Congress, NASA

Human spaceflight versus Earth sciences?

A letter signed by several members of Congress is the latest evidence that a new battle line is forming over NASA funding: human spaceflight versus Earth sciences. In a letter to House Appropriations committee chairman Rep. Hal Rogers and CJS subcommittee chairman Frank Wolf, six Republican members of Congress asked the appropriators to prioritize NASA funding on what they consider to be the agency’s primary mission, human spaceflight. To do that, they argue that funding for NASA’s climate change research be redirected to human spaceflight accounts. “With your help, we can reorient NASA’s mission back toward human spaceflight by reducing funding for climate change research and reallocating those funds to NASA’s human spaceflight accounts, all while moving overall discretionary spending towards FY2008 levels,” the letter’s authors—Reps. Bill Posey (R-FL), Pete Olson (R-TX), Rob Bishop (R-UT), Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), Sandy Adams (R-FL), and Mo Brooks (R-AL)—argue.

There are a number of issues with the letter. They claim that NASA spent “over a billion dollars” on “studying global warming/climate change” in FY2010. The agency got about $1.4 billion for all Earth sciences research in FY10, according to agency budget documents. There’s no breakout for how much of that went specifically to climate change research, though. The letter also claims that the “lion share” of NASA’s share of stimulus funding went to climate change studies. In fact, only about a third of the agency’s stimulus funding, $325 million, went to Earth sciences programs, to accelerate development of Earth science spacecraft. Human spaceflight got even more: $400 million, including $50 million for the CCDev program. And their claim that NASA’s core mission is human spaceflight is not supported by other documents, ranging from the National Aeronautics and Space Act from 1958 to the latest NASA authorization act, which declared that NASA “is and should remain a multi-mission agency with a balanced and robust set of core missions in science, aeronautics, and human space flight and exploration” and that “NASA plays a critical role through its ability to provide data on solar output, sea level rise, atmospheric and ocean temperature, ozone depletion, air pollution, and observation of human and environment relationships”.

A bigger issue, though, is that this letter may be indicative of a bigger battle some in Congress want to wage between human spaceflight and Earth science. Some members have openly expressed their skepticism about the validity of climate change research, questioning either the existence of global warming or the role of human activities in causing climate change. The letter to appropriators makes no judgment on the quality of validity of such research, only NASA’s role in supporting it, but some might see that unspoken argument there. For example, one of the letter’s signers, Rep. Brooks, said last week in regards to NASA funding that there would be “hearings soon on global warming” by the House science committee without going into more details. An attack on Earth sciences funding to support human spaceflight could create or reinvigorate opponents of human spaceflight programs, reminiscent of previous debates between human spaceflight and robotic space exploration advocates—a battle that the agency presumably would want to avoid.

59 comments to Human spaceflight versus Earth sciences?

  • NASA Fan

    This would not be the first time Earth Science at NASA has come under attack from the republicans.

    Humanity would be better served by ending government HSF programs, simply allowing free market forces to venture into HSF endeavors, and shifting the NASA HSF monies to Earth Science.

    Even if you don’t believe in global warming, spending $ in that direction to answer the question is money well spent.

  • One has to wonder about the timing of the USA (“commercial” shuttle) and the ATK/Astrium (“commercial” corn-dog) announcements along with these HSF/Earth Science meetings.

    Will a real competition ensue between USA, ATK/Astrium, ULA, OSC, SNC and SpaceX? Where will the limited (and possibly reduced) SLS and or the CCDev2 monies go to?

    I smell several rats amongst the pork-rinds.

  • amightywind

    “With your help, we can reorient NASA’s mission back toward human spaceflight by reducing funding for climate change research and reallocating those funds to NASA’s human spaceflight accounts,

    I alone have been predicting this on this forum for over a year. It is an obvious consequence of declining budgets. NASA has no business funding hippy camp outs in Artarctica. NASA’s mission must be HSF first, followed by space science, period. Let NOAA fund atmospheric research and let the USGS and NSF fund geosciences.

    Some members have openly expressed their skepticism about the validity of climate change research…

    By politicizing the issue global warming hysterics have signed their own professional death warrant. I am not sympathetic. (It was -12F on my drive in this morning.)

  • Mark R. Whittington

    It should be noted that the House has also gotten a letter from fifty climate scientists who are global warming skeptics that will likely also be used to help defund climate change research.

  • I’d written a blog this morning on the Posey-Adams letter, but Jeff as always nails it far better than I can.

  • Coastal Ron

    amightywind wrote @ February 9th, 2011 at 8:15 am

    It was -12F on my drive in this morning.

    So based on your logic, all the worlds weather is the same as what you are experiencing. Great, we’ll move the National Hurricane Center to your home town, and replace their satellites with lookouts on water towers. It will save money, and (obviously) improve their forecasts. You are BRILLIANT!

  • Coastal Ron

    Some members have openly expressed their skepticism about the validity of climate change research, questioning either the existence of global warming or the role of human activities in causing climate change.

    I haven’t quite figured out why there continues to be such a strong undercurrent of anti-science bias in the more conservative members of the Republican party.

    It seems to be a confluence of home-schooling, “leave me alone” type feelings, and general anti-government attitudes, but it ignores the mission of science, which is to understand, versus the role of government which is to act. It’s one thing if they don’t want to act on environmental trends, but it’s another to be willfully ignorant.

    I guess those members of Congress would rather not know if Dallas-Fort Worth government should be budgeting for future snow plowing, or how much taxable land will be lost along Florida coastlines, or how much additional taxable revenue Alaska will get because their growing season has increased from 85 days 100 years ago to 123 days today (and it’s getting drier too).

    So science is not just for discovering and reporting facts, it’s also needed to understand the world around us, and what it will mean to us today, tomorrow and in the future. For government, that is especially important because “We The People” have charged government with making sure we’re aware & prepared, and you can’t do that if you are willfully ignorant.

    My $0.02

  • Aremis Asling

    “I alone have been predicting this on this forum for over a year.”

    Don’t get too big of a head about it. You haven’t been the only one predicting that. Science missions, be they Earth-oriented, solar system probes, or telescopes, always take the biggest hit when the red ink comes out. I haven’t been predicting it because it’s practically a foregone conclusion and barely worth mentioning.

    That said, Earth science is negligable compared to the HSF budget. And as with everything else, I’m sure there are some worthwile projects in there that make sense as NASA projects. Even so, you could cut the whole Earth Sciences budget out and still hardly make any kind of substantive difference.

    “Let NOAA fund atmospheric research and let the USGS and NSF fund geosciences.”

    I actually largely agree with you here, though not all of the projects (space weather, magnetic field studies, etc) that are usually lumped into Earth Science are strictly so. And a scant few fall into your ‘hippy camp out’ territory.

    “It was -12F on my drive in this morning.”

    Yes, but 20 years ago it would have been -20. As it is, my home state of Wisconsin has set record highs several times a month every year I’ve paid attention to it, but has set almost no record lows in the past 30 years. It’s not a static measurement, it’s a change rate. Believe me, after two months in mostly single digits I’m ready for some record highs. But while it’s comfortable, it’s still unsettling that I’ve rarely seen anything below -20 since I was in high school. That used to be a yearly occurence. Rain in January here in ‘da great white nort’ is particularly bizarre, but is becoming almost an annual thing.

    And snow as a counter-argument is actually even less logical. Most snow falls when a front comes through, which is nearly universally warmer. So I find it particularly annoying, though perhaps a bit sadly comical, when someone says ‘I shoveled X inches of global warming this morning.’ It proves exactly nothing.

  • byeman

    “NASA’s mission must be HSF first, followed by space science, period.”

    Wrong, HSF is not NASA’s first mission. Atmospheric research is just as important and is higher in NASA’s charter.

    NOAA does fund atmospheric research, but it is NASA that puts NOAA instruments on spacecraft and launches them

  • Doug Lassiter

    “NASA has no business funding hippy camp outs in Artarctica.”

    On the other hand, I guess it has to fund hippie campouts in LEO. I mean, gee, look at the hair on those folks!

    NASA’s mission is defined by the Space Act, and human space flight is not first priority. At least be sensible and suggest that HSF *should* be the first priority for the agency, and to the extent that it should be, Congress should work on amending the Space Act. To the extent that atmospheric and geoscience research can best be done on the ground, sure, let NOAA and USGS do it. But to the extent one can best do that work from space, relying on technologies and industry connections that NASA understands best, it’s silly and certainly inefficient to impose those responsibilities on NOAA and USGS.

    Glad to hear it was only -12F in your driveway this morning. Think what it might have been without global warming! Brrr. We had a record number of days over 100F this summer. But of course your driveway and my backyard don’t represent the globe very well. What we really need to be able to do is look at the whole globe. Gosh, what agency is able to do that?

    A battle between human space flight and Earth Science would be unfortunate. It is one that human space flight will lose. Go to the public and ask them which work brings the bacon back to them best. Natural hazard warnings, informed decisions about crop management, better understanding of the Earth’s ecosystem. The legs human space flight has to stand on aren’t anywhere near as sturdy as those. I wish they were.

  • If we choose to be bad stewards of this planet by denying ourselves the understanding of the processes that are slowly making this Earth uninhabitable then by what merit do we pursue Human Space Flight?

  • common sense

    @ amightywind wrote @ February 9th, 2011 at 8:15 am

    “(It was -12F on my drive in this morning.)”

    So what are you saying? That you are a scientific illiterate clown? Are you confirming you don’t know what you are talking about?

    If people who deny any form of “global warming” have the same basis for scientific observation, then there is no wonder they don’t believe there is any. One thing is really, really hurting today in the US and it is education. No matter how much it’s being derided by some. EDUCATION.

    And it’s funny that education is really poor in the US and it is in the US that most people don’t “believe” in global warming.

    Oh well…

  • Reps. Bill Posey (R-KSC), Pete Olson (R-JSC), Rob Bishop (R-ATK), Jason Chaffetz (R-ATK), Sandy Adams (R-KSC), and Mo Brooks (R-MSFC)

  • NASA should not be tasked with investigating Toyotas, mineshaft disasters, or climate research (which is important, because there still are many open questioned). It’s missions should be unmanned space science and manned exploration, along with aeronautical research.
    If they want to fund climate research, it should be throught NSF and NOAA, not NASA.

  • common sense

    @ Nelson Bridwell wrote @ February 9th, 2011 at 12:13 pm

    They “should” not. They MUST. Yet AGAIN:

    From the NASA Act of 1958 sec 102(d):

    The aeronautical and space activities of the United States shall be conducted so as to contribute materially to one or more of the following objectives:

    (1) The expansion of human knowledge of the Earth and of phenomena in the atmosphere and space; … (3) The development and operation of vehicles capable of carrying instruments, equipment, supplies, and living organisms through space”

  • @ rich kolker wrote @ February 9th, 2011 at 12:07 pm

    Bingo.

  • amightywind

    So based on your logic, all the worlds weather is the same as what you are experiencing.

    If I were a climate scientist making grotesque claims, like Jim Hansen, and had the political ambition to restrain the economic activity and freedom of 300 million Americans, I would be sure I backcasted my models on all available data to be certain they were accurate. They haven’t done this, of course. Peddling hysteria is more lucrative. Climate Gate is the revealed the greatest scientific fraud of all time. NASA has no business perpetuating the con.

  • amightywind

    common sense wrote:

    One thing is really, really hurting today in the US and it is education. No matter how much it’s being derided by some. EDUCATION.

    John Holdren said as much recently. Education is not the problem. It is the credibility of those trying to do the educating.

  • Gary Anderson

    @Coastal Ron:

    As I’ve stated a few times in the past, I’m a non-tech Republican, space groupie. I’ve toiled in Conservative Republican politics since 1988. I can tell you with a straight face, its all about God vs no God. The more we learn about science the more the Christian right feels marginalized.

    If I have time, and I can find ‘a set’, I just might send a letter to each of these representatives, such as “From one Republican conservative to another, ‘Shut up’.” I am all for fiscal saneness, individual responsibility, and the like, but I am also bright enough to know our country is falling behind in technology because of well intentioned conservatives that haven’t ‘seen the real light’.

    Gary Anderson
    Worcester, MA

  • John Malkin

    common sense wrote @ February 9th, 2011 at 12:06 pm

    I agree Education is lacking in the US. There seems to be a pride in ignorance. Not everyone but it seems to have become part of our popular culture. In other countries people tend to have pride in their knowledge.

    This is why I don’t think popular opinion should rule the day and it’s important to have experts making the decisions. As far as I know science isn’t a belief.

    I’m not an expert on client change but I know it’s always changing and that one reason we don’t know for sure if there is global warming is the size of the data set. To determine if there is global warming, you need to collect more data. Scientest should determine global warming and engineers should design rockets, not congressmen.

    I try and learn something new everyday and I’m always increasing my knowledge. I know I don’t know everything and the more I learn the less I know because I learn what I don’t know.

  • It seems as though a lot of people develop an opinion on global warming based on scattered data, other’s opinions, and even which political party they subscribe to. There is one common agreement among scientists that there is for sure global warming – and global cooling, having occured periodically for thousands of years. The central question is whether man’s activities influence these processes, and how much. We just do not know the answer with any reasonable degree of confidence.

  • Doug Lassiter

    Mark R. Whittington wrote @ February 9th, 2011 at 8:52 am
    “It should be noted that the House has also gotten a letter from fifty climate scientists who are global warming skeptics that will likely also be used to help defund climate change research.”

    Untrue. VERY untrue.

    The letter from these people doesn’t identify themselves as “global warming skeptics”. In fact, the letter suggests that they agree with the assessment that global warming is happening. The purpose of their letter is to call into question what they call “alarmist” consequences of what they themselves refer to as “modest warming”. They don’t appear to be that skeptical about global warming.

    Their letter doesn’t really have anything to do with basic climate change research, so one would hope that no one would take the letter seriously as a reason not to fund that research. The question they bring up is about the ramifications of climate change.

    Also, where do you get “climate scientists”? Have you looked at what these folks do? Marketing, chemistry, engineering physics, condensed matter physics, geology, geochemistry, mechanical engineering, math, etc. etc. They’re smart folks, mostly scientists, but they are in no way “climate scientists”. Their view is of some interest, and should be taken seriously, but not as “climate scientists”. When you have cancer, are you going to get theraputive advice from an orthopedist? Um, sure, an orthopedist might have an interesting perspective on cancer, but I think I’d rather trust my treatment to an oncologist.

  • common sense

    @amightywind wrote @ February 9th, 2011 at 1:10 pm

    “If I were a climate scientist making grotesque claims, like Jim Hansen,”

    Do you have the credentials and background to criticize Jim Hansen? Are you a trained scientist? Ask these questions first. If not then as your usual self you are just proclaiming nonsense. If not then publish your results in peer-reviewed journals and make sure you advertise them.

    “Climate Gate is the revealed the greatest scientific fraud of all time. NASA has no business perpetuating the con.”

    Climate Gate only is a figment of your tired imagination.

    “John Holdren said as much recently. Education is not the problem. It is the credibility of those trying to do the educating.”

    I thought Holdren had no credibility with you and your cohort? How do you asses the credibility of those educating today? Based on your -12F observation it is clear that you are not equipped to criticize one ay or another.

  • Robert G. Oler

    amightywind wrote @ February 9th, 2011 at 8:15 am

    “By politicizing the issue global warming hysterics have signed their own professional death warrant. I am not sympathetic. (It was -12F on my drive in this morning.)”

    it doesnt take to many keystrokes to find on this forum and in other places where I am a skeptic of the somewhat “dramatic” claims made by those who are pushing the notion of severe climate change..

    But it is rejoinders like the one you give that really make it difficult for the folks who raise scientifically literate objections to the really extreme statements that some make…to cut through the noise you create.

    To be fair to people like Former VP Al Gore what is being pushed is not “global warming” but “climate change” brought about on a global scale by human interaction with the environment. The individual temperature of any one day plus or minus the accepted norm is irrelevant and scientifically stupid in the debate.

    What VP Gore and others are claiming is that we are reaching a tipping point where climate change will take on a life of its own due to the interaction of our technology with the global climate. These claims are substantiated only by trends not any real hard science data…and should be engaged on those merits.

    The irony of the points you raise is that most of the really goofy objections to the notions come from people who bought hook line and sinker the reasons for the Iraq war…which are in many ways similar to those raised by global climate change embracers. I was alive (grin) when people like Whittington (I dont know about you) were claiming not that Saddam just had WMD (and there was legitimate concern about that) but that he was actually going to attack the US with them…now of course the debate points change since none of that turned out to be accurate.

    I dont yet have a feel for the trends in terms of global climate…but in any event Individual daily temperatures are irrelevant to the discussion.

    Robert G. Oler

  • common sense

    @Gary Anderson wrote @ February 9th, 2011 at 1:30 pm

    “I can tell you with a straight face, its all about God vs no God. The more we learn about science the more the Christian right feels marginalized.”

    I agree that “climate change” has become the new – or is another face of – “evolution” fight among certain groups of people. What most don’t understand is that science is the quest for truth. It is a means to understanding “god”. The more we know about science and the more our prejudices about god are being erased.

    There is plenty of space for science and religion. Only the intellectually challenged or the opportunist will put these two in conflict.

  • Coastal Ron

    Gary Anderson wrote @ February 9th, 2011 at 1:30 pm

    The more we learn about science the more the Christian right feels marginalized.

    Which is unfortunate, because they are either forcing us to repeat the Galileo affair (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_affair), or even worse, making our future look like Idiocracy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiocracy).

    Luckily not all Republicans are anti-science, but since the Tea Party wing of the Republican party holds so much sway, it’s hard to be centrist or rational unless you’re not up for reelection.

  • common sense

    @ John Malkin wrote @ February 9th, 2011 at 1:32 pm

    “In other countries people tend to have pride in their knowledge.”

    In such other countries, most often, education is “free”. It is seen as a waste no to be educated. Here it is seen as an unaffordable investment.

    “This is why I don’t think popular opinion should rule the day and it’s important to have experts making the decisions.”

    Well it’s tough BUT popular opinion MUST be respected for us to be in a democracy. It ought to be our leaders job to actually lead and educate. It seems they are capable of neither though. Watch the movie “Idiocracy” and I think you might get scared.

    “As far as I know science isn’t a belief.”

    Well there is a lot of subtlety in that statement. There are a lot of beliefs in science. At the very least a lot of our science is based on postulate. For example there is only one straight line that goes through two points. It is based on empirical observation and pretty well reflects our perceived universe. But what if is wrong? Or not completely true…

    “I’m not an expert on client change but I know it’s always changing and that one reason we don’t know for sure if there is global warming is the size of the data set. To determine if there is global warming, you need to collect more data. Scientest should determine global warming and engineers should design rockets, not congressmen.”

    This is downright common sense ;) There are many other reasons associated with the inability to know. You could try and look up chaos theory and turbulence theory and you will see that the modeling is not, cannot be, deterministic.

    “I try and learn something new everyday and I’m always increasing my knowledge. I know I don’t know everything and the more I learn the less I know because I learn what I don’t know.”

    Which in essence the conduct of every good scientist. Keep it up!

  • G. Crane

    Politics aside, it is technically difficult to transfer the weather monitoring and related analysis NASA currently performs to other agencies without significant effort (satellite data communication and control, real time data processing – data is lost if not processed, the amount is in many cases too large to store, etc). Defunding climate research may mean, in this context, compromising assets rather than meaningful transfer of research.

  • VirgilSamms

    It is not and never has been HSF vs science- it is DOD vs HSF. The DOD sucks up all the money- vast treasure for useless overpriced cold war toys. And our space program has been a joke because of it. A simple truth no one will talk about. Just like no one will talk about the radiation problem in deep space which requires a very narrow path in design of spaceships. Climate change is a smoke screen- HSF vs science is a smokescreen. It is all about preserving the status quo of the defense industrial complex. Wake up.

  • Robert G. Oler

    dad2059 wrote @ February 9th, 2011 at 7:48 am

    “One has to wonder about the timing of the USA (“commercial” shuttle) and the ATK/Astrium (“commercial” corn-dog) announcements along with these HSF/Earth Science meetings.”

    yeap…nice post.

    There is reason to be suspicious here.

    It is far to early to make final judgments but what seems to be occurring is that the GOP Congress has no more clue then the Obama Presidency about how to tackle the federal deficit issue in a manner which is actually politically salable.

    What we are starting to see is the attempt to resuscitate old issues into new packages. That is the entire notion of the “Liberty” rocket and the USA commercial shuttle package both of which are technological as well as economic farces.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Robert G. Oler

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=2h_d6YVA1Kg

    There is some “exaggeration” in this (as all good sales pitches have) but it pretty much nails the situation.

    The era of human exploration of beyond GEO orbit is over, and I LOVE the irony that it is because of GOP economic and other policies that we can no longer afford it almost at any price, not the least of which is that we cannot afford it at bloated government prices.

    For a country (the US) that never had a national airline it is goofy to think that the model for human exploration of the solar system is a Soviet one.

    Whittington on his web site says that the video does not go into the real reasons for failure of Cx…the fact is that Whittington cannot accept the real reasons…GOP economic policies have bankrupted the country AND a GOP controlled NASA could make Cx work on 10 billion dollars.

    The nation can no longer afford projects full of sloth and waste…

    Robert G. Oler

  • amightywind

    What we are starting to see is the attempt to resuscitate old issues into new packages.

    Of course we are seeing old ideas reconstituted. There are only so many practical ways forward. The politics ebb and flow. Much as I hated it, I was impressed with the way Holdren and Garver hijacked the debate and discredited Constellation, a popular program up until that point. The problem was that there was no consensus for the new policy, much like Obamacare. So it was vulnerable to counterattack when the House flipped. Here we are – Obamaspace in isometric ideological struggle with Constellation, the ridiculous Senate compromise is the result.

  • G. Crane

    R.G. Oler just wait and see who lobbies for the ATK-EU Ares scam and then where the money goes. Remember, Sarkozy called Obama on the tanker deal, and now EADS is competing even if Northrop dropped out. It’s a free for all in this chaos.

  • DCSCA

    This battle has been going on for decades with Earth sciences crowd endlessly poor-mouthing. Was reviewing an old ABC News clip from 20 years ago and the Earth Sciences crowd was crying over budget cuts and failing Landsats while NASA kept the glamour missions of shuttle, Magellan and Galileo flush. Many nations have many space programs with many satellites for Earth sciences projects. Share the costs and share the wealth of data, boys.

  • E.P. Grondine

    Aside from dealing with and recovering paleo climate data, I am not a climate specialist. That said, extracting the mechanisms of the effects of solar variability and atmoshpeirc variation from that data is a non-trivial task, and it requires the use of space based instruments which NASA is uniquely suited to build, launch and operate. I can’t say much more than that on the global warming hypothesis.

    BUT…I do seem to remember that the reason it is so cold here in North America now is that there is unusually warm air at the North Pole, but beyond that I can’t comment.

    The ATK-Astrium announcement is an interesting turn in events.

    I wonder what the per unit cost for the resulting vehicle would be, and how it compares with the liquid fueled alternatives.

    I do note that ATK’s cost for development has suddenly fallen by an order of magnitude. It’s interesting what market competition will do.

    Does anyone know what the proposals for Ariane 6 look like now?

  • John Malkin

    @common sense wrote @ February 9th, 2011 at 2:57 pm

    Very nice responses.

    @the universe which is mostly just the Internet

    Politics remind me of the sun, if you look directly at it, it will blind you.

    Chaos theory and turbulence theory are very interesting and they help in building models for solar system creation and weather. Of course scientist need a variety of space observatories looking both outward and inward which is best done by NASA or a commercial entity.

    I love Quantum physics too.

    I agree our leaders must take popular opinion into consideration but they need to make the decision based on all the facts they can gather. I know there are a lot of things I have opinions about but know little therefore I know I don’t have the solution or have the time to figure it out so I defer to our leaders to determine the best path but I hope our leaders will listen to expert guidance instead of public opinion like how to build a spacecraft.

  • wodun

    John Malkin wrote @ February 9th, 2011 at 1:32 pm

    I’m not an expert on client change but I know it’s always changing and that one reason we don’t know for sure if there is global warming is the size of the data set. To determine if there is global warming, you need to collect more data. Scientest should determine global warming and engineers should design rockets, not congressmen.

    Doug Lassiter wrote @ February 9th, 2011 at 2:19 pm

    Also, where do you get “climate scientists”? Have you looked at what these folks do? Marketing, chemistry, engineering physics, condensed matter physics, geology, geochemistry, mechanical engineering, math, etc. etc. They’re smart folks, mostly scientists, but they are in no way “climate scientists”.

    Robert G. Oler wrote @ February 9th, 2011 at 2:46 pm

    To be fair to people like Former VP Al Gore what is being pushed is not “global warming” but “climate change” brought about on a global scale by human interaction with the environment. The individual temperature of any one day plus or minus the accepted norm is irrelevant and scientifically stupid in the debate.

    What VP Gore and others are claiming is that we are reaching a tipping point where climate change will take on a life of its own due to the interaction of our technology with the global climate. These claims are substantiated only by trends not any real hard science data…and should be engaged on those merits.

    All good points. Climate is in a state of flux and always has been, always will be. We don’t know as much about the climate as some people pretend to, which is why it is important to study it but in the absence of understanding it is also important not to fear monger with apocalyptic predictions.

    Global warming apocalypse plays on humans most primal fears about an uncertain future and the fickle whims of nature. It also gives false hope that humans can prevent nature from changing the Earth.

    The choice shouldn’t be either you buy in 100% with the global warming hysteria and the pseudo-scientific remedies for it or you want to destroy the world. It is possible to not like pollution (which is really what this is about) and also not buy into the green religion.

    Let’s not forget this is the same movement that said we should use plastic bags to save the trees and drink bottled water only now to say bottled water is bad and that paper bags are preferable to plastic. The same people pushing for electric cars today will be pointing out how toxic their batteries are 10 years from now.

    In any case it will be hard to launch any climate satellites when the green movement bans the use of chemical rockets.

    There are many words to describe the green movement but scientific should not be one of them.

  • wodun

    common sense wrote @ February 9th, 2011 at 2:42 pm

    “Climate Gate is the revealed the greatest scientific fraud of all time. NASA has no business perpetuating the con.”

    Climate Gate only is a figment of your tired imagination.

    Climate-Gate showed the manipulation of data and the peer review process. Even if you think that is irrelevant to the validity of global warming, it shows that “scientists” should not be put on a pedestal as being morally pure and intellectually infallible.

  • Doug Lassiter

    amightywind wrote @ February 9th, 2011 at 4:35 pm
    “I was impressed with the way Holdren and Garver hijacked the debate and discredited Constellation, a popular program up until that point. The problem was that there was no consensus for the new policy, much like Obamacare.”

    Blow harder. There was a consensus on Constellation. The consensus was that while it was a potentially successful program, it was blatantly unaffordable. The Augustine Commission worked hard, and talked to a lot of people, to establish that real consensus. So if you want to say that the administration “hijacked” Constellation in the name of fiscal responsibility, bring on the pirates! So the House has flipped back. Ya think we’re going to see the fiscal likes of Constellation again as a result? Dream on.

  • Doug Lassiter

    P.S. The alarming thing about this push to defund earth science in order to support HSF is that it will cost the agency as a whole. The science community learned long ago that the reverse isn’t true. Pulling money out of one side of NASA doesn’t put it on the other side. If HSF can’t justify itself, removing money from science is just removing money from NASA.

  • Robert G. Oler

    G. Crane wrote @ February 9th, 2011 at 4:44 pm

    “R.G. Oler just wait and see who lobbies for the ATK-EU Ares scam and then where the money goes. Remember, Sarkozy called Obama on the tanker deal, and now EADS is competing even if Northrop dropped out. It’s a free for all in this chaos.”

    to paraphrase Claude Rains in Casablanca (neat town BTW)…”the usual suspects”

    What impresses me about the “liberty” and USA proposal is how politically tone deaf that they are.

    The USA thing is an old idea…the phrase about 15 years ago was “Lock, stock and astronauts”…USA is always singing a song about how cheaply the shuttle can be flown if they run the thing and NASA gets out of the way…

    The Liberty idea is only unique to me in its notion of how to involve the Europeans otherwise its just the latest effort in trying to make something useful out of something that isnt…a solid first stage.

    In the end none of them will go forward. If USA really wanted to keep flying the shuttle this idea should have been floated about a year ago…and If ATK really wanted to have a competitive launcher they would have tried to figure out how to beat physics and make a solid first stage work.

    As for the tanker project. Boeing has it. Airbus probably has the better product given the Tanker requirement…but Boeing has it.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Robert G. Oler

    amightywind wrote @ February 9th, 2011 at 4:35 pm

    “Of course we are seeing old ideas reconstituted. There are only so many practical ways forward. ”

    only for brains that are stuck on stupid.

    The history of The Republic is that new ideas have always summoned “the undiscovered country” …one reason the far right is as goofy as it is…is that it believes as you do.

    Robert G. Oler

  • equating Earth observation satellites with global warming shows how ignorant they are to why every other space agency in the world is even interested in space.

  • Beancounter from Downunder

    Just for the climate change skeptics, a little info’ from Perth, Western Australia (Perth is the capital city of the state of Western Australia which has an area 2.65 million sq kilometres, population approx 2.3million):
    Item 1.
    80 years ago when my father was a young boy growing up some 350kms inland from the coast, one of his jobs in Winter was to take a pick-ax and break through 50mm (2 inches) of ice that formed on the horses’ water troughs. Nowadays, the temperatures maybe reach zero Celsius once or twice per Winter.
    Item 2.
    Average annual inflow to Perth’s dams:
    1911-1974 338 Gigalitres
    1975-2000 177 Gigalitres
    2001-2005 92.4 Gigalitres
    2006-2010 57.7 Gigalitres In 2010 we had only 6.2 Gigalitres

    This has been predicted by various climate change models as has an increase in major cyclonic events on the east cost of Australia such as the recent Cyclone Yasi category 5 cyclone and continuing heavy rain this Summer.

    Anyway, there’s lots more if you want to look for it and I’m always pretty suspicious of so-called climate scientists who often turn out to be bought by various industries such as coal, oil and so on.

    Unfortunately Australian and various State governments also appear to the blind and deaf to the evidence. I’m convinced but I know many won’t be and so I’ll leave it there. It’s pretty much off topic anyway so sorry about that but thought might be interesting to some.
    BTW, we pay for and use a lot of NASA weather data in our modelling, forecasting, warnings, and so on . They do good work in that area. Let’s hope the pollies continue funding this worthwhile area.

    JM2CW

  • NASA Fan

    Time to get those industries the pollute the atmosphere off planet. This will quell the global warmer hawks and the green religious types, and provide something for Human Space Flight advocates , i.e. building the BEO space nfrastructures necessary to move polluting industries off planet.

    Not a silver bullet for sure.

    Would take some other form of government than democracy to execute.

    I’ll be long dead, as would be this blog.

    But it ain’t a bad idea.

  • common sense

    @ wodun wrote @ February 9th, 2011 at 7:00 pm

    “Climate-Gate showed the manipulation of data and the peer review process.”

    There is no climate gate whatsoever. Period.

    “Even if you think that is irrelevant to the validity of global warming, it shows that “scientists” should not be put on a pedestal as being morally pure and intellectually infallible.”

    Who ever said ““scientists” should not be put on a pedestal as being morally pure and intellectually infallible.”? I do not believe I ever said so. However scientists use a peer review system in order to filter the real scientific progress and claims from the fraud. Can it fail? Of course. Do you know better system? By the same token, democracy can fail yet what is the alternative?

    Fox News or similar material to judge science is nonsense. NONSENSE. If you have a different scientific conclusion from what you observe just go ahead and publish. Until then it is not about pedestal this is a pathetic excuse.

  • DCSCA

    @byeman wrote @ February 9th, 2011 at 10:48 am
    “NASA’s mission must be HSF first, followed by space science, period.”

    Wrong, HSF is not NASA’s first mission. Atmospheric research is just as important and is higher in NASA’s charter.

    But it has evolved into its primary mission- you know, ‘No bucks, no Buck Rogers…’ whether you like it or not. And ‘atmospheric research’ (a very 1950s balloon and sounding rocket turn of phrase, BTW) by a ‘space agency’ that made headlines this week as the Mr. Goodwrench of high tech auto mechanics for Toyota seems like a duplication of research the NOAA should be doing. A duplication ripe for budget cutting or transfer from NASA, the Cold War relic of the 1950s, to NOAA, where that kind of research in the 21st century belongs.

  • Coastal Ron

    wodun wrote @ February 9th, 2011 at 7:00 pm

    Climate-Gate showed the manipulation of data and the peer review process.

    The problem with people that only read headlines is that they never get all the information.

    In this case, the “climate-gate” scientist in question was cleared of any wrong doing, or to put it in simple terms, there was no “climate-gate”.

    I swear, people’s attention spans are becoming shorter & shorter these days…

    Even if you think that is irrelevant to the validity of global warming, it shows that “scientists” should not be put on a pedestal as being morally pure and intellectually infallible.

    I believe the climate data that is being collected shows an increase in global warming, as there is enough historical and independent data to support that conclusion. That is also almost universally accepted by the science community (nothing is 100%). What is still not known for a fact is how much (if any) is caused by humans.

    Now I can understand if some people want to wait until we know for sure one way or the other, but a lot of what is happening to reduce energy consumption is also good for the Nation, since it cuts down on our dependence on oil from many unsavory/undependable countries, as well as other side-effects like stretching out how long urban trash dumps can stay open (after which you ship your trash to another state).

    Regarding the pedestal/morally pure comment, no one believed that to begin with, so it’s just a canard. Or certainly far less than the number of people that put Sarah Palin on a pedestal and think that SHE is morally pure and intellectually infallible… ;-)

  • Jeff Foust

    Please note that this is not a forum for general discussion and debate about climate change. Please keep your comments more directly linked to space policy issues associated with this topic than with discussions of “climategate” or what your local weather is like this morning. Thank you for your cooperation.

  • It would be a mistake for these politicians to try to defund climate research and transfer the funds to HSF simply because historically, the funds never made it to HSF anyway. And I find it suspicious that these politicians come from states that have much to gain if “commercial” STS and Corn-Dog II happen.

    Never under-estimate the determination of corporate lobbyists and the politicians they support. The old maxim “follow the money” is very true for a reason.

  • Dennis Berube

    Here again, I think the study of climat change will continue, just as our manned space program will. I dont see either one ending. Men and women will look at Earths climates from either the ISS and or Bigelows stations. Russia is planning a commercial drive with its own design. The Earth will continue to be studied, but so too, those distant planets Kepler is presetly discovering, way out there. We arein a time when people must go into space. It will not stop, and now with the addition of the Liberty launch system coming on line, more private efforts to reach space will be gained. The money may have to be distributed in a more productive way, but space will not stop. Im voting that NASA will go with the Liberty design for Orion, which remains to be seen. However if it goes with another, so be it too. There are people who will always climb Everest, just as there are people who will want to continue to venture into space.

  • red

    This letter is wrong on so many levels:

    – Earth Science missions do no equal climate change research. Research funding is tiny compared to mission funding. Climate research is a subset of that. Climate change research is a subset of that.

    – If these politicians want to change the scientific community outlook on climate change, they need to fund Earth Science missions that return data relevant to climate change research.

    – It’s amazing that the Florida and Alabama representatives want to cut Earth Science capabilities that deliver products especially useful to their constituents. Hurricane data comes to mind.

    – They claim that “Our nation’s ability to access space is a critical national security asset and plays an important role in our future economic competitiveness.” I think we can take it for granted that the representatives from Utah are talking about Shuttle-derived HSF rockets, not, say, commercial crew and cargo. Shuttle-derived HSF rockets are not critical national security assets. They do not play an important role in our future economic competitiveness. The EELVs and similar rockets that the Earth Science missions use and thus help are critical national security assets and do play an important role in our future economic competitiveness.

    – Spending another decade building an SLS rocket to nowhere does nothing for national security. Flying an Orion around in circles with no ability to do anything useful, or to funding such an ability, does nothing for national security. Does a battlefield soldier need an SLS or Orion going nowhere? How about an anti-terrorism agent, or a natural disaster warning system or disaster emergency responder? These all use Earth data – Earth Science data, or data from similar operational military and civilian missions. The NASA Earth Science missions help build the industrial capability to develop the satellites, sensors, and analysis capability used by spy satellites, military ground observation satellites, military launch-detection satellites, military weather satellites, etc.

    – The situation is similar for economic competitiveness. NASA Earth science missions help maintain economically important industrial capabilities in commercial satellites, sensors, etc. The Earth Science data helps the value-added data processing industry. The Earth Science data itself is economically useful in many ways. The same is not true for an SLS rocket to nowhere.

    – If you check out the NASA Earth Science missions page, you will also see some new, affordable efforts using Global Hawks for things like hurricane studies. This is much more affordable, and much more useful as a national security industrial base helper, than SLS and Orion.

    – NASA is not the same as NOAA. NASA does research missions; NOAA does operational missions. It’s not duplication. In fact, there are lots of gaps after the Constellation budget raids, NPOESS Constellation-ish debacle, OCO launch failure, etc. Even if we pretend that the NASA Earth Science work belonged in NOAA, moving it there still wouldn’t make sense. The same budget-cutting effort described in this post is going after NOAA.

    – Let’s just cut the budget on real waste: Constellation (still wasting away!), SLS and MPCV. If that’s not enough, let’s go after JWST.

  • Dennis Berube

    One problem immediately on the horizon is the prediction that within two years, the Earth population will reach a whopping 9 billion. How will we continue to handle that problem. Only one of two ways: Either a damn giant world war, or we move off into space. A colony on another world out there would make our survival as a species real. A world war will not. Talk is of 5 dollars a gallon within the next two years for gas. How will the economic outlook on that be positive. Talk is if the Suez is closed gas might go to 8 a gal. If we do not harness what space offers, we will go the way of the dinosaur. I would rather see a colony on the Moon or Mars, than a global world war. The one way manned trip to Mars has merit if done right. I can not believe someone wants to cut the James Webb tele. out of the picture, when it will offer so much to our astronomical discoveries.

  • I was impressed with the way Holdren and Garver hijacked the debate and discredited Constellation, a popular program up until that point.

    It was so popular, hardly anyone knew it existed until it was cancelled.

  • common sense

    @ Coastal Ron wrote @ February 10th, 2011 at 12:47 am

    “Now I can understand if some people want to wait until we know for sure one way or the other, ”

    Well here is the risk: Once you know it may be too late for any countermeasure. So I personally do not understand why we would wait. The NASA’s charter is #1 about Earth science and therefore they MUST perform in that area. That is for the law. Then if you were to mitigate a potential disaster on Earth or send a BEO mission what would YOU do?

    I know people don’t like this reference BUT people wanted to wait before fixing the levies in New Orleans. Well they waited. What is the cost today? And btw that may be an effect of climate change, warming, that induces stronger storms. How long do we need to wait until the “big one”. See, there are other “big one”s not just quake in SoCal. What if we get hit one season with several very strong hurricanes in a row. Who is going to pay?

    Earth sciences is NOT about global warming, it includes global warming. NASA mission is tremendously important to our survival in that regard. Bear in mind further that the weather disruption also creates problems for farming. So it may as well disrupt food delivery.

    And so on and so forth.

    Now the lack of a mission to the Moon? What does that do to us? I mean except that it frustrates our pride? WHAT?

  • byeman

    “A duplication ripe”

    More clueless posts. There is no duplication between NASA and NOAA. NASA only aids in placing space based instruments into orbits. Transferring these tasks to NOAA would cause duplication, since NOAA would have to employ personnel with experience in spacecraft development and launch vehicle integration. And no, it is not just like taking the NASA personnel and changing them to NOAA. The NASA personnel support multiple programs.

  • wodun

    A bigger issue, though, is that this letter may be indicative of a bigger battle some in Congress want to wage between human spaceflight and Earth science. Some members have openly expressed their skepticism about the validity of climate change research, questioning either the existence of global warming or the role of human activities in causing climate change.

    I don’t really like the options presented. It is like people saying the first thing to cut will be firefighters and teachers. Perhaps the place to start cutting would be administrative costs.

    Also, it is hard to avoid any comment on global warming when the blog post brings it up.

    common sense wrote @ February 10th, 2011 at 11:56 am

    @ Coastal Ron wrote @ February 10th, 2011 at 12:47 am

    “Now I can understand if some people want to wait until we know for sure one way or the other, ”

    Well here is the risk: Once you know it may be too late for any countermeasure. So I personally do not understand why we would wait.

    You are essentially saying we don’t know for sure that global warming is caused by man. An implication of that, is that you can’t say with any certainty that carbon credits or any other of the recently proposed remedies will fix the problem. You want people to have blind faith in the green movement.

    It is possible to not buy into the green movement and not be pro-pollution. Some of us don’t need an apocalyptic end of days scenario to have an appreciation for nature and human impact on it or want to study how our climate works.

    Considering the accuracy of climate models predicting the frequency and intensity of hurricanes (the have all been dismally poor), it is all the more important that we continue to lob satellites into space.

    Although, at some point we could very well have more than enough satellites and then it will be more important to analyze the data. Other groups might be better suited to that than NASA.

    My apologies to Mr Foust for participating in the off topic conversation.

  • common sense

    @ wodun wrote @ February 10th, 2011 at 8:12 pm

    The bill proposes to cut Earth science so it makes perfect sense to talk about it and therefore it is not off topic. It is important to understand the motivations along with the pros and cons of such a bill. It’d be better to have a well thought out conversation rather than throwing sound bytes but it seems to be very difficult.

    “I don’t really like the options presented. It is like people saying the first thing to cut will be firefighters and teachers. Perhaps the place to start cutting would be administrative costs.”

    This is only grand theater so to speak, nothing else. Don’t you see?

    “You are essentially saying we don’t know for sure that global warming is caused by man. An implication of that, is that you can’t say with any certainty that carbon credits or any other of the recently proposed remedies will fix the problem. You want people to have blind faith in the green movement.”

    No you see, here is what bothers me with people “like you”: You tell me what I “essentially” say. Unbelievable. Where did I say that you have to have blind faith? What I did somehow say is that there is a scientific process, part of which is NASA. This process of studying the climate change will help us understand what is happening. CO2 or not CO2 there are many other reasons why there may be warming. HOWEVER we do know that CO2 is a gas that induces green house effects. At the very least therefore it makes absolute sense with what we know today that we try to curb emissions. We also know what happens to CO2 rich atmosphere planets (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus) Of course for Venus it is compounded with its proximity to the Sun. Now if you admit an increase in solar activity with an increase in CO2 in our atmosphere there is a reason to “believe” we are headed towards the same direction. How long would it take? Who knows.

    “It is possible to not buy into the green movement and not be pro-pollution.”

    Who said otherwise. However it’d be nice you propose more than just rhetoric. How do you plan to curb pollution then?

    “Some of us don’t need an apocalyptic end of days scenario to have an appreciation for nature and human impact on it or want to study how our climate works.”

    Some of you need to understand what is at stake rather than putting their heads in the sand. And then wonder how it could have happened.

    “Considering the accuracy of climate models predicting the frequency and intensity of hurricanes (the have all been dismally poor), it is all the more important that we continue to lob satellites into space.”

    Yes but not just that. We need to better our models bearing in mind, once again, that there is NO deterministic approach to the problem. Which is in part why the models are not that “good” according to you. Since they are not deterministic said models will give general trends. They give you an idea of what may happened. They will NOT tell you with great accuracy what the temperature on your driveway will be in 3 days nor in 300 years.

    “Although, at some point we could very well have more than enough satellites and then it will be more important to analyze the data. Other groups might be better suited to that than NASA.”

    So what number of satellites is good enough according to you? Is the problem the number of satellites or their performance? Do you think that the satellites is the only answer to that problem? Bluntly, what do you know about climatology? Something? Anything? You made observations and reported them in peer-reviewed journals? Or do you take the -12F driveway observation and run with it?

    “My apologies to Mr Foust for participating in the off topic conversation.”

    It is not off topic if you equate Earth sciences with “global warming” and there is a bill proposing to cut Earth sciences. We are not debating “global warming” but rather the need, or not, to study Earth sciences part of which is climatology and therefore “global warming”.

  • G. Thomas Farmer, Ph.D.

    Let’s call these republicans what they are: short-sighted, ignorant bastards. They can’t see beyond the end of their noses and will lose big by trying to decimate climate science and science in general. I for one will go to the polls next time with all my friends and vote these idiots out of office. We need to know more about the planet we live on, not less.

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