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NASA Appoints New Chief Scientist
SchrodingerZ writes "Planetary Geologist Ellen Stofan, expert in the terrains of Venus, Mars, and Titan, has recently been appointed the Chief Scientist for the space agency. Stofan will act as the top adviser for Charles Bolden, NASA's current administrator. Beginning August 25th, Stofan will be Bolden's head adviser for NASA's project planning and investments. She will replace former chief scientist Dr. Waleed Abdalati, who left his position to be the director of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado. Stofan has both a masters and doctoral degree of geological sciences from Brown University, and is known for her involvement in the Applied Science Laboratory's project to put a boat on Saturn's moon Titan, as well as a member of the radar team for the Cassini spacecraft. Though she'll be joining in a time of large budget cuts, Bolden explains that '[Stofan's] breadth of experience and familiarity with the agency will allow her to hit the ground running. We're fortunate to have her on our team.'"
I thought it was.... Need another seven astronauts
The last Chief Scientist was a nut.
How can one claim expertise in a subject one has never experienced?
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
I am a scientist and I find the idea of calling our boss "chief" hilarious. Maybe I should try calling his boss "master chief" (and hope he doesn't know Halo...)
Another Warmist then?
Help stamp out iliturcy.
NASA is almost completely irrelevant in the modern world.
While I agree that they're becoming significantly less relevant for their 'traditional' activities (which are probably better left to the fledgling private industry) as a pure science organisation, I think they still have plenty left to offer.
There's bugger all that NASA has done with it's massive budgets.
The problem is that they don't have massive budgets. They've got tiny budgets for what we expect of them, and especially in the context of budgets that are thrown at far less valuable endeavours.
My book about LSD and Self-Discovery
Also on facebook as: DroppingAcidDaleBewan
They have done some great stuff with very small portions of the money. Mars rovers, Hubble and even with cost over runs JWS will be epic. NASA needs to spend less on manned space missions which are expensive for little or no return and focus on what it does well. Science.
If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?
Bolden explains that '[Stofan's] breadth of experience and familiarity with the agency will allow her to hit the ground running
I predict that this will be the first replacement in a long line of many replacements. NASA is almost completely irrelevant in the modern world. There's bugger all that NASA has done with it's massive budgets and people continue to look to them for progress. Anyone with hopes for the US space program is just reaching for desperate idealism in the face of the nearly complete failure of human kind to do any sort of space exploration.
NASA :- Not A Serious Agency
Okay wish guy, lets see you put rovers on Mars, or orbiters around the gas giants.
i guess Hubble's irrelevant too? Who the hell needed to know the universe is accelerating when we could be using our resources for more reality TV shows and night clubs.
Bullshit.
If all you care about is firing people on ballistic trajectories around other solar system bodies, then yes, NASA has failed. If what you want is great science, something like having a network of sophisticated planetary science missions operating on all of the major solar system bodies right now, then they're kicking ass, and Stofan is the right person for the job of continuing that mission.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
just keep killing astronauts till you achieve your goals... killing astronauts isn't bad... governments aren't like criminals... you just can't compare the two
demand for national pride and political supremacy is far more important than the supply of astronauts
This must be a real dilemma for you, because she's a white woman replacing a non-white person. Which means more to you, your racism or your misogyny?
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
"Massive budgets" my ass. The US military spent more just last year than NASA has spent in all the years since its founding combined. Just the Tet Offensive cost more than Apollo. Taxes generated by revenue from industries that never would have existed without NASA have more than paid for the agency over the years.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
We have anything operating around Venus? I'll admit there doesn't seem to be much point but I do consider Venus a major solar system body.
Oh, right. And it occurs to me that I'm not sure we still have one around Mercury.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Space exploration is the classic example of the kind of the kind of research that needs state funding: it's expensive, yet has hard-to-estimate returns that occur over an extremely long timescale.
There's a reason no private company has launched a planetary science mission, despite there being no competitive barriers to doing so.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
So we sent Alan Stern to be NASA science administrator, Abdalati comes here to work at CIRES to get away from NASA project management and do some science, and NASA slots in a replacement very friendly to future robotic exploration missions who is well known around the valley. It's a good day for space science!
No, not Brown!
Yep, we do. MESSENGER is still going strong in orbit around Mercury.
Only if it actually works. If it doesn't or it breaks down immediately its only value will be if it compells NASA to develop the manned or robotic capability to go fix it.
@de_machina
Rovers and orbiters are built by JPL. JPL is NASA in name only. It was created in1936, long before NASA.
After giving JPL well deserved tribute for their planetary missions, they also deserve tribute for surviving, staying relevent and doing great work in spite of NASA.
Hubble was OK after a disasterous start. NASA does deserve priase for it along with the other great observatories.
Those programs don't really explain away the fact that the centerpeice of the organization and the one that sucks up most of the money, manned space exploration, is a complete disaster. At some point you need to ask, "What have you done lately"?
@de_machina
NASA may not, but the ESA has Venus Express sending back loads of data so there may be no need for NASA to duplicate ESA work.
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What NASA has "done lately" with regard to 'marquee' programs is cope with Washington's repeated switcheroo - Ares, Constellation, ..., every year or two Washington seems to cancel one plan and embark on another. In the corporate world, this is a classic sign of a company in trouble and about to go down the tubes, but in politics it seems to be business as usual. Further, what NASA does (not just manned space and exploration - everything) is about what women in the US spend on lipstick and other makeup, and only about 0.4% of the federal budget.
But while Washington fiddles, NASA has been a very effective promoter of both space-based research (making the ISS into a National Lab will result in advanced medical treatments and other benefits within a short time) and commercial space development, using relatively small amounts of money and creative approaches to help companies like SpaceX, Bigelow Aerospace and others achieve the necessary capabilities to make commercial space development possible. Some of these companies are already profitable and the rise of "New Space" has been instrumental in reducing launch costs by as much as 1/2 for everybody. This in turn is making it economically feasible to do things like space mining and in-orbit satellite servicing and refueling. And the long term result of this will be to help cut the costs of building and launching the long-range exploration and research vehicles that NASA will need.
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
...despite there being no competitive barriers to doing so.
You're joking, right? You've never heard of the FAA? No barriers? Are you for real?
NASA's budget is about equivalent to the money spent on cosmetics in the US each year. It's about 1/5 of the Food Stamp program, 1/10 of the interest on the national debt.
It's about 1/3 of what the people of the US spend on shoes, 1/20 what we spend on restaurants, 2/7 what we spend on tobacco products, and 1/2 what we spend getting our hair cut. Given the US median income of about $50,000, if the government were a family, it would be equivalent to what the average family spends of their income, on beer.
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
As a non-American, I'd just like to say that NASA is far more inspiring than any global hegemony conspiracy theory.
I'd like to be a part of a NASA initiative, despite their lack of any reasonable budget, and other blah blah blah.
There's a reason I'm not a part of NASA or other space agency...and that's because I'm not good enough! (At least until they ask for volunteers for high orbit radiation experiments! Where do I sign up? Can I get special exemption to pretend to be a baboon?)
How did they manage to land so many men on the moon with an entirely WHITE workforce? What about the 'benefits of diversity' that we keep being told are making our (white) lives 'better'? (LOL).
This woman was hired because SHE IS A WOMAN, for no other reason. Just as the head of NASA was hired because he is 10% black, or however much it is, and LOOKS 'black'. More Jew Frankfurt School bullshit - are you sick of it yet?
I'm glad you're inspired by NASA. But that's irrelevant, isn't it?
Again, the ends do not justify the means. That fact that NASA inspires you does not make it ok for some people to steal money from other people by force to fund NASA.
It doesn't matter what I do with the money after I rob you; I've still commited theft.
If a program like NASA is so important to so many people, surely those people can self-organize and find a creative method of funding a similar program on a voluntary basis.
And if they fail... that still does not justify robbing your neighbor because space is just so damn cool/important/whatever.
Slashdot... where pointing out evil gets you marked as a troll.
When you say "massive budgets" you reveal that you're a complete idiot. NASA's budget is less than 1% of the federal budget (recently it's been at 0.5%). Meanwhile their economic return has been shown to be many times their budget.
NASA has a smaller budget than the air force for space activities, and yet no one complains about the air force not getting to Mars....
So we shouldn't fund any art, we shouldn't fun the national park system, we shouldn't fund public stadiums, we shouldn't fund facilities for the olympics?
Since NASA does science, you're also saying we shouldn't fund the NSF? We shouldn't fun the NHS? NOAA? They do science as well.
Thank god you don't decide what to fund. Societies exist because people have decided to band together and fund things for the betterment of said society. You want a society without inspiration, without science, without research - you have your choice of 3rd world countries all over the globe. Don't let the door hit you on the way out....
You're not a libertarian. Those have some vestige of rationality and at least a vague grasp on certain aspects of the real world. You're an anarchist who finds it convenient to use the label "libertarian" because it sounds much better and some people can't tell them apart.
Pro-tip: the part that gave you away was the following line: "The state is not a scientific institution. It is the antithesis of science -- it is merely the organized used of force to dominate a population. The government in all its forms is merely a manifestation of the threat or actual use of violence". I just read the rest of your posts before responding.
The state is an institution of leadership, instituted by any and every non-trivial-sized human community ever. The difference between a tribe led by family elders and the government of a superpower is mostly one of scale and environment, not of purpose, method of coming into existence, or means of sustaining itself.
One of the roles of a leader is arbitrator. Another is defender. These are the ones you seem to think are all that matters, and I bet you reject the arbitrator and would like to think you could get by without the defender (hint: just because you could get by without some of the things they do does not mean you would make it without them at all). Other roles of a leader: guidance (which includes the promotion of science), provider (public services to avoid tragedy of the commons, public funding to ensure that things like science actually happen, etc.), caretaker (seeing to the well-being of your people - welfare being a part of that - and ensuring they can get what they need), and ambassador (interfacing with other states, other leaders). Every single one of those things requires wealth (although they either produce more wealth than they consume - yes, even welfare, go read some real economic and sociological studies - or they are necessary for the protection of the value of peoples' wealth). Therefore, the state must fund itself and - again, to avoid the tragedy of the commons - this funding is mandatory.
Note that I make no attempt to claim that every state actually embodies these leadership characteristics. For example, corruption and accumulation of personal wealth is contrary to the roles of caretaker and provider. There is probably no non-trivial-sized (for modern values of non-trivial; more than a few dozen people is unlikely, more than a few thousand impossible) example of an ideal state in existence anywhere today, or in modern history. The USA certainly isn't, and never was; there were deep flaws in the original government, many (but not all) of which have been fixed but replaced with new ones.
NASA is not the state doing the right thing, overall, by any means. However, it is a part of what doing the right thing would be. It is giving a many-times-over growth in wealth on an investment that individuals typically do not choose to make, and also returns other benefits leading to improved military (defender) and higher standard of living (caretaker).
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
I think flamebait is probably more appropriate, but nobody uses that mod much. Your posts are poorly thought out, logically inconsistent, and antagonistic. They also appear to be what you honestly personally believe, which says some very sad things about you. Nonetheless, they detract from, rather than adding to, the discussion at hand; consequently, they get modded down.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
That is an extremely convenient cop out. NASA simply hasn't delivered on anything worth funding for a really long time. Success would breed support.
Ares was a deeply flawed in concept, design and construction and it cost a fortune to accomplish next to nothing. Why would anyone continue that farce when SpaceX and Falcon are developing far better launchers and capsules far faster and for much less money.
NASA simply can't do anything without squandering money. They sent a team to SpaceX to study how they were accomplishing so much with so little. The fact that NASA would send a team out to study this is disturbing in itself. One answer is stop using theirh entrenched contractors, (i.e. Lockheed and Boeing) who are milking every contract for every dollar they can.
NASA, Boeing and Lockheed are probably delighted when when one program is cancelled and replaced with another because they never have to deliver anything that works and the pay is the same.
@de_machina
Given the US median income of about $50,000, if the government were a family, it would be equivalent to what the average family spends of their income, on beer.
My family are extremely average and also complete alcoholics, you insensitive clod!
NASA may not, but the ESA has Venus Express sending back loads of data so there may be no need for NASA to duplicate ESA work.
Data validation is important, especially if you intend to base a theory on it. One sample set is hardly "all we need" unless you want your theories to be based on information that was only collected and verified once.
Competitive barriers. The legislative barriers are trivial or we wouldn't have almost entirely privatised satellite launches already.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
That doesn't even make sense.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
I don't know what's funnier, that you basically invented an entire self-consistent philosophy to assign to me on the basis of my smartass one-liner, or that you practically shit yourself with hate raging against it.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?