“The expansion of human knowledge of the Earth and of phenomena in the atmosphere and space”

See Section 102(d)(1) at this link:

http://www.nasa.gov/offices/ogc/about/space_act1.html#POLICY

We may agree or disagree about the place of Earth science in NASA’s portfolio, but we first have to deal with the reality that it has been legally enshrined as one of NASA purposes since NASA’s creation.

Ed: “Climate research is neither Aeronautics nor Space, and should therefore be cut entirely out of NASA’s budget. Maybe the NOAA will fund him, maybe not.”

Climate research is often (usually?) done using satellite data (mixed with in-situ data, which has its own advantages including going back before satellites were built). As such it’s clearly within NASA’s responsibilities. NOAA is responsible for operational ocean and atmosphere work. I’m sure there’s an overlap.

I’m not sure what you’re proposing here. Take NASA’s Earth observation mission out of NASA with the associated funds, and give it to NOAA? How is that going to help NASA? It will remove one of the NASA areas that the general public can easily see is directed to Earth-based problems and benefits (which, not being generally space-obsessed, is what they naturally tend to want), leaving the rest of NASA that much more vulnerable. It will take away NASA funding. It will give NASA a huge management problem to accomplish the transition. It will separate NASA’s science programs to other planets that do work that’s relevant to studying Earth in a comparative sense. The satellites, instruments, ground systems, and launch vehicles associated with those planetary missions also have commonalities with the Earth observation satellites, and it will be more difficult to take advantage of those commonalities if the EO area is separated from NASA.

Or, are you suggesting separating the EO NASA area without giving the corresponding funds to NOAA? There’s no way NOAA would be able to take on the mission with the funding they have, so it would be dropped. NOAA is having a lot of problems with what’s on their plate already (eg: part of NPOESS). Causing Earth observation research to be dropped would be really bad prioritization, and politically unwise as well (eg: consider Maryland in Congress). Meanwhile, what would happen at NASA with the budget windfall? Let me guess … we could pump it into the government space launch and transportation business, where it would vanish without a trace.

Before doing this, I’d suggest removing the NASA large rocket development and human transportation operations areas from NASA. This would be good whether or not the budget followed. If the budget stayed in NASA after the transition period, a lot of good science missions, commercial launch purchases, and space infrastructure technology development could be done. If the budget followed the new organization, at least the rest of NASA would be shielded from raids by the “800 pound gorilla”.

Based on what, is exploration without science BS? If we look at it from a strictly definition based system, science appears no where in the definition of exploration. You try and make that claim at an artist guild meeting, I gurantee you will get run out. Exploration is only about learning something new – science is a part of exploration, but its not the end all.

As for science being the bellweather of technology and new products – of course it is – I don’t claim otherwise. But that doesn’t discount other areas of exploration.

Finally, there are various things not related to science of which space is being used for – GPS, communication satellites, and so forth. Give it a few more years, and we’ll be seeing the rise of serious off-planet tourism (and we’ve already started seeing that as well). And within a decade or two, we’ll see large scale development happen.

” An exploration agency (whatever the hell that is, since exploration isn’t just science)”

Exploration can take many forms, like artwork, business development, personal meditation. Science is just one aspect of exploration. Let me pose a suggestion – lets offer to fly an artist to the moon, to paint whatever he/she wants – the only requirement is that whatever is painted, it must be inspired by being on the moon. Well, I gurantee you that there would be many people complaining about how “it isn’t producing any scientific data.” Of course, its not suppose to – again, this is exploration, not just science. And its not suppose to – they are each doing different things, each of which is important to the human existance. Thats why, as I said, I don’t like the term exploration – anyone can appropriate it, for any damn thing, and it can end up meaning nothing, and nothing happens. Perhaps if scientists would agree that not all exploration is science, then I might not have so much of an issue with using exploration, but I doubt it.

Which brings me to my next point, regarding Nasa’s mission – you’ve completely ignored the point about Nasa being an agency devoted to colonization. Colonization has much more clearly defined parameters, some of which will conflict with running science missions. That being the case, that would push them into another department, IMHO.

Spaceflight and space colonization can be done at a cost-effective, and relatively safe manner, now. Not in centuries, but right here and now. Doing something like a 50-person moonbase, or cycler missions to Mars, won’t work with something like the current ESAS plan, but thats not the only game in town. If nasa were to really embrace off-planet plans, and the developments happening within the private sector, I gurantee you things woudl look a lot different (and there would be plenty of money for science). Groups like Armadillo, SpaceX, Masten, Bigelow, Xcor – that will vastly change how we view spaceflight, and space colonization.

Further, I would argue, that if we want to sustain our standard of living, the only option is to utilize off-planet resources. Things like solar power, lunar mining, space manufacturing, and possibly even asteroid mining are very close.

As far as trying to race the Chinease, or anyone else for that matter – frankly, that tends to push things into stupid directions, because it puts it at the whim of the politicain. Whats much better is when the society is immersed in it, and business and society can’t afford not to be involved in an activity (much like we saw with the development of the internet). That is why I’ve gotten excited about whats happening in the private spaceflight arena, and could care less about Orion, or Constellation, or CSTS, or Shenzhou – all of those follow the old model, of being super expensive, and requiring a state actor to want to continue flying. The sooner we realize that we don’t need “The entire backing of the government”, the better off we’ll be.

After all, just look at the Commerce Department, which includes, er, NOAA, which not only conducts oceans science, but operates weather satellites…

You’d lose on your statement. Most government agencies conduct multiple missions. And besides, there are very few people who would agree with your claim that space science and space exploration are so far removed that they belong in different agencies. When NASA was created, the political concensus as that these things are closely related. You have not made much of an argument that they are not, so an abstract desire for bureaucratic tidiness doesn’t hold up very well.