NASA Gets Its Marching Orders: Look Up! Look Out!

TheRealHocusLocus writes: HR 2039: the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Authorization Act for 2016 and 2017 (press release, full text, and as a pretty RGB bitmap) is in the House. In $18B of goodies we see things that actually resemble a space program. The ~20,000 word document is even a good read, especially the parts about decadal cadence. There is more focus on launch systems and manned exploration, also to "expand the Administration's Near-Earth Object Program to include the detection, tracking, cataloguing, and characterization of potentially hazardous near-Earth objects less than 140 meters in diameter." I find it awesome that the fate of the dinosaurs is explicitly mentioned in this bill. If it passes we will have a law with dinosaurs in it. Someone read the T-shirt. There is also a very specific six month review of NASA's "Earth science global datasets for the purpose of identifying those datasets that are useful for understanding regional changes and variability, and for informing applied science research." Could this be an emerging Earth Sciences turf war between NOAA and NASA? Lately it seems more of a National Atmospheric Space Administration. Mission creep, much?

Comments

A New Hope

[rtb61]

Hopefully this is a sign the space race is back on. Far more to do out there, then to squabble back here with, who can destroy the world the most number of times with their military, a real dead end and I mean dead end. Something is needed to drive humanity, to focus it's efforts and who is the greediest and most selfish or who can kill the most, are insanely, stupendously pointless and self destructive of society.

Making use of the resources of the solar system, is not about bringing stuff back to earth, it is about humanity expanding it's horizons further out. The difference between dwelling upon your genitals (hollywood et al) or dwelling upon your mind (NASA et al).

Re:Atmosphere study is in NASA's fucking 1958 char

[Anonymous Coward]

That mission is exploratory, not studious. NASA's job is to explore the atmosphere (pretty much done) and space (barely even scratched the surface). NOAA's job is to study the ocean and atmosphere. So NASA goes and finds it, then hands it off to NOAA for detailed study. NASA is inherently concerned with "getting there", while NOAA is concerned with "what's there". If NOAA wants a better look or needs new instruments installed in an otherwise unreachable or hostile environment (space), then NASA is their go-to agency to get that job done.

NOAA's on their own for deep sea research, though. And that's stupid. Have the NASA physics geniuses build better vehicles for every environment, let NOAA's geological geniuses do the boring data mining and science from the tools the vehicles deliver. (And, yes, the "real" science part is boring compared to the part that consists of blowing things up in a controlled manner in order to eject a large amount of mass out of the Earth's gravity well. Whee!)

Re:Did a paid shill write this summary?

[hey!]

I've been a Democrat since 1979. I'd vote for Bernie Sanders if he weren't an abrasive, self-righteous prig who'd inevitably do more damage to his allies than to his enemies. But despite that I'm almost 100% in agreement with the man. And I haven't seen any rampant Republican agenda here. More like rampant laziness, if there were such a thing.

If the editors spent a whole minute between the moment they opened the story and the moment they hit "post" I'd be flabbergasted.

Re:Atmosphere study is in NASA's fucking 1958 char

[MillionthMonkey]

Every nation on earth has weather and climate scientists. WTF do we need NASA to study the weather?

First of all, weather is not climate.

Second, those scientists in other nations depend on the data collected by NASA, since no one else can do it as well.

Third, the idiot currently heading the committee that plans to eviscerate the NASA earth sciences program to the tune of $300 million per year sees no problem blowing hundreds of times as much money on Cold War fighter jets. One might ask,why do we need to spend $1.5 trillion dollars on F35 strike fighters that can't turn, can't climb, run hackable software, and explode when struck by lightning or running on warm fuel?

This is not about the money at all. They just don't want anyone looking into this, period.

The Earth is not in Space

[Required Snark]

Yes, just like a little kid, every Republican knows that you see space when you look up. You can't see space when you look down. All you see is dirt, i.e. the Earth. So it can't be in space.

So let's just ignore the fact that the Earth is just one of the many things that are in space, and that it s the easiest thing in space we can get to. We're already here. It just doesn't count.

Also ignore that the Earth is the planet that we know the most about. So if we want to study other planets, we shouldn't study the Earth from space. There is no way that the things that we learn from Earth observation could be a baseline so that we know how to examine other thing that are in space, like say Mercury, Venus, the Moon, Mars, Jupiter and it's moons, Saturn and it's moons and rings, and the same for Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto (planet or not).

I hope this gives the Republicans amongst you a slight clue how stupid you sound. And how much you've substituted ideology for rational thought. But I warn you, don't let your vision of the US flag over every rock and planet in the solar system go to your head. It's only a mater of time until the christian fanatic wing of the party decides that the Earth is flat, the space program is a front for the devil, and the money needs to be spent on proving that the Earth is 6000 years old.