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Culberson As Chair of NASA Fundng Subcommittee Makes Europa Mission More Likely
MarkWhittington writes: As many have expected, Rep. John Culberson (R-TX) has been elevated to chair the House Appropriations Subcommittee for Commerce, Justice, and Science. The subcommittee has charge of NASA funding, something of keen interest for the congressman, whose Houston district is close to the Johnson Spaceflight Center. Moreover, Culberson's enthusiasm for space exploration goes far beyond what would be expected from a Texas representative.
Culberson is a champion of a mission to Europa, a moon of Jupiter. Europa is an ice-covered moon that is thought to conceal an ocean of water, warmed by tidal forces, which might contain life. Using the heavy-lift Space Launch System, NASA could launch a large-scale probe to study Europa and ascertain whether it harbors alien life or not. Culberson's elevation makes such a mission far more likely to occur.
Culberson is a champion of a mission to Europa, a moon of Jupiter. Europa is an ice-covered moon that is thought to conceal an ocean of water, warmed by tidal forces, which might contain life. Using the heavy-lift Space Launch System, NASA could launch a large-scale probe to study Europa and ascertain whether it harbors alien life or not. Culberson's elevation makes such a mission far more likely to occur.
Enceladus is probably a better candidate-- there's reason to believe that it's as little as a few meters to get to liquid water that's already known to have most of what you need for life. It's much farther away though, so it's a lot longer to get there.
The only thing you need to know is that this guy is a big fan of the Space Launch System, perhaps the most pork fueled missionless NASA project going.
They are DESPERATELY trying to come up with a mission to justify the $18B in development costs (likely costs are $10B per launch over 4 launches for a total of $40 BILLION!)
Every failure of this program under government cost reimbursement and cost plus contracting rules results in more PROFIT to the contractors.
Meanwhile, politicians are trying to force SpaceX away from pay per performance and the low costs that come with that and the lowered risk that comes with that for the taxpayer into these cost plus contracts "to make sure they spend their money efficiently." Trust us, the last people we expect to help spend money efficiently are politicians.
But how does this benefit breasts in public making ice cream for the lines at Burning Man? When will Bennett Haselton weigh in on this important topic so I can finally form an opinion?
Help me frequent contributor Bennett Haselton. You're my only hope!
I'd be surprised if we didn't at least find some sort of microbial life...if we didn't though we better put some there! Hedge for DNA...humans, meh...we should do everything we can to allow DNA to survive forever. FOREVER.
*PoKs*
For way too long NASA has been dominated by the Manned Mission directorate and they are forever poaching funds from the robotic missions to fund their manned pork such as the ISS, SLS (the Rocket to Nowhere), and Orion.
Last year about this time, NASA had spent more on a new toilet for the ISS ($30 million) than for Europa mission ($5 million).
Didn't anyone watch 2010, or The Europa Report? Leave Europa alone.
Declare war on moons, blow up said moons, ???, profit!
Are you dense? That was trollbait, Admiral Aspergers.
Did he not get the message four years ago??
ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS EXCEPT EUROPA
ATTEMPT NO LANDING THERE
The dude's gonna get us all monolithed. I don't wanna be monolithed.
Koans and fables for the software engineer
You're a total fucking tool, and also fail pathetically at sarcasm detection.
Oh, come on! This isn't even Poe's Law; you just got whooshed.
Culberson's enthusiasm for space exploration goes far beyond what would be expected from a Texas representative
Okay submitter, what do you expect from a Texas representative?
I can only hope this is some attempt at a double whoosh, but it seems more likely you're simply an idiot. The post was obviously being sarcastic.
More people responding seriously to sarcastic trollbait?
As long as they're going to rely upon the SLS--which in its own right has a near zero probability of surviving Congress--this mission will still never get off the ground.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
And neither does it say "Whoosh" in the Good Book.
Don't worry... the Republicans will veto this for fear of finding yet more Europeans.
When Republicans are in office NASA usually does better then when Democrats are in office. Republicans aren't all that thrilled with science, some aren't even sure what science is and they really don't like NASA that much, NASA does better because Republicans are usually from states that have NASA centers and so their representatives work hard to get money for their districts. NASA gets the money that goes to the centers which in turn goes to the private industry hired to do the work for the NASA centers. And in turn those private industries give big campaign contributions to the Republican candidates.
There is alien life. I believe they are called "Hungarians."
The Republican Party, especially in the House, refuses to fund anything. They sometimes fail to pay government workers and barely avoided defaulting on our debt. The military and CDC can't get funding; It's very hard to imagine this will.