Slashdot Mirror
NASA To Face $1.3 Billion Cut Next Year Under Sequestration
littlesparkvt writes "A budget forecast that was released on Friday shows that the defense department isn't the only department getting hammered: NASA is as well, if the automatic budget cuts happen. According to Nature magazine, NASA will lose '$417 million from its science budget, $346 for space operations, $309 for exploration, $246 for cross agency support, among other cuts.'"
It is because of NASA we are enjoying the fruits of GPS and other such technical marvels. I don't think there should the any more budget cuts.
With the looming currency crisis that is coming due to the Fed's monetary blunders, NASA's budget cuts will be the least of our worries.
Those damn Democrats and their spending cuts! Why don't they spend more, like good Republicans?
Can we please just cut $1.3B extra from Defense and leave NASA alone? Seriously, $1.3 is only like half a B2 bomber - DoD can absorb that cost.
So cancel the museum at Slidell, close Stennis, cut headquarters staff, and lay off most of the PR department.
NASA is where all the money should go.
When the republicans temporarily shut down the government while budget battles raged on, we had 24/7 wall to wall coverage of this. Contrast this with today where absolute NO TV and virtually no newspaper coverage exists for this event. Why?
America Fuck yeah coming to obstructing congress to save the day!
Nasa is the spearhead of innovation, if it wasn't for them, we'd not have a lot of the materials today that we make our innovations even more innovative with. Nasa isn't just all about space exploration, but what we can do with materials in near zero gravity, search for alternative energy sources that can literally save our lives, nanotechnology and beyond.
To see such an innovative organization being stripped down like that, rips my heart apart.
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
The sequestration program was enacted because it was the only way that we could agree to manage our debt. It cut things that some people hated and some people liked. That is what compromise is. It is like a family cutting out salon visits and the football package on cable. It hurts, no one wants it, but if the money is not there, there money is there. That combined with ending of temporary tax cuts is going to solve the problem in a very direct way. I know we wished there was vodoo of a faith based economic solution, but there is not. The invisible hand is not going to come down and magically provide everything we need. If it could we would be communist, but in reality one has work and spend responsibly as individuals.
There will be some negative effects. People with less expendable income will have even less, so walmart will have a reduction in sales so they will have to lay off some poorly paid employees who will have to go on welfare or find other poorly paid jobs. People will buy less gas so those of us who live in states with petroleum economies won't be making quite so much money. The military will no longer be able to absorb so many semi skilled employees, so the unemployment rate may go up until those people can be convinced to get a skill and start to do real work. Doctors and hospitals will have to be punished for over billing medicare/medicaid.
But we are talking about a bipartisan plan that was passed and signed by the president because it was the best deal everyone would agree to and would solve the problem. That a few people are complaining now that they did not understand what the deal was, well, then, they should leave office. If you aren't smart enough to understand what it is your voting for, then stop stealing the tax payers money. This is not a great solution, we are going to lose some programs, but what else is there to do? Raise taxes on the top 5%? Stop tax write-offs for yachts? Ask the pentagon to not waste so much money on poorly executed military activities? I would say cut welfare checks, but then Wal Mart would hardly have enough customers to survive.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Much as I like NASA, if that's what it takes to get the deficit under control, then that's what needs to happen. Given that the DOD takes the brunt of the cuts, it seems fair. And a billion dollar in cuts for NASA amounts to pocket change when distributed about all the billionaires that are currently financing private space ventures. We'll probably do better altogether by getting the economy going again and having them work on getting to space than to keep financing bloated DOD and other programs an relying on handouts for NASA to get us into space.
I'm sure there are a depressingly-large number of Americans who would be overjoyed at the prospect of NASA being monetarily crippled, if not defunded altogether. Not only is it a haven for climate scientists (NASA has Earth-looking satellites, and has monitored the Antactic ozone hole for years), but it's packed to the gills with astrophysicists who maintain that the universe is billions of years old instead of a mere six thousand.
Koans and fables for the software engineer
Sigh... "Antarctic ozone hole".
Koans and fables for the software engineer
All this focus on the released details of the bad things that will happen to each agency is a waste of energy. The administration put this document together because Congress insisted on it, and if it had been dropped in my lap I would have done as litle as necessary to put this useless exercise in budgetary masturbation together. This is all focusing on the "trees" of "OMG, my favorite NASA program will be axed" when it should be on the forrest of "DAMN, Congress is about to put a shotgun to the head of the US economy and pull the trigger." We should be furious about the short-sighted, infantile, "he's touching me" inability to work together of what passes for leadership in Congress, particularly on the REPUBLICAN (there, I said it) side of the aisle. NASA losing $1.3B is a candle against the general confligration this disaster will cause to the US.
I am a Paul Bot.
DO NOT WRITE IN RON PAUL
Paul is out of the race, he's said so, he would rather you not write him in.
If you really want a Paul minded individual vote Gary Johnson. Paul hasn't said that, but he's said he likes the guy and they agree on most issues. There's some sticky family reasons that keeps Paul from actually endorsing him, but he's made statements in the past that are close enough. Writing in Ron Paul truly is a wasted vote, especially in states that won't recognize that particular write in.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
... I can say that the waste and inefficiency at NASA is for worse than in DOD (which I worked in for 20 years).
This would be for the best... if you are looking to eliminate waste.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
DO NOT LISTEN TO PARENT!
Ron Paul HAS NOT withdrawn from the Presidential race. HE IS STILL RUNNING, and will NOT give up.
Don't listen to GOP plants astroturfing as Paul supporters (who would never voluntarily call themselves "Paulbots") trying to get you not to cast your vote for the one and ONLY man who can save America!
When he wins, he will happily accept the job. Once he's elected, he can start getting rid of all of these unnecessary and illegal government agencies, and finally, FINALLY de-fund the Zionist terrorists who are constantly stirring shit up in the middle east and costing US Taxpayers TRILLIONS funding illegal wars and the corporate war machine.
The real waste in the Budget is in things like Medicare. US spends 15% of GDP on health, while most OECD countries spend about 7-8% on evil "socialised medicine" yet have everyone is covered and in many cases they have higher life expectancies. 7% of us GDP is about $1 Trillion per year, I realise that isn't the federal budget but it is money that people could use for other things if they weren't wasting it.
Higher education 3% of GDP vs OECD average 1.5%. College attendees are getting screwed to the tune of $200 billion per year.
Around $1000 per person spent on tax filing per year due to ridiculously complex tax system - another 2-300 $billion per year.
And I am not even going to bother talking about the Pentagon.
Point is that there are ways of saving all that needs to be saved without impacting negatively on peoples standard of living, but the US needs to be willing to adopt the best practices of the rest of the west, regardless of philosophical objections about free-markets etc.
These sequestration cuts will not happen. After the upcoming election, minds will be concentrated, horses will be traded at a furious rate, and this can will be kicked down the road. The details of the can-kicking and horse-trading will depend on the nature of the election results, but the can will be kicked down the road. Of that you can be sure.
The big red elephant in the room is that the easiest way to keep taxes low is to borrow, and boy do they borrow. The trick is to retire from politics before you run out of road on which you are kicking the can. This has been SOP for both parties especially the so called conservative one.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
I really see no other way out of it. I read a op-ed (can't find the link) on cnn in which the author said that if the repubs win all, then the dems out of spite might very well obstruct the government from whatever plan they come up with.
Let's just keep our fingers crossed, I guess.
But it also contains big military cuts, which Republicans don't like. However, if no deal is reached, they perhaps figure they can blame the military cuts on the Democrats and claim we are vulnerable.
Table-ized A.I.
I always laugh that people are upset about solvent, trust based programs paid into seperately, while we spend over $600 Billion, per year, on a military that has bloated to some multiple of all the other military powers in the world, combined.
I know Europe has been known to drop the ball entirely on military aid (to the tune of thousands of lives lost), but we can't afford to keep donating our services to everyone on earth, whilst maintaining operations in places for absolutely no reason whatsoever.
Our homeless are not our drain. Our military is.
lol u mad
If you want to make a point and engage in actual debate, then using a mocking tone like that won't convince or intrigue anyone. It just serves to circle-jerk up people who agree with you and enrages people against your opinion, the latter of which is considered trolling.
I'll bite by saying this: more money is already spent on feeding the hungry (food-stamps) and some amount goes to NSF, some of which goes to climate research, I'm sure. Not as much as nasa, but then again, it's priorities, I guess.
Paying down the debt, true. Then again, more revenues would help too.
I don't support the space fantasy fiction.
All those dedicated, intelligent people should be working on the problems we have here on earth, not on the fiction that space 'exploration' is going to do anything for the short term survival or benefit of humanity.
The space program should be left to those countries that have their environmental, energy, population and human rights problems solved. Currently no one qualifies. And there's 0.00% chance that we'll be able to overcome these same limitations as they apply to long term space flight, exploration or colonization if we can't adequately manage the same terrestrial limitations, right down here!
Flash frozen peas, coordless drill, memory foam beds, subsidized travel development, clean water, LED, scratch resistant lens, and many others.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spin-off_technologies
Oddly enough, we never spent trillions of dollars. In fact, we never even spent one. It said the bank bailout is greater than the entire 50 years of nasa
If you were smart enough, then nasa is the poster child of a properly run government agency. Only technology and innvoation can solve our problems. You are not helping our problem by cutting our only future.
If you want cut down the debt, cut dod, congressmen pay checks, and other things that were not on the table. Increase H1B Visas. It is important that skill workers enter America, because without them we cannot expand
Yeah, not sure why the Democrats went with that plan. It's exactly what the Tea Party wanted, an enforced budget cut that made the government figure how how to operate on less money. Perhaps the Democrats thought that the Tea Partiers were insincere career politicians like they were and would not want to play chicken.
The problem with thinking you can play chicken with someone is that, on a rare occasion, the other guy is actually there to see what a car accident feels like.
I've never been one for the hack and slash approach to budget cuts, but I do have to admit that it might be the only way to do it with special interests having a constant steel cage match to get more and more money for themselves. Look on the bright side, do you really think the Democrats would ever get even close to the amount of defense budget cuts they could under this?
But don't worry, maybe some rich person will take pity on your attempts at brown-nosing, and give you a job as a footstool or something.
NASA is being defunded because, like every single government program, it has grown like a cancer.
To be fair, NASA's biggest problem is that it's used as a pork trough for Congressentities to funnel money to their mates.
Scrap the Senate Launch System and NASA would have plenty of money to spend on useful things even after a budget cut.
Adjust for inflation and you'll discover that NASA has more money now than they did at the point where they were funding the development and construction of the Space Shuttles. The problem isn't money, it's that NASA is spending tons of it on stuff that is only vaguely space related.
We already have an NOAA, NASA. Get your shit together and deliver a new generation of manned space travel.
So, yeah, the Obama administration really does need to get ready for the sequestration cuts to happen. The only way out is for Obama to be re-elected, and democrats to get a majority in the House and a super-majority in the Senate
Consider the following:
The last time the republicans held both the house and senate, and the democrats held the oval office, the budget got balanced. It wasnt pretty the way things went down.. the government shut down once.. and came very close a second time.. but eventually the democrats agreed to the republican budget.
I'm not saying that that can happen this time.. probably not.. many of those republicans that made it happen are either gone or are out of favor, but it does prove that if enough of those fucks feel compelled to balance the budget (such as with a "contract with america",) that it can happen.
"His name was James Damore."
You just called Medicare solvent??!!! It's costs have been out of control for DECADES.
It is set to eat the entire federal budget over the next few decades.
Either we deal win fucking Medicare or we financially collapse.
Grandma's not getting pushed off a cliff, she's relegating her grandchildren to poverty.
The old voters insistence that "they get theirs" will destroy the nations future.
What on earth have the trillions of dollars spent since 1980 accomplished?
Data. You know those little bits of information. On what's happening here on earth. Stuff that's best evaluated from orbit. Data about earth. Data about the Rest of the Fucking Universe that just might be important if you're trying to understand what is going on. Not Tang, not memory foam beds, not cordless drills. But the ability to look at the entire planet and help figure out energy flows.
Data to help model the solar system so we can see how the earth compares on a physical basis with Mars and everybody else.
Knowledge. It helped get us into the this mess and it's pretty much the only thing that is going to get us out of it. Not food stamps.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Exactly! What's been missing in the dialog is the fact that the federal budget has ballooned in all departments. You can hear the little piggies being called to the troughs in DC while leadership at all levels, congress, the administration and even down to local municipalities has been missing. It's has been easier to say 'spend and borrow' than 'let's make the hard choices that's right for our country.' This is what happened last year when the debt ceiling was being reached and the republicans said they wouldn't support it without budget cuts. So what happened? they compromised for a joint task force with them all being deadlocked and both parties agreed that Sequestration wouldn't happen until after the 2012 elections. Guess what, nobody did anything. The joint task force couldn't come to a consensus and now we have the 'Fiscal Cliff' everybody is talking about. Do we honestly think that our dysfunctional government can come to an agreement of how to reduce the budget? Well for the past four years they haven't been able to so my suggestion to everybody is save your money now and get ready for another recession because there is a complete lack of adult supervision in Washington and it's time we all recognized that. Being a leader means that sometimes you have to make a decision that isn't popular but one that you know is right. There isn't anybody in Washington DC that can do that. Sure they can make speeches and talk about things like women's rights and "The private sector never built anything" but it gets us nowhere fast. I suggest that if you have the ability to vote in November, do so, don't ignore it and then vote against all incumbents. That means if the person has the office now, vote for somebody else on the ballot in all races, even down to your local elections.
That will send a message and it will also give somebody out there, anybody, a chance to do better than the bunch of clods we have now.
Getting back on target, if we start to get a handle on all those non-essential things, like 16000 new IRS agents, it would close the budget gap for NASA but let's all face facts, the Obama NASA wants the Private Sector to do the heavy lifting, while NASA continues to explore. This would represent more opportunity for Space-X et. al. Even Burt Rutan would like to see that.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
Well, for the Frozen Peas alone, they should just be abolished...yuck!
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
'$417 million from its science budget, $346 for space operations, $309 for exploration, $246 for cross agency support, among other cuts.'
I'll personally take care of the $346, $309, and $246. The $417 million on the other hand might be an issue. Oh you mean those other ones are millions too?
James Hansen et al aren't contributing much to space exploration much less national well being.
The space program should be left to those countries that have their environmental, energy, population and human rights problems solved.
The developed world qualifies.
And there's 0.00% chance that we'll be able to overcome these same limitations as they apply to long term space flight, exploration or colonization if we can't adequately manage the same terrestrial limitations, right down here!
To the contrary! Why will these problems get solved here on Earth when there isn't a lot of incentive to solve them? In space, you'll have resource limitations unheard of except in the most isolated places on Earth.
Trillions? Hardly. At its heyday, NASA's budget was 40 billion. That's a couple orders of magnitude away from a trillion. And that was in the 60's, when we were still struggling to put a man on the Moon. Since then, it's been a max of what, 15 billion a year? Since '62, I doubt NASA has spent half a trillion. You do the math. You provide the cites. Trillions my ass.
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
Hell, stop requiring schools to teach creationism as science and 'promoting' every single kid in their age group to the next class as part of No Child Left Behind. De-democratize the school systems and let the teachers fucking teach. Then, maybe we wouldn't need H1B visas for people from countries who don't buy into the touchie-feelie-make-them-feel-good-about-themselves-on-the-way-to-the-welfare-office 'educational system' we have here in the US to cover for the lack of trained American technicians.
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
Everybody has an opinion about how the government should be run, but nobody can seem to take the time to learn how the government actually is run. This is an across the board sequestration of government spending not a spending cut aimed at NASA.
If NASA does have any Earth looking satellites they should pass the task to NOAA or the NRO because that's what their job is.
That's one of those bureaucratic things. NASA has the expertise to launch and manage those sorts of satellites, so they tend to get the responsibility of doing so. It's probably a bit inefficient, but nothing like having a zillion federal law enforcement organizations with overlapping areas of responsibility.
Well for the past four years they haven't been able to so my suggestion to everybody is save your money now and get ready for another recession because there is a complete lack of adult supervision in Washington and it's time we all recognized that. Being a leader means that sometimes you have to make a decision that isn't popular but one that you know is right.
Like raising taxes?
Because that's the sticking point here.
The Bush tax cuts blew an enormous hole in the budget and until that's fixed, the deficit will remain fucked.
Unfortunately, the Republicans have a serious problem called "no new taxes".
And even Mitt Romney is on record saying he won't raise taxes
Even Ronald Reagan raised taxes to claw back some money from his (at the time) massive tax cuts.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
I'm not generally one to defend NASA but they've had a pretty huge role in earth observation satellites, Landsat for example. They've had a huge impact on environmental issues, deforestation, climate change, resource usage, monitoring the destruction of our our ozone layer by CFC's and helping to stop it, this list goes on for a while.
Their manned space program has moslty been a huge wast of time and money but their earth observation programs have been DOING EXACTLY THE THINGS YOU SEEM TO BE WHINING FOR.
It pretty delusional to think you should basically stop doing anything ground breaking until you've solved every problem on Earth. YOU WILL NEVER SOLVE EVERY PROBLEM ON EARTH. If you manage to insure everyone is well fed and, and no one dies of diseases, chances are you will just cause a population spike that will push a bunch of people in to starvation or further deplete the earth's resources trying to feed them all.
Its still a little over the horizon but it wont be that much longer until we start deplete the Earth's easily accessible mineral resources at which point pretty much the first thing you are going to be wishing for is a robust space program so you can start mining near earth asteroids for them.
@de_machina
Here you go.
Your argument on "securitizing debt already incurred" would make sense, under a different government.
In the USA, we have a law that limits the amount of debt the federal government may incur. This, of course, is revised regularly to accommodate the ongoing profligate spending by both parties.
The difference now is that we have no budget.
You see, normally the President gives the House of Representatives a budget, they discuss it, edit it, and issue a new bill outlining the spending they've agreed to, typically including an amendment to the law limiting debt. This package law (often called an omnibus budget) goes to the Senate, where they typically vote it down and create their own version. A "conference committee" is conviened which hammers out a compromise bill between the House and Senate, which each passes. This bill then goes to the President, which is signed or vetoed.
However, the President has given the House no budget in the last 3 years. (there was a very loose model which was never intended to be voted on, but got a 0-414 vote anyway) Budgets were presented to the Senate (incorrectly, because spending bills must originiate in the House) which failed 0-97 or 0-99.
The House has sent the Senate budgets, but the Democrats have the majority there, and their leadership refuses to allow the budgets to come to a vote or to be considered.
And so, with no budgeting done, the government has run on "continuing resolutions" which just allow spending to continue without any real consideration or overall view. And, of course, without the usual debt ceiling increase that comes from "well intentioned" budgeting. (using the term loosely) The essential problem is that the federal government has failed to do its job, although primarily the Senate and the President.
One of the most important thing I learned from economics is that value is subjective, and therefore whether something can only be demonstrated to be "worth it" when individuals voluntarily make that trade-off. Taxation is not such a voluntary choice.
So instead of fighting over whether NASA is worth more or less tax dollars, why not switch NASA to become a voluntarily funded program, maybe using Kickstarter?
What do you think NASA should offer for different levels of pledges? How much would you pledge?
Maybe it should offer nothing, and treat itself like a lottery, where some people will be lucky and benefit from whatever useful innovation or discovery is made.
Another use of a Kickstarter-style pledging system would be to fund different X-prizes. The money would be paid if a certain goal is achieved.
These comments are mine; I do not speak for my employer.
Yes the loopholes exist for the very rich and big corporations. If we eliminate a lot of those loopholes, guess what, revenues will rise without raising the rates that the rest of us pay. That seems really fare vs. just raising the rates unilaterally.
Oh well, we all have another 2% or so coming as well as the tax cuts that were extended in last years debt ceiling agreement. So, forget that pizza, that new TV or maybe that new car for awhile because Uncle Sam is like that dumbass Brother In Law that we all have, he can't manage money very well and constantly comes to you for a loan.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
In many cases, they do... after the satellites are tested and operational. Even in the cases where NASA's still in charge, the active mission is controlled from NOAA's operations center, mostly by NOAA personnel.
Also, oddly enough, most of the acquisition authority for civilian weather and Earth-observing satellite programs (even one primarily for operational meteorology... NOAA's bailiwick) are managed through NASA. I don't know why that happened; back in the day, NOAA was perfectly capable of buying its own satellite systems, but now it seems the contracting has to go through NASA. Odd.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
NASA is planning "two" more robots for Mars, same type as Curiosity!!!
The space program should be left to those countries that have their environmental, energy, population and human rights problems solved.
You're entirely right, yet exactly wrong.
The space program is not going to solve problems on earth, except by accident.
Although these accidents have happened. As has been pointed out, the space program has been a _huge_ help to environmentalism, and pretty much the only reason we know 95% of the stuff we know. Data about the atmosphere doesn't just magically appear.
And NASA research, I should point out, is also a huge boast to energy...a significant portion of miniaturization, low-power consumption, and battery development comes from NASA research. You can argue private industry has taken a hold of those now, but NASA is the place all that started. The mere existence of NASA research has probably cut our national energy consumption by 0.1%. (Which doesn't sound like much, but more than pays for NASA.)
But the pie-in-the-sky stuff is nonsense. We can't solve the problems of the planet with space travel. So you're right.
But you are completely wrong in that we need to solve other problems. Why? Because the space program doesn't cost anything. Not compared to the problems we need to solve. NASA is completely trivial in the amount of money we spend on it compared to actual problems.
Complaining about how much it costs is about as relevant as someone in a household complaining about how much electricity spent watching TV costs...doesn't everyone know that the car needs a new transmission? Yes, if no one watches TV for, oh, 2000 years, we can buy a new transmission. Or, you know, we could cut the hundreds of dollars a month we spend on buying and training sharks with lasers mounted on their head to defend against imaginary enemies. (Meanwhile, the household watching TV has also taught us many useful things, which hasn't saved a lot of money, but at least make up for the electricity!)
You want to cut the manned mission to Mars? Be aware in four decades you'll be standing in the same place, and this post will also include at the start something like 'And food preservation, NASA's research for manned missions reduces the amount that food spoils before consumption, saving 1% of all food made. (Which doesn't sound like much, but more than pays for NASA.)' or something like that.
tl;dr - NASA is probably a net _gain_ to society, a net gain _to the actual problems you were talking about_, and even if it's not, its cost is so _microscopic_ compared to the money swirling around those problems already that there is no reason to target it even if it accomplishes nothing at all.
I, personally, would argue that considering the gains we've gotten out of NASA, it might even make sense to come up with some new government agencies with other crazy restrictions and demand they figure out ways to do things. 'Without using any steel or iron alloy at all, whatsoever, construct a skyscraper.'
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?