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Obama's 2016 NASA Budget Status Quo, Funds Europa Mission
MarkWhittington writes The Washington Post reported that the NASA portion of the president's 2016 budget proposal is basically status quo though it does provide further funding for a mission to Europa. A Europa probe is near and dear to the new chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee that funds NASA, Rep. John Culberson. However, the $18.5 billion budget proposal also funds the asteroid redirect mission, which has come under increasing fire from both Congress and the scientific community. The Houston Chronicle suggested that the final spending bill will be considerably different once congressional Republicans get through with it.
But I was told not to attempt any landings there
Unless the lander is being built in your Congressional district.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
That's the first time a Democrat has submitted a budget for at least a decade.
Neither Harry Reid's Senate, Nancy Pelosi's House, nor Obama before this has EVER submitted an actual budget.
Where the hell have they been the past 6 years - when they had much more power than they have now?
And it you think I'm shitting you, please cite the last Democrat-submitted budget.
Europa?!?!
Well that's it, we're doomed.
Thanks Obama
This is why you should always vote Republican. NASA needs to be defunded immediately so that PRIVATE industry can get us back into space with more safety, less cost and better results than any useless govement can.
The budget that Obama submitted is basically a fantasy novel with lots of boring numbers in it. The House and Senate are going to shitcan it the instant it lands in their hands so they can pass their own budget instead. It's not even worth talking about the budget because it has absolutely nothing to do with whatever finally makes it through Congress.
I read the internet for the articles.
Europa is nice, but what I would argue is the following
1) asteroid redirect mission... go, we want another smaller moon, preferably one mostly made of useful metals, and that can be used as a counter-weight for a future space elevator
2) manned moon/mars missions... we got there once, we should go back to the moon and establish a colony, to advance both our understanding of low gravity environments and the challenges of living 'off world'. Also, the dark side of the moon would be a great location for any number of advanced telescopes, plus the moon would offer a lot of advantages for production facilities, including a large amount of helium 3. A Mars colony would secure the long term survivability of the human race and would free us from relying on the Earth for our survival.
3) Space station. Stop futzing around with the ISS and lets build a real station. I'm thinking 2001 or better. Maybe attach it as a waypoint on the future space elevator.
4) Asteroid mining, Either mine them in-situ, or crash them into the moon and then mine. Ok, yes, this is long term, but surely there's money to be made here.
That function is assigned to Congress.
So why should I care what a lame duck president who lost control of both houses of Congress has to say on the matter? The only influence he could have right now it propose every idea the republicans want to push through and watch them try to figure out how to not support him. Everything he's for they are automatically opposed to so they'd be stuck. It might be entertaining to see a congress person repeating "does not compute" endlessly until their head explodes. Kind of a cross between Mudd from "Star Trek" and "Scanners".
If you read it closely you'll see it's actually increasing the budget, not holding it constant.
Washington is the only place where increasing by less than 5% (I think that's what they've been using) is a spending cut.
while the military spend of the US clears $800Bn - making it yet again the single largest military spender in history, outspending every other nation combined.
BTW when an increase doesn't keep pace with inflation + the CPI over the same period (which 5% doesn't, and providing that 5% counts annually it's short by about 0.2 for 2013/12-2014/12), then it's a cut.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
No, it's a decrease in buying power, not a cut.
If you get paid $50,000 by your boss this year, and $50,000 next year, you didn't get a pay cut. Your buying power may have decreased, but your pay is the same. You don't get paid in "Real Dollars", you get paid in "Actual Dollars". The government always spends "Actual Dollars", the politicians and bureaucrats just like switching between the two to hide what they're doing.
Quit using bureaucrat-speak to justify ever expanding government, especially when you clearly don't understand it. CPI is a measure of inflation, so saying "... inflation + CPI" is roughly saying "less than 2 x inflation growth is a cut". (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_price_index) Over the last 10 years the US inflation rate has peaked at 3.8% once, and been negative once. (http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/historical-inflation-rates/). So 5% more than covers inflation - in fact it's a bit over twice the average of the last 10 years.
But then they'll try to fund a pipeline from Europa to American refineries so that they can sell the gasoline to China.
Addressing Congress:
With all due respect, the only way (dramatic pause) to create a pipeline between two orbiting bodies to recover oil in such a fashion cheaply, is through funding of
wormhole technology which my research and development already has a line on. All that is needed is your continued funding to help me pursue and apprehend (second dramatic pause) John Crichton.
sincerely
Scorpius
If you're wage covers less and less purchases, particularly NON-DISCRETIONARY purchases (like food, clothing and housing), then the effect is a pay cut. When wages do not roughly follow inflation, it is an effective reduction in wages.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
It is a decrease in buying power. Which is equivalent to a reduction in your historical wages, true. But that's not the way the terms are used by the general population, and the bureaucrats switch between real and actual dollars in order to disguise what they're doing. Walk out on the street outside of Washington and ask 100 people "if my budget was 50,000 last year, and it's 52,500 this year, did it get cut" and probably all 100 will say "Hell no, it went up". At least outside of that fantasy land called Washington DC.
So we end up with "anything less than 5% increase" being cried about being a "cut", or "anything less than what we asked for" also being a called a "cut". It's disingenuous bureaucrats looking to expand their empires. The military's as bad as anyone- this isn't unique to NASA.
If you want to talk "real dollars" vs " actual dollars", that's fine. Keep your labels straight and be transparent and honest. But lose the bureaucrat speak. If businesses operated the way the government operates they'd go out of business in a hurry.
the base rate of inflation (AKA core inflation) is the amount of currency in circulation against a fixed amount of a nonvolatile commodity (gold). When the amount of currency in circulation goes up, for example after a bout of quantitative easing, the value of the commodity stays the same but the value of the currency goes down - resulting in a higher peg. That's your core inflation. The consumer price index is the core inflation measured against the marketable value of a given amount of a volatile such as sugar, coffee, oranges or oil. The CPI is ALWAYS higher than inflation since volatiles availability depends almost entirely on the input of human effort.
Now, are you going to put a name to your comment? Or am I going to continue to make your AC arse look stupid?
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
Har Har "Bolden is NOT Golden".
Sorry old-boy.
The numbers from the "O-bomb-ber" radio-controlled budget are "absence" of intention or will.
Face Facts.
NASA, born in 1958 in the height of the Cold War is a Cold War Agency now past 1993 is without a Cold War.
So, can Washington Re-Invent a Cold War to Save NASA, and DoD and DoE and DoS and newly fermented DHS.
Well, short answer is NO.
Washington could, through a surrogate contractor ... start as war ... in order to save itself. But ,., as John F. Kennedy learned the hard was in Fort Worth TX, it is a HARD.
I think Obama-boy will prefer to suck on his Hawaiian Bong starring at a poster or Richard M. Nixon instead of any "action".
Ha ha
Why in the name of all that is logical, is a Politician put in charge of deciding what scientific space exploration missions are funded?
I mean, really, talk about the least-possibly-qualified person to make that call I mean really. Never-mind the conflict-of-interest and political shenanigans everyone KNOWS goes on, the individual who rises to that position is simply not scientifically minded, nor suitable to decide what should be given priority in the exploration of space for mankind!
While I loathe committee's and all their politics, at the very least a knowledgeable and esteemed group of scientist's from around the world would be infinitely better able to direct such a massive portion of the planet's resources (used in the exploration of space). Stupidity in the extreme.
I'm biased the Asteroid mission was the first mission I had been looking forward too in a long time.
It would have been a step down the road to actually getting off the earth and establishing human civilization elsewhere in the solar system. Europa ? It's about on a par with looking for life in ocean vents or the deep lithosphere. Except there is less chance of finding life on Europa.
Is a pointless and expensive stunt to funnel money to manned missions
I really thought that said "further funding for a mission to Europe", WTF?