After reading the opening statements from yesterday’s hearing mentioned in a previous post, you’d think that science committee members were very upset about the planned cutbacks in NASA science programs. And indeed, some members expressed their concern about cuts, either in general or in specific programs of interest (aeronautics, SOFIA, etc.) Yet, later in the hearing, after Griffin said that “we’re not slashing science to the bone”, chairman Sherwood Boehlert said:
We’re conditioned as people to accept the argument that we’re slashing away at some program when in fact we’re slowing the rate of growth… Washington is the only town in the world where if you ask for a $73 raise and you get a $70 raise, you say, “You’ve slashed away at my potential income.”
However, one thing to keep in mind is that the overall increase in science programs, about one percent, is not enough to keep up with inflation, so that one can argue that NASA is “slashing” (or, yes, “eviscerating”) science, even if in aggregate it’s just a scratch.
Also, some of the news accounts, such as the New York Times and the Washington Post, focused more on the still-brewing public affairs controversy than the specifics of the budget. On the other hand, Florida Today, the Houston Chronicle, and SPACE.com did put more of an emphasis on the budget, the primary purpose of the hearing.
The Springer scientific journal Earth, Moon, and Planets has published a special issue on the scientific justifications for human spaceflight. They’ve made the introductory editorial freely available. Springer is a German publisher of a wide range of scientific and popular spaceflight books and journals.
— Donald
I cannot find the introductory editorial. Where is it?
In fact, I cannot seem to find the current issue on that site.
Apparently, these dynamic links don’t work very well. I’ve found they work sometimes, and other times they send you back to the home page. First, I’d try the links more than once. If that doesn’t work, I found that typing “Scientific Case for Human Exploration” in the search field and selecting “Articles” would get me to the first piece. You can find the others from there.
— Donald
One of my co-workers managed to find it and we have a subscription, so we can capture all of the articles. Thanks for the tip. This is most useful for our work.
Certainly! — Donald
“However, one thing to keep in mind is that the overall increase in science programs, about one percent, is not enough to keep up with inflation, so that one can argue that NASA is “slashing” ”
This is a crock. It’s not only that “slashing” is an absurdly exaggerated adjective to describe this situation, but given the current inflation rate of about 2% productivity increases alone will easily compensate for any difference. Once again it’s the language of pure politics.