Since when is “geology” automatically a “dubiously small” amount of science? Since when is geology automatically less important than other sciences? Why is gaining tiny bits of information looking at distant objects with receivers of what little electromagnetic information manages to get through both the galaxy’s dust lanes and Earth’s atmosphere somehow better science than actually going someplace and doing experiments and taking samples?

— Donald

Yes, there are hundreds of billions wasted in other programs building non-working superweapons and bridges-to-nowhere and whatnot that could be trimmed. That wasn’t what this congressman was proposing though. What he explicitly stated was that keeping a few hundred of his ATK buddies in a job (instead of using the much cheaper commercial alternatives) was much more important than saving millions of lives from malaria and HIV.

If it came down to a binary decision of building this ludicrous ARES I/V series of rockets to place flags and footprints and perform dubiously small amounts of lunar science, (I suspect mostly geology), or spending that same $108B through 2018 on wiping out malaria, gastroenteritis, rotovirus, tuberculosis and HIV, that descision should be simple.

That claim is not supported by facts. The National Science Foundation produces many more breakthrough papers than NASA does, for less money.

That will continue to be true as long as sending a researcher or experiment into space remains costs thousands of dollars per pound.

> As well as science, politicians think about how people feel about a country, how would American’s feel
> when they are left behind or no longer on the cutting edge of what could be considered one of the most
> endearing of engineering projects, Space Exploration.

The American people have *always* behind left behind, Hat. We were left behind when NASA went into orbit, we were left behind when NASA went to the Moon, and we will be left behind when NASA returns to the Moon. Mike Griffin could have elected to use commercial transportation to return to the Moon, which would have helped reduce transportation costs and helped make it possible for the rest of us to go. Instead, he chose to develop new rockets that will increase the cost of space transportation and make it harder for anyone (including NASA’s own astronauts) to go.

> Countries like China and India who spend nothing compared to us in USA find it important to take a small
> sliver of their national pie to have a space program, why do we so easily overlook such a program as ours?

Because we aren’t a Communist dictatorship like China. We don’t have “a” space program; we have many space programs. NASA is only one. In the next few years, America’s private-sector space programs will dramatically increase the number of Americans who go into space. At the same time, under its current plans, NASA will be sending fewer astronauts into space than it did in the past. The “small sliver” you talk about is, in fact, a huge sum. Far more than what’s spent by India, which is actively working on reusable launch vehicles while NASA is trying to recreate 40-year-old space capsules. They are making progress while NASA simply repeats the past.

Good points. If you look at page SAE ESMD 3-5 in NASA’s 2007 budget request here:

http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/142458main_FY07_budget_full.pdf

It appears that NASA did request $10 million for prizes in 2007. If Griffin does nothing, there should be a new round of prizes totalling $10 million starting this year.

However, I don’t think Griffin and his budgeteers will sit on their hands on this one. Because this $10 million is within the exploration budget, I imagine Griffin (or Horowitz) will apply it to the $500 million hole in Constellation to make up for some small fraction of the Ares I/Orion slip. Although the prize program has been moved out of exploration to technology partnerships, I doubt the money will follow.

Moreover, if you look at the changes from the 2006 request on that same page, Griffin cut $15 million from prizes in the 2007 request and $24 million from the 2006 request. (I think another $10 million was cut in 2006 by Congress, zeroing the program out for that year.) That’s $39 million worth of prior cuts to prizes, a strong indication that Griffin’s budget actions on prizes have not met his early rhetoric. I don’t see that pattern changing now that his current budget situation is so much tougher.

But we’ll see… hope springs eternal.

The difference is, in past years, Griffin could do that without anyone noticing. Fanboys would just say, “NASA wanted to do prizes, but Congress wouldn’t fund them.” This year, the budget is not specified in that level of detail, so the choice is entirely up to Griffin. It’s a pure litmus test.

Yeah, fuck the tens of millions of children in Africa dying of entirely preventable diseases that can be treated for less than $15 a year. We should be spending that money on worthy causes!

Mike knows better than this but still his ego drives him toward the cliff.

http://chairforceengineer.blogspot.com/2007/01/narrowing-launch-window.html

Used to be in the exploration budget. Now it’s in the technology partnerships budget.

It’s a moot question as Griffin has failed to either secure or ask for more prize funding in every year since taking office. Despite some great talk from him about prizes early on, he’s letting the program wither on the vine. There will probably be no new prizes until there is another new Administrator (and even that will depend on who that new Administrator’s priorities).