Comments on: TPF and Europa Orbiter: a tale of two unfunded missions http://www.spacepolitics.com/2006/02/12/tpf-and-europa-orbiter-a-tale-of-two-unfunded-missions/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=tpf-and-europa-orbiter-a-tale-of-two-unfunded-missions Because sometimes the most important orbit is the Beltway... Wed, 17 Sep 2014 13:35:41 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.0.38 By: Chance http://www.spacepolitics.com/2006/02/12/tpf-and-europa-orbiter-a-tale-of-two-unfunded-missions/#comment-6873 Tue, 14 Feb 2006 13:30:33 +0000 http://www.districtofbaseball.com/spacepolitics/?p=839#comment-6873 Keith, please stop being so unpleasant. There are several yahoo boards you can mess with people on. If you have valid critisisms, please state them.

]]> By: Keith Cowing http://www.spacepolitics.com/2006/02/12/tpf-and-europa-orbiter-a-tale-of-two-unfunded-missions/#comment-6872 Tue, 14 Feb 2006 00:11:28 +0000 http://www.districtofbaseball.com/spacepolitics/?p=839#comment-6872 Name calling is always soooo productive Joe.

]]> By: Joe Smith http://www.spacepolitics.com/2006/02/12/tpf-and-europa-orbiter-a-tale-of-two-unfunded-missions/#comment-6871 Mon, 13 Feb 2006 21:24:55 +0000 http://www.districtofbaseball.com/spacepolitics/?p=839#comment-6871 Are you going to elaborate on your comments, Keith? Simply telling someone they’re wrong isn’t very enlightening. It’s actually kind of juvenile.

]]> By: Cecil Trotter http://www.spacepolitics.com/2006/02/12/tpf-and-europa-orbiter-a-tale-of-two-unfunded-missions/#comment-6870 Mon, 13 Feb 2006 16:39:55 +0000 http://www.districtofbaseball.com/spacepolitics/?p=839#comment-6870 NASA is not abandoning science, as the arm wavers would have us believe, NASA is setting priorities. That is something past NASA administrators knew not how to do. “Abandoning” and the like are just a buzzwords used to stir up emotions.

]]> By: Keith Cowing http://www.spacepolitics.com/2006/02/12/tpf-and-europa-orbiter-a-tale-of-two-unfunded-missions/#comment-6869 Mon, 13 Feb 2006 14:41:28 +0000 http://www.districtofbaseball.com/spacepolitics/?p=839#comment-6869 Once again, you are clearly not paying attention to the budget Jeff.

]]> By: Jeff Foust http://www.spacepolitics.com/2006/02/12/tpf-and-europa-orbiter-a-tale-of-two-unfunded-missions/#comment-6868 Mon, 13 Feb 2006 11:43:23 +0000 http://www.districtofbaseball.com/spacepolitics/?p=839#comment-6868 You clearly have not been paying attention to the budget Jeff.

Mr. Cowing is, of course, welcome to that opinion, just as I am welcome to disagree with his assessment.

You are also totally out of step with the prevailing view in the space science community.

Even if that is the case (and I’m not sure it is, based on some feedback that I’ve received), I still stand by the argument that the delay in TPF is less a worry than the lack of a new start for a Europa orbiter. In any case, it’s my understanding that the biggest immediate concern for space scientists is neither Europa nor TPF but rather the fate of two existing programs (Dawn and SOFIA) that are currently under review.

]]> By: Keith Cowing http://www.spacepolitics.com/2006/02/12/tpf-and-europa-orbiter-a-tale-of-two-unfunded-missions/#comment-6867 Sun, 12 Feb 2006 22:41:16 +0000 http://www.districtofbaseball.com/spacepolitics/?p=839#comment-6867 “The temptation here is to lump a Europa orbiter (hereafter simply “EO”) and TPF together as signs that NASA and/or the administration is somehow abandoning science. That argument, though, seems a little simplistic.”

You clearly have not been paying attention to the budget Jeff. You are also totally out of step with the prevailing view in the space science community.

]]> By: Anthony Kendall http://www.spacepolitics.com/2006/02/12/tpf-and-europa-orbiter-a-tale-of-two-unfunded-missions/#comment-6866 Sun, 12 Feb 2006 20:39:36 +0000 http://www.districtofbaseball.com/spacepolitics/?p=839#comment-6866 Good point about the prioritization of the Europa Orbiter from NASA’s point of view. I definitely agree that it’s higher priority than the TPF missions. But in terms of scientific return, TPF seems higher priority to me. Literally just a few minutes ago I wrote a blog entry arguing that TPF should be taken over by a consortium of university and private organizations and managed much as the Space Telescope Science Institute manages Hubble. Scientists have demonstrated that they can lobby Congress pretty effectively, so it may be time to remove near-Earth missions from NASA.

We don’t need NASA to operate assets in Earth orbit or Lagrange points anymore. Private companies have demonstrated their ability to profitably operate space assets for decades. NASA’s operation of the EO mission is a more natural fit for the agency’s goals and mission anyway (or at least what I think it’s goals and mission ought to be).

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