government has for these things. Even if you tax at 100% you can't fund it all!

Re:Can't have it all

[h4rr4r]

While that is totally true, we could just try a couple less wars, or raising the retirement age, or any number of sane ideas to pay for something this small.

At this point as the US gov can borrow money at negative rates, we might as well do that.

Re:Can't have it all

[geekoid]

Yes, but science is stupid to cut. The long term survival of the country is in Science and engineering. If your society doesn't do that, then you are done as a civilized society.

How about we cut 1 bomber instead?

Re:Can't have it all

[arth1]

While that is totally true, we could just try a couple less wars, or raising the retirement age, or any number of sane ideas to pay for something this small.

Cut military spending, yes. Per the constitution, no military budget can exceed two years, so that should be a quick action.

Raising the retirement age, however, is robbing Peter to pay Paul. With a real unemployment rate in the vicinity of 20%, this will just lead to more people receiving unemployment benefits, a cost that is much higher per individual than medicare is.
Bring down unemployment first (and start being honest about it, not removing long term unemployed from the counts), and then increase the pension age.

Re:Can't have it all

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

Shut down the military... before we have not anything worth defending

Re:Can't have it all

[bill_mcgonigle]

The long term survival of the country is in Science and engineering. If your society doesn't do that, then you are done as a civilized society.

Thank goodness Congress was there to develop electricity, automobiles, radio, and telephones!

Oh, wait, those all happened before general income taxes when people still had money to spend on preposterous ideas.

Re:Can't have it all

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but science is stupid to cut. The long term survival of the country is in Science and engineering. If your society doesn't do that, then you are done as a civilized society.

How about we cut 1 bomber instead?

Pfft. Typical liberal educated elite liberal overanalytical liberal LIBERAL. Can't keep a grasp on the big picture, now, can you, young'un?

Here, let me explain: Back in the 50s and 60s, America was on top of the world. We were clearly the best country that ever was or ever will be. Congress knows this because they all grew up then, and some of them killed a few Nazis, maybe. But now we're falling behind. And why do you think THAT is, huh?

No, you smartass young punk, it's because of SCIENCE. See, back then, we knew everything. Then you liberal science liberal types came by and told us we didn't. You know what happens when you do that? That's right, we get all confused and the country falls off-track and we lose sight of our goals and God.

So the sooner we can get this whole "science" nonsense taken out of the picture, the better. After all, our generation, THE GREATEST GENERATION, won't live forever if you tykes keep changing things! As soon as we get back to what made America great, we can get back to selling eight-ton cars, trench guns, and player pianos. And if we need anything else — which I SERIOUSLY doubt, and you can trust me on that — we can just import them from those foreigners in Asialand. That'll never come back to bite us.

Re:Can't have it all

[bill_mcgonigle]

There's a limited amount of money the Government has for these things

<statistvampire>Hiissssssssss</statistvampire>

Re:Can't have it all

[h4rr4r]

I agree on both.

The reality is though the retirement age should be in the 70s by now. People should not be spending 20+ years retired.

Re:Can't have it all

[0racle]

Why should people spend all of their time working?

Re:Can't have it all

[avandesande]

They can retire whenever they want if they pay for it.

Re:Can't have it all

[Electricity Likes Me]

It's also an attitude born of the upper class, where a lifetime in suits and air conditioned office's certainly allows you to keep going well past the retirement age.

Manual labor jobs, things involving heavy lifting or the like, it is physically not possible to keep doing into your 60s nor would it make any sense to try and make people do.

Re:Can't have it all

[Electricity Likes Me]

The long term survival of the country is in Science and engineering. If your society doesn't do that, then you are done as a civilized society.

Thank goodness Congress was there to develop electricity, automobiles, radio, and telephones!

Oh, wait, those all happened before general income taxes when people still had money to spend on preposterous ideas.

It sure was a good thing those private companies built a massive national highway infrastructure for automobiles to run on, or standardized, built and maintained the telephone and electricity grids.

Re:Can't have it all

[bill_mcgonigle]

It sure was a good thing those private companies built a massive national highway infrastructure for automobiles to run on

It's true, the States seized most of the private highways in the 1800's. The important point was that the automobile was built to run on horse-carriage roads; there was no infrastructure work specific to the automobile before it was invented.

or standardized, built and maintained the telephone and electricity grids.

You think the governments build and maintain the telephone and electricity grids?

Re:Can't have it all

[swan5566]

Social Security was initially set up to be where retirement was around the average life expectancy. It hasn't changed because no politician wanted to commit political suicide, even though life expectancy has gone up. The whole notion of having "retirement years" for every average joe resulted.

Re:Can't have it all

[Zephyn]

Yes, but science is stupid to cut. The long term survival of the country is in Science and engineering. If your society doesn't do that, then you are done as a civilized society.

How about we cut 1 bomber instead?

Pfft. Typical liberal educated elite liberal overanalytical liberal LIBERAL. Can't keep a grasp on the big picture, now, can you, young'un?

Here, let me explain: Back in the 50s and 60s, America was on top of the world.

1950-1963: Top tax bracket: 91-92%
1964-1969: Top tax bracket: 70-77%

Are those really the times you want to go back to?

Current top tax bracket: 35%

Source: National Taxpayers Union

Re:Can't have it all

[Nethemas the Great]

That very wonderful to say, but relatively speaking each and every one of those are incomparable to technologies coming out of government sponsored research. It really is quite amazing how quickly people forget the ancestry of things such as the Internet, passenger jets, computers, and nuclear power.

Government is an invaluable and very necessary patron of the sciences. No sane business would invest in anything that doesn't have a near term payout let alone things such as basic physics. If private finance were the answer to funding science we would have had the first computers in the 1830's not the 1930's. Babbage could never find a patron willing to pony up the dough. Who they hell would finance things such as the Tevatron, the LHC, Hubble telescope, Curiosity, etc.? What kind of prosthetic limbs do you think our returning soldiers, athletes (yes athletes!), etc. would have? What kind of trauma care do you think you'd receive?

The very foundation of the incomparable yet regrettably eroding science and engineering prowess of the United States private sector would not exist with out the patronage of the U.S. government by way of tax payer dollars.

Re:Can't have it all

[s.petry]

We piss away hundreds of millions of dollars each year on useless trash, and then complain we can't afford Science. What a surprise right? I mean, just 2 weeks ago President Obama gave 25million dollars to the Rebels in Syria. That is just the most recent example of hundreds possible that does not include the Wars we are currently waging.

Let us face facts. The majority of people in Politics right now that care about 1 thing, and here is a clue: It sure as hell is not bettering our society. Keep defending the actions of the R and D people, it's helping us so much as a society.

By the way, the fix is to clean house. As a start go vote and push a button without a D or an R for everything possible in November. If they lie and cheat to stay in, we have bigger issues but at least we tried to clean house. If it works, we may have a bit of a chaotic start to 2013, but at least we have a chance to stop racing to the bottom.

Re:Can't have it all

[Anonymous Coward]

but in a physical labor job, you will be fired before you hit 70. It's not even age discrimination, you are no longer physically capable of doing the job.

Re:Can't have it all

[Anonymous Coward]

Cutting military spending is taking a short term saving for huge long term costs. Look how well appeasement worked out in the 1930's and 1990's.

Re:Can't have it all

[roman_mir]

Oh yeah? The free market capitalism actually allowed the people to cut down on the amount of time they had to spend working, that's what allowed the people to work 5 days a week and 8 hours a day, you can look up Henry Ford as an example of how that was done, while people were paid more and more because of how productive they became.

The gov't stepped in with all the money printing and all the SS and Medicare schemes, and instead of getting the benefit of the higher productivity and working fewer hours and a shorter week (why not 4 or 3 days a week a this point?) the people are again forced to work 60 or more hours a week to survive and now they'll have to do it for more years again, instead of having to work for fewer years by just being more productive and gaining more purchasing power.

The government programs, gov't spending, gov't system has destroyed the benefit of the productivity that the free market capitalism provided.

I would love to take all the Socialists, Marxists, Communists and simply put them together on the other side of the planet from myself, while the people who value individual liberties and freedoms could be free from these parasites, destroyers of life, the anti-life forms on the other side of the planet.

Re:Can't have it all

[arth1]

I would love to take all the Socialists, Marxists, Communists and simply put them together on the other side of the planet from myself, while the people who value individual liberties and freedoms could be free from these parasites, destroyers of life, the anti-life forms on the other side of the planet.

... he says, while most of what he buys is made in red China.

Re:Can't have it all

[slew]

Actually, private companies build almost all the things that seem to be credited to government. The money comes from you and me, goes through the goverment which generally hires a private contractor that does the real work.

The reason this money takes a detour through the government (e.g., for infrastructure) is the free-rider problem. For other thing that have less of a problem with free-riders, some folks would argue that we should just leave the government out of it. Others seem to like the government to get involved in most activities to achieve certain social agendas (e.g, redistribute wealth to stabilize a society, or achieve certain racial quotas).

This is of course a big debate, but not relavent in this situation. The actual building of stuff, at least in most world economies today, the activity is done by entities that are independent of the government, even if the government is pony-uping the money (or loan guarantees, or tax breaks)...

Re:Can't have it all

[jklovanc]

I think the previous poster was referring to the Interstate system much of which was built by tax money.

As for telephone and electrical grids, it was government granted monopolies and gave monetary grants that required complete service to be provided. Otherwise low density areas, which are not profitable, would never get telephone or electricity. The government may not have directly paid for the grids but it influences their creation.

What what government does in relation to utilities is change the motive from profit to service.

Re:Can't have it all

[Anonymous Coward]

So manual labor requires no management? In relatively few fields are you doing the exact same thing after 40 years as you were after 4 months.

Re:Can't have it all

[jklovanc]

If I am correct the opposite of free rider is user pay which has it's own issues. For example, taxes pay for the National Weather Service. Does that mean that everyone who wants to know hat the weather is should pay a fee? Does it mean that everyone who wants to get tornado warnings should pay a fee? The government provides services for the good everyone and the payment is through taxes.

I don't see it as a free rider issue at all but a concentration of funds to be dispursed to projects for the good of the people. For example, there is a multi-year multi-billion dollar project to supply more water to New York City that will be used by everyone in the city. Do you know of any private company who could take on something that big with profits put off for so many years. Even the subject of this discussion is a great place for Government involvement. Telescopes need funding for construction and continued funding for operation. Is there enough profit in astronomy to cover costs and construction of new facilities? Do you really think that reasonably stable funding could be found without tax money? Governments get involved to fund projects that are good for the country.

Re:Can't have it all

[The Master Control P]

Because society can't afford for you to be drain on resources for the first 20 years of your life AND the last 20?

When Roosevelt created it, the age for Social Security was just a few years short of the average lifespan, which was in turn just a few years longer than one's nominal productive life - recipients drew for an average of about 5 years. Since then we've extended our lives by over 15 years on average but we haven't done 1/10 as well at extending the years of productivity and good health. If anything, the horrifying epidemic of fatassery says we've regressed something awful. Living as a senior is expensive enough when you're in good health for your age, I shudder to even think what all the joint replacements and heart disease and all the other effects of being seriously overweight are going to add up to.

Re:Can't have it all

[The Master Control P]

If you enjoy a 40 hour work week in a safe environment, I suggest you thank the Socialists for demanding it instead of the factory owners who were having them murdered by the likes of the Pinkertons.

Those who hold these kinds of delusionally wrong views about society and history can basically be summed up by this shining diamond of WTF: "I've been on food stamps and welfare. Did anyone help me out? No."

Re:Can't have it all

[Anonymous Coward]

> No sane business would invest in anything that doesn't have a near term payout let alone things such as basic physics

The US government doesn't do that (knowingly) anymore either.

Re:Can't have it all

[roman_mir]

China is one of the very few actual capitalist countries in the world today.

They are as 'communist' as USA is 'free market'.

Re:Can't have it all

[Rich0]

Agree, but building a super-expensive scientific widget and then not coming up with the $1M/yr or whatever it takes to keep it working is just dumb.

If you can't afford a car don't own a car. What you don't do is spend $50k on a luxury car and then refuse to change its oil.

If we were talking about not building new facilities I could completely understand the decision, but choosing not to run non-obsolete facilities just to save a few bucks is penny wise and pound foolish.

Re:Can't have it all

[roman_mir]

You are wrong, there is no amount of demanding that can move hours to anything, wages to anything, without production there is no change.

The kids don't stop working their parents becoming more productive.

People don't stop being subsistence farmers, hunters and gatherers without becoming more productive.

Being more productive means being able to produce more than for yourself, being able to produce enough that you can satisfy some demand on the market by selling some of what you produce, so you can feed yourself as a farmer and sell something on the market as a farmer - you are now more productive than just feeding yourself, you can trade.

To be more productive it takes capital investment, which comes out of savings. 7 people today can run a farm that produces 12,000 hogs a year and also they have a few fields with corn and some other crops to feed the hogs and they can even sell some of their corn in good years.

7 people can do that today, because they have the machines, which are the result of capital investment, savings. That's how productivity is increased - a guy with a shovel is much less productive than a guy with an excavator.

Now, productivity is increased with capital investment that comes out of savings, so this is capitalism. Once the people are made more productive by the investment capital, they don't have to work as hard to do much more, they can afford not to have their kids working, they can afford to work much fewer hours even at higher wages.

This has nothing to do with government, this has nothing to do with unions, no amount of decrees and unions requests can actually change the unproductive people into productive. Once the capitalist savings and investment allow people to be more productive, it is the capitalist that allows people to work less.

Henry Ford didn't allow any unions in his factories, he had high turnover and he wanted to retain talent. So he doubled the wages, cut the working hours to 8 a day and days to 5 a week. The wage that his employees were making was HIGHER than Ford employees are making today as measured in gold.

In gold employees of Ford were making back then 1.25 ounces of gold per week (an ounce of gold was 19 dollars).

At over 1600 USD per ounce today, the employees at Ford today have to make 2000 USD per week, or over 100,000 per year.

However that's not even going to cut it, because Henry Ford's employees 100 years back didn't pay ANY income taxes.

They saved their own money, they pay any income or payroll taxes on any level (federal or state) they bought things out of pocket, like health care, they put their children through school without gov't loans.

Of-course today the Ford's employees are probably more productive because of more technology, but they are not nearly getting enough productivity benefit because of the government meddling with the economy - taxes, inflation, regulations.

So Ford employees, while maybe more productive at work, they are also much more expensive to employ, Ford the car company has to pay enormous taxes, not just on its own profits, but also other types of taxes that come out of hiring people because the gov't dictates how people must be hired.

You see, if the free market was allowed to operate, by today the working week might have been 4 or even 3 days, with 3 or 4 days of weekends. Maybe people would only work 4-5 hours a day too.

But because of the destructive force that the government is, that benefit did not occur.

Re:Can't have it all

[slew]

If I am correct the opposite of free rider is user pay which has it's own issues. For example, taxes pay for the National Weather Service. Does that mean that everyone who wants to know hat the weather is should pay a fee? Does it mean that everyone who wants to get tornado warnings should pay a fee? The government provides services for the good everyone and the payment is through taxes.

In this sense, the taxes that go to provide these services this are a mandatory fee. You are bringing up the classic free-rider problem. If the private entity providing a severe weather warning service only warned the people that pay, those people who warn other folks that didn't pay would be enabling free-riding making it unprofitable for that private entity. Since it many may agree that it is against good public policy to prevent free-riding in this case, these types of services collect mandatory fees and these are generally funded through a trip through the government.

Contrast this with two other situations: providing car liability insurance and providing entertainment. In the case of car liability insurance, this is also a mandatory fee, but since not everyone drives and not everyone needs the same level of insurance, collectively we have not found it prudent funnel this money through the government. In the case of entertainment, in the US, we have collectively decided that goverment is only going to be involved by legal means, no fees are mandatory for anyone. In the UK, they have decided to collect television and radio user fees routed through the government to fund the BBC (a nominally private entity). It is a choice of the people involved and both schemes have their plusses and minusses.

I don't see it as a free rider issue at all but a concentration of funds to be dispursed to projects for the good of the people. For example, there is a multi-year multi-billion dollar project to supply more water to New York City that will be used by everyone in the city. Do you know of any private company who could take on something that big with profits put off for so many years. Even the subject of this discussion is a great place for Government involvement. Telescopes need funding for construction and continued funding for operation. Is there enough profit in astronomy to cover costs and construction of new facilities? Do you really think that reasonably stable funding could be found without tax money? Governments get involved to fund projects that are good for the country.

As I mentioned before, it doesn't matter if it is for the good of the country or not, it is whatever we collectively decided to be a reasonable path: do nothing, enforce some sort of user or mandatory fees. Sometimes these mandatory fees are through the government, sometimes not.

Just because telescopes need stable funding an cannot operate for a profit doesn't mean that the government should fund it. As I mentioned in my original post, I think that geeks (like me) often advance with an entitilement complex when it comes to scientific research as we would rightly fear that if it were to come to a country-wide democratic vote on funding, the necessary funding would not be forthcoming. Sadly that doesn't make us any different from any other elitist special interest group lobbying for government funding. That is the sad uncomfortable truth. It is much easier to make a democratic case for something like a CDC or NIH, or even the military than a telescope, SETI, a super-conducting supercollider, or a rocket to mars.

Re:Can't have it all

[Electricity Likes Me]

I didn't say that - but by definition there have to be less managers then there are laborers. It is conceptually possible we could sustain that kind of pyramid indefinitely by growing the economy so we were always employing more, but even then, you can't find the type of population for it - it would only work if you were aggressively trying to find people who can skill up and move on to different fields.

All things the current US political climate is against (education, welfare, stimulus spending to avoid recession...)

Re:Can't have it all

[bill_mcgonigle]

What what government does in relation to utilities is change the motive from profit to service.

I live on a road with no cable service, per government monopoly grant. The local government prevented me from installing a fiber network on the poles for the neighborhood.

Re:Can't have it all

[riverat1]

Are those really the times you want to go back to?

Yup. Things worked just fine then, certainly better than they are now-a-days. I'll never make enough money to have to pay those top marginal rates and if I did I'd still have plenty of money to work with anyway.

Re:Can't have it all

[jklovanc]

What area do you live in? There could be valid reasons.

Dark ages

[Hatta]

We are hurtling headlong towards another dark ages.

Re:Dark ages

[Anonymous Coward]

Astronomy, astrology it's all the same and all useless and a waste of money...Rand Paul

Re:Dark ages

[arth1]

We are hurtling headlong towards another dark ages.

What do you mean, "towards"?
With 80% of the population believing in miracles, it'll take a miracle to elevate ourselves out of the dark ages.

Solution

[Anonymous Coward]

These astonomers just need to have a Wall Street mailing address and then tell the government that if they don't get money, the universe will end.

Or say that they have seen a potential asteriod headed for Earth and likely to hit Washinton DC and if they don't get their money, they won't be able to track it. Also, they need funding of every other astoronmical projects becuase that research is needed to support the anti-Washinton DC destroying asteroid detector thingy.

Also, into the request that due to the budget cuts, they'll have to sell all of their data drives which so happens -somewhere - there are images of Congressmen: picking up gay men, sleeping with young women that aren't their wives, taking bribes, skipping church, etc .....those stinking telescopes pick up so much!

Congress is so scientifically illiterate, you could convince them of anything.

There are many ways of blackm ... convincing Congresscritters that your project is absolutely necessary for the nation's security.

BTW, my grant writing service has a 100% guarantee.

Money

[SuperTechnoNerd]

Well it does not make money or help the rich get richer, in fact it costs money. I say shut it down!
Silly geeks with telescopes....

Re:Money

[Anonymous Coward]

FWIW, everything the governments spends money on makes somebody a little bit richer (and the rest of us a little bit poorer). I think it's just that geeks (like me) think we are entitled to more of it than others. Strangely, other folks feel the same way, but their toys are different toys...

For example, just look at some of the folks railing on spending a couple billion on a rover to mars and thinking we should have spent that money on unemployment extensions, or student loans, or food for the poor/hungry. In good concience, I'll have to admit they have a point. Everyone wants the most for their cause and most think their cause is the most worthy...

As for the common excuse that we are spending money on war (or whatever), that's the same excuse my kid gives me all the time (but they are doing something so much worse than me, or they are wasting their allowance on that)... I can't say that's a good argument to use in general.

Things should be argued on their own merits. Maybe that's a bit utopian/naiive, but at least it's easier to sleep at night that way...
Maybe a telescope operator that needs to find a new job may sympathize better with a steel worker that saw his job outsourced to another country...

The military does drive space science...

[daveschroeder]

...and has throughout our history — but it shouldn't be the only thing that drives space science and other human achievement.

If you're interested in a truly insightful and inspiring speech on this topic, I highly encourage you to set aside an hour for Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson's recent talk on just this subject at the University of Wisconsin - Madison:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqJzHHkmJ-8

It's well worth your time to watch, to think about — and to discuss with your elected officials.

Re:The military does drive space science...

[Anonymous Coward]

tax breaks for oil companies? Always in the plan.

Solar and stellar astronomy? Cut.

"Then we're stupid, and we're going to die"

--Khyris

Mass non-white immigration...

[Anonymous Coward]

... thanks to the Jewish parasites who feed off you suckers...

Your country is being turned into Brazil, and all so that the Jews can continue to print money from nothing (Federal Reserve, and fractional reserve banking) and ensure that the population is so STUPID they will never question what is happening. Can't have a country full of white people - they might separate from the international banking system, and then the poor Jews won't be able to force their 'cattle' (that's you and me) to work for them as their slaves...

http://archive.org/stream/HowHitlerDefiedTheInternationalBankers/HowHitlerDefiedTheBankers_djvu.txt

"Canadian researcher Dr. Henry Makow (who is Jewish himself) says the main reason
why the bankers arranged for a world war against Germany was that Hitler sidestepped
the bankers by creating his own money, thereby freeing the German people. Worse, this
freedom and prosperity threatened to spread to other nations. Hitler had to be stopped! "

Just wondering

[zrbyte]

Does this have anything to do with the James Webb being over budget.

Re:Just wondering

[ackthpt]

Does this have anything to do with the James Webb being over budget.

It will quite possibly. Hubble Space Telescope (HST) has done a lot for NASA PR. Amazing stuff. But James Webb isn't going to be about pretty pictures, it's about seeking answers to questions, questions the HST can't answer and no ground-based scope can do, because deep space IR doesn't penetrate the atmosphere.

When the USSR threw a silvery ball into orbit the US woke up, and answered a challenge issued by JFK. Now that China is making noise about landing on the Moon, people are 'Meh, who cares?' Times and attitudes have certainly changed. Not much national pride in scientific accomplishment.

Re:Just wondering

[mc6809e]

When the USSR threw a silvery ball into orbit the US woke up, and answered a challenge issued by JFK. Now that China is making noise about landing on the Moon, people are 'Meh, who cares?' Times and attitudes have certainly changed. Not much national pride in scientific accomplishment.

Remember that the Soviets at the beginning of WWII actually were aggressors that invaded Poland (and five other nations). It was obvious, then, that the Soviets weren't screwing around and were willing to use military power to get what they wanted (which happened to be a good deal of Eastern Europe).

When they put a silvery ball into orbit, it was frightening -- and for good reason given the Soviet's history.

We don't yet see China as that sort of aggressor(though their actions in the South China Sea might eventually be seen as evidence of a new desire for outward expansion).

Re:Just wondering

[hde226868]

No, this has nothing to do with JWST being over budget. The review concerns the astronomy funding through the National Science Foundation, whose budget is independent of NASA's funding. NASA funds all of space based astronomy (including data analysis), while NSF funds ground based astronomy. NSF mainly funds the national optical astronomy observatory on Kitt Peak in Arizona and the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Charlottesville, VA, with facilities in West Virginia and in New Mexico (plus some other states). In addition, NSF funds data analysis/theory grants. Overall, NSF's budget is much smaller than NASA's, but then, ground based hardware is much cheaper than space based. To put things in perspective: for about 50% of all university astronomers, NSF facilities are the only way to get optical observing time (the remainder of astronomers have access via privately funded telescopes, such as the Keck). The closures of the instruments proposed in the report to NSF essentially mean the US giving up its current leadership in large areas of radio astronomy, and significantly reducing access to medium sized facilities for optical astronomers, if the (realistic) flat budget for the astronomy program is realized.

Re:Just wondering

[NixieBunny]

Furthermore, the cuts proposed are to older telescopes that cost a tiny fraction of JWST's construction budget to keep running. Every generation of new telescopes costs about 5x the previous generation, since Big Science keeps needing bigger telescopes to reach new frontiers. I work in astronomy, and as far as I can tell, the staff to keep one modern telescope (the LBT) going is similar in size to the staff required to keep several older machines operating. Heck, one of the telescopes I work on (the Kitt Peak 12 meter radio telescope) was abandoned by NRAO in 2000 and sold to the U of Arizona for a dollar. We keep it and another radio telescope running with a dozen people. The LBT has over 50 engineers on staff.

I've seen this tactic before.

[Anonymous Coward]

The NSF wants to fund more than they're likely to get, so they tell everyone that they're going to have to shut down their big, high visibility programs in hopes that the resulting public outcry will result in them getting more funding so that they can fund all the little things they want funded, but are currently unlikely to get funded.

It could work for Mars too

[Ambitwistor]

See the grant proposal.

not just the NSF

[Anonymous Coward]

NASA's planetary science budget is being cut from (something like) $570 million/year, to (something like) $160 million a year. Unfortunately I lost the link now and those are just approximate numbers from memory, so probably a little wrong, but that was the ballpark.

This was expected to have a detrimental effect on the Curiosity program, as well as mean the cancellation of the two follow-on missions and several other far solar system probes.

Never mind that it only saves enough money to pay for 4 days in Afghanistan...

Re:not just the NSF

[Electricity Likes Me]

Wrong comparison even though - I mean let's assume that we have to be in Afghanistan. That all that money isn't not going to armoring and arming actual US military personnel.

The F-22 program cost was $US 66.7 billion over about 14 years. $4.7 billion per year. The planes cost $150 million to produce each. The entire planetary science budget could have it's funding increased for less then the price of 4 of those planes per year. But that's programs over - unfair right?

Well then we have the F-35. Current production cost of the F-35A is US$197 million per unit. So 3 planes less a year to again, increase the funding of the planetary science budget. Total projected cost to date is $US 56.4 billion. That is probably going to go up. Total cost is projected at something like $323 billion for development and procurement.

So we have two new state-of-the-art fighter aircraft produced one after the other. In fact one was made, and another one was begun designing before the first program had even been mothballed. Neither is capable of replacing some of the planes the US actually needs - like the A-10 Warthog - for the wars the US actually fights - like in Afghanistan - where it's all about close-air support of ground forces.

Meanwhile, in Afghanistan we have soldiers on the ground with insufficient body armor and unarmored Humm-Vees. Who'll come back to find veterans benefits programs being cut.

The US probably needs to stay well ahead in terms of military technology, but that sort of thing by all accounts could be done for a fraction of the current cost, while maintaining the same level of capability (in fact, probably gaining more, what with the idea of buying shit you actually need) and hey - as a sidebenefit you could maybe, just maybe, discover that fundamental science is surprisingly affordable.

Not in my backyard

[swan5566]

Every government agency and recipient of government funds receiving cuts has their own sob story right now - some more valid than others. Well, welcome to reality, where we are currently experiencing a recession.

But Obama said...

[Anonymous Coward]

I could have swarn our president just recently used the words "personal commitment" and "science and technology" in the same sentance.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYUN9AWwui0

No need for space science in the New World Order

[Anonymous Coward]

Once we create the Sustainable New World Order, we'll have no need for space science. No need to visit or colonize other planets. Our population will be culled to be sustainable by this planet alone. No huge dependence on world spanning power grids threatened by space storms. Nothing reaching higher than the mud huts the most of us will be living in.

If the US wants to regain respect in the world...

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop creating policies which flow funds to your richest 1 percent and scrapping what the world truly cares about (your scientific endeavors). Other countries want a strong US that invests in the future for everyone that can act as a model to follow.

No

[publiclurker]

you can leave any time you want. Of course the kinds of places that would take a self-important whiner don't realy have the sort of society that you could sponge off of, so I guess you'll just have to sit there and have your temper tantrum.

space

[seededfury]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j96a_bjfnyI

End of the American Century

[Anonymous Coward]

People have argued whether it really is the end of the American Century. We are 11.5+ years into the new century, and yes, the American century is over. Was it caused by an invading army? Was it a biological contaigen? Was it a comet falling out of the sky? NO! It was bean counters and filthy-rich cheap bastards letting everything go to hell in a hand basket. They (the "Filthy-Rich Cheap Bastards") have for too long taken for granted what took generations to build up, and they are letting it all crumble. At some point, it will severely bite them in the ass, but they are willing to let a generation or two suffer while it doesn't affect them. Then at some point, Rome will burn and Caesar will fiddle and to put his reaction in the most modern of terms: Meh! The F.R.C.B.'s don't realise that the flooding Titanic doesn't just affect steerage and the lower classes, eventually the chills will cause the Astors to freeze too. If you start to worry when the stateroom down the hall starts to get wet, its too late. You will get dragged down into the abyss too. More financial terms: "A rising tide lifts all the boats", and here is another one: "A sinking ship will drown all passengers, F.R.C.B.'s too."

Just need a new player

[wallsg]

SETEC Astronomy

Look on the bright side....

[Anonymous Coward]

This way, it'll be quick and painless. We'll never even know what hit us.

Re:Just wondering - in verse...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Surprise" by Leslie Fish
Remember the fifties, those fat complacent days
When the future seemed a century away?
Then up went Sputnik, gave the world a butt-kick,
And made it clear tomorrow starts today.

Beep beep, boop boop, hello there! (Gazhupa!)
Sputnik sails giggling through the skies. (hey! hey! hey!)
Red flags, red faces, jump in the race as
The space age begins with a surprise. (Surprise!)(more at url )
http://mindstalk.net/filk/surprise.txt

On the necessity for collective action

[Tenebrousedge]

I would love to take all the Socialists, Marxists, Communists and simply put them together on the other side of the planet from myself,

You and what army?

Re:On the necessity for collective action

[roman_mir]

The bond holders and basically the productive part of the society, which will end this nonsense by stopping the subsidy.

Buffet

[Lawrence_Bird]

As Mr. Buffet likes to lecture the rest of us about 'paying our fair share of taxes' and his feeling that he does not, how about stepping up to the plate and providing the funding for these projects as you clearly don't bother cutting the government a check for the shortfall you wish they would take (and that you can in fact send to them at anytime if you were inclined).

While the above is meant to be some what tongue in cheek, the larger point is that there are lots of billionaires and multimillionares in the US who could easily set up the necessary philanthropic fund to assure the continued survival of those observatories which are still able to do good science.

Money better spent on food stamps than science

[lowkster]

The number of people on food stamps has more than doubled since 1990. I guess people on food stamps are more likely to keep incumbents in office than scientist so the money goes to them. http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/images/pubs-images/43xxx/SNAP_Infographic_4_18_2012.png Note we went from spending under 20 billion in 1995 to 70 billion in 2010. The shortfall mentioned in the article that is forcing the shutdowns is 75 million.

Obama Empire Blitzkrieg Begins

[Anonymous Coward]

The hatred of Obama for all and any thing science is now on display, irrespective of his 'Gay Love' for the 'Mohawk Guy' at JPL.

A very, very sad day indeed.

Are they needed?

[jklovanc]

I am not an astronomer but there seems to be a number of new projects that have come on line that may make some facilities obsolete. The new projects have better resolution, precision, etc. Do we need all the installations that may be cut? Can they cut other installations that are not as useful? These are questions I am putting out there as I do not know the answers.

Re:Are they needed?

[Anonymous Coward]

In addition to just being able to do the same thing better, then new programs can do entirely new things. So it isnt just a question of the new making the old obsolete.

Not an astronomer either, but the article does describe a healthy scientific process of directing dollars to the best science. In my opinion, the overall funding amount should be larger, but at least at this point they are still able to get some of the new projects going. Lots of good science, r&d, and well educated people come out of the programs. The US does well for itself by sustaining this investment. Talk to your congress members and ask them to support this funding.

Re:Are they needed?

[belthize]

None of the new instruments can do what the Green Bank Telescope (GBT) and Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) can do. There's a continuum of frequency, sensitivity and resolution that can be examined and each instrument can sample a small fraction of it. The GBT is the largest single fully pointable dish and covers a few hundred MHz to 100Ghz, the VLBA is the longest baseline interferometer (other instruments can be cobbled together) and covers from 1 to 100GHz. The GBT is sometimes used in conjunction with the VLBA.

Certainly the new instruments have newer hardware but both the VLBA and GBT undergo upgrades to improve sensitivity. That's a much cheaper proposition than building a new version. Decommissioning them will leave a whole in the map of what the world's ground based telescopes can cover.

The panel was charged with assuming flat funding so each year less and less can be done. In that scenario something has to give and those instruments are an obvious choice but it would be incorrect to assume that new instruments would replace them. They'd mostly examine a different portion of the problem space.

Increasing funding would be a preferable option but that seems increasingly difficult in the current political environment. It's too easy to point at discrete chunks of 10's of millions that affect an isolated group than tackle the billions that affect everyone.

Re:Are they needed?

[jklovanc]

It's too easy to point at discrete chunks of 10's of millions that affect an isolated group than tackle the billions that affect everyone.

In an election year the math is pretty easy. Would one rather do a funding cut that may lose a few thousand votes or another that may lose a few million votes? In most people's lives a telescope is unimportant but health care is very important.

Summary needed

[Taco Cowboy]

If you're interested in a truly insightful and inspiring speech on this topic, I highly encourage you to set aside an hour for Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson's recent talk on just this subject at the University of Wisconsin - Madison:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqJzHHkmJ-8

It's well worth your time to watch, to think about â" and to discuss with your elected officials.

I am truly interested in what the good Dr. has said in his 1 hour speech, but unfortunately, I just do not have that extra one hour to listen it

So ...

Can any kind soul, who has listened to the good Dr. one-hour-speech, please summarize what he has said?

Thank you, whoever you are !!

Stop being wasteful

[Taco Cowboy]

A 0.7 cent wasted, no matter how insignificant it might appear to be, is _ STILL _ a 0.7 cent wasted
 

Re:Stop being wasteful

[capnkr]

Re: wasteful - FTFA: "The savings from divesting from the aforementioned facilities is projected at $20 million."

Wow! That's a bunch of money!

But wait, whats that other thing where a bunch of money was wasted? Ahh, Solyndra... how much?

FTFWikipedia: - "Solyndra's loan approval process began under the Bush administration. However, emails show that two weeks before Obama took office, the Energy Department panel considering the loan unanimously decided not to proceed. In March 2009, one White House budget analyst wrote an email stating that "This deal is NOT ready for prime time." However, Solyndra was the first company approved for a loan guarantee under the Obama administration. On March 20, 2009 the United States Department of Energy made a "conditional commitment" to a $535 million loan guarantee to support Solyndra's construction of a commercial-scale manufacturing plant for its proprietary solar photovoltaic panels. The White House scheduled a press event for September 4 and federal reviewers gave final approval on September 2. After securing the loan guarantee, the Federal Financing Bank, a part of the Department of the Treasury, loaned Solyndra $527 million.

Solyndra also received a $25.1 million tax break from California's Alternative Energy and Advanced Transportation Financing Authority."

Based on the chart FTFA, Solyndra cost us more than the *entire* projected astronomy budget *for 2022*, by _20%+_.

Karma be damned - let's put someone in charge who understands how and where to spend my money. Please. Give us more science and scientists, and less government. Obviously, the ones in charge right now have failed miserably at that. Boot 'em.

Re:Stop being wasteful

[tibit]

This is a bunch of rubbish. Guess what: in the U.S., a minimum wage job is not enough to keep a single, reasonably healthy individual a roof over their head. Never mind someone who is malnourished (like many minimum wage earners are), has chronic health problems (also likely, even in case of people under 30!), or, $DEITY forbid, is crazy enough to have children. Read Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America and stop spewing crap.

US astronomy NSF-funded astronomy

[Shag]

The NSF only funds a small sliver of US astronomy as a whole, last I checked, and rarely funds any project or facility entirely.

tax breaks for all companies?

[JBaustian]

Under current law, all companies that produce goods are entitled to a lower corporate tax rate. President Obama has proposed eliminating this tax break for certain very large oil companies, leaving it in place for all the smaller oil companies and for all other goods-producing firms. This hardly seems fair.

I suggest eliminating all corporate income taxes, but taxing their owners and shareholders for the income earned by these companies. This way, the companies can focus on maximizing income and not on minimizing taxes.