An article published on the The New York Times web site today (and presumably to appear in Thursday’s print edition) looks again at the proposed cuts in NASA’s science programs. Buried in the article, amidst comments by concerned astronomers, is this little tidbit: “Senator Pete Domenici, Republican of New Mexico, and 56 other senators have introduced a bill to mandate a 10 percent increase per year in NASA’s science budget from now through 2013.”
It turns out this is a reference to S.2198, the “Protecting America’s Competitive Edge Through Education and Research Act of 2006″. This bill was introduced by Sen. Domenici on January 26 and actually has 57 cosponsors now, according to Thomas. The bill is primarily focused on math and science education issues, including recruiting more teachers in those subjects, providing research grants, and other aspects of science research policy. And, indeed, there is a provision for increasing the amount of funding authorized for science research at NASA, from $2.768 billion in FY07 to $4.903 billion in FY13. But note that key word there: authorization. This isn’t an appropriations bill, so it can only authorize funding for this and other research programs. Remember the difference between what Congress authorized for NASA in FY07 versus what the Administration offered in its budget proposal.
Remind us Jeff. We forget and are daunted by the length of the links.
The key point is that the cuts are real. Punish success, reward failure.
I would not be opposed to this increase for science if it were new money, or taken from the Shuttle, and did not come out of the Constellation project or the Space Station.
Greg: The key point is that the cuts are real. Maybe true (though a cut to one percent growth is a minor cut). However, spending almost a third of NASA’s budget on science is enough, and scientists were insane to believe they could get nine percent growth in this financial environment and with other priorities. If the United States is not to abandon human spaceflight completely — and that is not in the political cards whatever its supposed scientific justification — Constellation is probably the cheapest way to go forward. Scientists should probably be grateful the news wasn’t worse.
— Donald
Donald: Entirely apart from the merits of human spaceflight, I think that you just don’t realize the low prospects for both the space station and the CEV, as well as the space shuttle.
Let’s just accept, for the moment, that human spaceflight is an important national objective. Not because I believe it, but just so we don’t keep arguing that point. Even so, the space station isn’t the “market” that you want it to be. It’s an unfinished and unfinishable construction site. It’s like the Bay Bridge fiasco that you can see every day, except worse. The CEV, meanwhile, only exists on paper. It’s a cross between desperation and cynicism. It is as ripe for cancellation as every other Next Big Thing that NASA has cancelled.
I’m not sure why you haven’t taken the disingenuousness of this administration to heart. Look what happened after this year’sState of the Union address. Bush’s big theme was energy independence. So he goes and visits the National Renewable Energy Lab, which had just been served with a $28 million budget cut. He says, golly, our signals are mixed. They scrambled to restore funding, except that it was only $5 million of what was cut.
Now maybe NREL deserves its budget cut. Maybe it should be eliminated outright. But why did Bush hype what his administration is cutting? Yet it is also typical. The funding story for NASA is different from the one for NREL, but the principle is the same. You should keep your mind open to the theory that when Bush offers a vision of space exploration, he actually couldn’t care less whether NASA accomplishes anything.
Greg, I agree with your poor opinion of the Administration and its actions. However, I still disagree with you about the rest. Sure, I do believe that the top level of the Administration doesn’t give a damn about spaceflight, human or otherwise, except in as much as it has military or political utility. But, I do believe that there are many in the lower tiers who do honestly believe in the VSE and are fighting to make it happen. The NASA Administrator, my reservations about his stretegy aside, is probably one of those people.
Even if you are entirely correct, that doesn’t change the fact (or my opinion) that something like the VSE is the only politically viable way forward, for any Administration. I can support the VSE as the correct way to move beyond the Shuttle without supporting the Administration that proposed it.
Regarding the Space Station, sure the Bay Bridge is a good model (except that the Bay Bridge is not a destination). However, the bridge is likely to be completed, albit very late and way over budget. Likewise, the Space Station is likely to be completed in some form, or used as is, and will thus be a potential market no matter what happens.
Your “solution” creates no market, and therefore no way forward.
— Donald
I do believe that there are many in the lower tiers who do honestly believe in the VSE and are fighting to make it happen.
Given the polymorphic nature of the VSE, the depth and nature of belief in it within NASA needs fleshing out. Who believes in the CEV specifically, and what exactly do they believe about it? I agree with you about Griffin, but enthusiasm from one guy at the top is not enough.
Enthusiasm from astronauts is also not enough. They aren’t building the vehicle.
Likewise, the Space Station is likely to be completed in some form, or used as is, and will thus be a potential market no matter what happens.
Unlike the Bay Bridge, the space station may well be delayed until it falls into the water. That’s the worst-case scenario that ought to be on your mind.
No, Greg, the worst case scenario is that we give up on human spaceflight, to concentrate on robots or for any other reason. That guarantees that humanity will not have a future, probably at all, and certainly not one worth getting excited about. Even if you are right and human spaceflight is entirely “impractical,” we have to try. It is experience, even failure after reaching too high; experiences communicated to those who stay at home, that inform and renew human societies. Experience gives them the flexibility to survive change.
Real experience can never be obtained third-hand.
— Donald
No, Greg, the worst case scenario is that we give up on human spaceflight, to concentrate on robots or for any other reason
Similar thinking led to space fans supporting NASA’s egregious waste of the last three decades. It’s so easy to support spending money propping up your fantasies when it isn’t your own money.
The same could be said of space science, Paul. How many expeditions, say, to Antarctica would the money spent proving that, at some unknown date in the past, there probably were standing pools of water on Mars? How many laboratory scientists would be supported by the money “wasted” mapping Saturns moons? One man’s waste is another man’s bacon.
If we can survive without human traverses across the lunar landscape, than we can survive just as easily without robot traverses across the Martian landscape. You can’t have it both ways.
— Donald
Also, Paul, neither Greg nor (I believe) are you spending your own money. Most institutional science is on the public dole. It is very easy to call other peoples’ kettle’s black, but it might be a good idea to check out the color of your own.
— Donald
Just a thought…
Can members of the various scientific fields (Colleges, Universities and even private enterprise)partner with NASA on funding the projects they deem most important? I know that organizing scientists can sometimes seem like herding cats but it could be a way to continue these important projects.
The same could be said of space science, Paul.
Space science should be done if the results are worthwhile. Very clearly, the shuttle was not worthwhile, and honest assessments would have concluded it wasn’t going to be worthwhile even early on. Ditto for ISS.
Space fans such as yourself excuse NASA of anything. You shouldn’t be surprised when this unconditional support has been taken advantage of. Entitlement programs do that. Only when NASA and its bureaucrats are faced with the real possibility of having to switch to careers in the food service industry will they have incentive to clean house. The real possibility that manned spaceflight, and their careers, will be terminated has to be emphasized and held over their heads like a sword or we’re going to see more of the institutional dishonesty that has characterized NASA’s manned space efforts for a generation.
Space science should be done if the results are worthwhile.
Was it worthwhile to spend well over $1 billion finding out that there probably was standing water on Mars at some point in the past?
Contrast that with the results of placing geologists on Earth’s moon for a few weeks or months with a good tool set. If there is any truth to the cost estimates for the VSE (and I fully admit that this is by far the weakest card in my argument!) a single human expedition to Earth’s moon will cost only about twice what the Mars Exploration Rovers have cost. Which will give us more science?
But, you say, that ignores the cost of developing the VSE. True, I say, but if you want to include that, than you have to include in the Mars Rovers’ budget all the money spent over the decades developing and upgrading the Delta and proving interplanetary automated spaceflight.
Scientists are trying to compare current operations costs for automated missions with the total costs including development of the VSE. That is not a valid comparison. While it is hard to do that today, a valid comparison will be the operations cost of each.
If it is true that an operation VSE flight to the moon will cost only twice (or four times, or even ten times) what an automated Mars mission costs (and those aren’t getting any cheaper, either), than you clearly get far more science per unit dollar with the former.
Likewise, check out the cost estimates for the lunar precursor missions. Automated lunar missions are not all that cheap, either.
Finally, as I argued in a later thread, I am not opposed to curtailing human spaceflight to keep some of the science budget — as long as its not the VSE or Space Station. Take the money out of the Shuttle, not future capability.
— Donald
Can members of the various scientific fields (Colleges, Universities and even private enterprise)partner with NASA on funding the projects they deem most important?
No, they want the taxpayers to pay for it.
No, Greg, the worst case scenario is that we give up on human spaceflight, to concentrate on robots or for any other reason.
Who is this “we”?
We are not necessarily giving up on human spaceflight if WE criticize NASA’s current plans.
Your vague use of the collective “we” is a rhetorical scare tactic.
… That guarantees that humanity will not have a future, probably at all, and certainly not one worth getting excited about.
Oh, scary, fright, horror, despair.