Comments on: Speaking out for astronomy

By: Lauren Ramsey

Lauren Ramsey — Thu, 12 May 2005 14:46:27 +0000

Our space exploring is so important to understanding Earth’s past and the past of humans. There are so many unsolved questions in the world. From why is Earth the only planet with intelligent life, if there life out there, is it possible. Those answers are out there somewhere. NASA’s buget should be raised, exploring space is important. They work and train hard and some astronauts have died, that was definatly not a waste of money. The world of all science depends on learing more about why we re here on Earth. More science is out there and we will find it. People should be more supportive, why don’t people who don’t believe space travel is important go tell a family of a dead astronaut that space travel is a waste of money. They will probably slam the door in your face!

By: Lauren Ramsey

Lauren Ramsey — Thu, 12 May 2005 14:43:36 +0000

Our space exploring is so important to understanding Earth’s past and the past of humans. There are so many unsolved questions in the world. From why is Earth the only planet with intelligent life, if there life out there, is it possible. Those answers are out there somewhere. NASA’s buget should be raised, exploring space is important. They work and train hard and some astronauts have died, that was definatly not a waste of money. The world of all science depends on learing more about why we re here on Earth. More science is out there and we will find it. People should be more supportive, why don’t people who don’t think space is important go tell a family of a dead astronaut that space travel is a waste! They will probably slam the door in yor face!!

By: Greg Kuperberg

Greg Kuperberg — Wed, 04 May 2005 17:05:56 +0000

I didn’t say anything about “pure” science. I mean any kind of science. Since all human spaceflight missions in NASA’s plans are either science missions or support missions, it makes no sense to prefer human spaceflight to science.

By: John Malkin

John Malkin — Wed, 04 May 2005 16:47:33 +0000

The problem with station has nothing to do with the fact that we have astronaut scientist but because we have astronaut maintenance men. I agree we should shut down station if we have no intention of fully utilizing it. However I don’t think that is the case; it is the intent of NASA to use the CEV to support IIS. Currently with two astronaut scientist, they are averaging 25 to 30 experiments. If space station were to be fully staffed at 5 to 7 people, I would expect the number of experiments to increase to 200 to 300 per expedition. The station is an asset that shouldn’t be thrown away because the cost to replace it would be very high. Another thing is not all experiments are pure academic science. Several of the experiments were for the private sector. Many of the astronauts have more scientific knowledge than some “pure” scientist and degrees to match. The world needs cheap access to LEO and beyond. Killing station and loosing a great asset will not get us to LEO faster. The development pipeline for CEV has limits that have nothing to do with money, the biggest is time. If you add a large number of people, you increase the number of management issues. R&D is a balancing act that has many unknowns.

Page 18 is the mission timeline and page 41 begins a list of science experiments for expedition 11.
http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/112555main_exp11_presskit.pdf

By: Greg Kuperberg

Greg Kuperberg — Wed, 04 May 2005 13:36:33 +0000

There are two problems with this bash-the-scientists quote. The first is its disingenuous attribution. The real attribution is not to OMB itself, but to a Reaganite who was working for OMB when he said it in 1985. He was using scientists as a convenient scapegoat for much larger budget problems. As they are also a convenient target for Daniel Greenberg’s formulaic scandal-mongering.

The second problem is that NASA hasn’t thought of any mission for astronauts other than science experiments, either on the space shuttle, or the space station, or in the VSE. Even if you cancelled every last NASA research grant, human spaceflight at NASA would still be science; it would just be science without scientists. It would be be science in a persistent vegetative state, which in fact is what the space station already is. It’s past time to pull the plug.

By: Science, Money, and Politics

Science, Money, and Politics — Wed, 04 May 2005 04:46:53 +0000

From the Office of Management and Budget:

With the possible exception of veterans, farmers, and college students, there is no group that squeals more loudly over a reduction of federal subsidies than scientists. They are the quintessential special interest group, and in effect, they make the oil industry look like a piker.

By: John Malkin

John Malkin — Tue, 03 May 2005 18:05:54 +0000

“Are” might be to strong but they voice there intent at the Science Committees hearing on NASA’s Fiscal Year 2006 budget on Feb. 17. There is a webcast at http://www.house.gov/science/webcast/index.htm

Activist should emphasize the importance of this merge as long as it doesn’t create scope-creep which happed to the shuttle between NASA and the Air Force.

If this isn’t the source, I may need to do some research.

By: Nellis Hanlon

Nellis Hanlon — Tue, 03 May 2005 17:07:19 +0000

“Actually they are merging military needs into NASA spaceflight…”

Huh? Can you explain what you mean and provide examples?

By: Matthew Brown

Matthew Brown — Tue, 03 May 2005 16:50:02 +0000

“I prefer Human Spaceflight… ”

To prevent myself from being hypocritical (which I am at times), I must give part of the same aurgment against that as i do the people who say, “We have problems down here we need to fix first.”

The monnies for earth based science at nasa is but a drop in the bucket compared to the there over all budget. Around 400 million IIRC. about the same ratio as Nasa’s over all buget to Health, Education, and Environment.

IMHO there is one earth basesd space reaserch program that is under funded nad cutting any money to it is suiccidal, Skywatch. THis is the program that relies mainly on hobbyists to discover and track NEOs that have a potential to hit the Earth.
I don’t know the numbers today but a couple of years ago it was only 1million a year to fund it. I’m sure it would get more funding if a 10m object struck anywhere in the US.

Then there is the example from Apollo, if we didn’t have the earth based sciences funded we would not knw where to land on the moon, nor have the ability to train the astronauts in geology at earth analogs.

I prefer Human spaceflight too, but more important then that is, cheap access. And thats something we will never see developed at NASA.

By: John Malkin

John Malkin — Tue, 03 May 2005 16:43:28 +0000

I think space policy should be “needs” driven and the first big need is access to space period, than we could fully utilize the space station and move on to other infrastructure. Reagan was either misled or misinformed that we could support the space station with the shuttle. For the last 30 years NASA has been day dreaming for the stars and not dealing with the real issues. They have made some half hearted attempts but they have failed America in general. Congress holds equal responsibility for this failure. I think Mr. Griffin understands the needs of the country including private entrepreneurial companies.