Last last week, NASA announced that it was ending production of the Advanced Sterling Radioisotope Generator (ASRG), a replacement for existing radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs) that make more efficient use of plutonium fuel. As I reported for Space News, NASA justified the decision by noting the existing stockpile of plutonium-238, which will grow as production of the isotope resumes, and the lack of immediate demand for the ASRG among future missions. It also frees up funding within NASA’s planetary science program—about $170 million through 2016—at a time when the program is dealing with reduced budgets.
One group of scientists is working this week to address those funding concerns for NASA’s planetary programs. The Division for Planetary Sciences (DPS) of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) issued a call for action earlier this week, asking its members and others to contact their members of Congress and ask them to restore funding for planetary programs at the space agency. “[R]eductions proposed in the President’s Fiscal Year 2013 and 2014 budget requests could cripple planetary science,” states a sample letter included in the announcement. “We have already seen missions delayed and cancelled, international partnerships broken, and we face decades of lost science.”
Members of Congress are asked to do to things to address this concern: ensure that NASA can meet the goals laid out in the most recent planetary science decadal survey, which, the letter notes, calls for a mix of small, medium, and flagship-class missions as well as adequate research and technology development funding; and to end budget sequestration, “which has had a severely damaging impact on NASA, planetary science, and federal research and development across the board.”
The DPS lobbying effort has a social media twist, too, as scientists use the #FundPlanetary hashtag on Twitter to raise awareness of the issue.
We have already seen missions delayed and cancelled, international partnerships broken, and we face decades of lost science.
I have no problem with delays, even lengthy ones if they are credible. The science will still be out there. International partnerships? Why enable our competitors? Let’s get back to an America first policy.
That ASRG cancellation is a disappointment. It’s NASA all but saying that they don’t expect to get new outer solar system missions launched until the mid-to-late 2020s at the earliest, since that’s how long it will take to build up a decent stock of Pu-238 even after they start making it again at 1.5 kg/year.
Sequestration and the SLS are just killing robotic space exploration. It’s bad enough that we’re going to have to try and trade-off either Cassini or Curiosity in 2015 already.
“Sequestration and the SLS are just killing robotic space exploration.”
Sequestration is not the issue. Unchecked deficit spending by the current administration is the issue and is what spawned sequestration. And SLS is not the issue either. It is techno-welfare to a few select states just like any other USG program fed off the trough of government largess. The troubles in SMD now are the direct result of the cost over-run mentality of Curiosity, JWST, etc. It has just gotten worse now that the wall between science and manned space has been torn down (by the current administration no less) where funding shortfalls and mission priorities on the HSF side are impacting SMD on top of everything else.
“It’s bad enough that we’re going to have to try and trade-off either Cassini or Curiosity in 2015 already.”
We wouldn’t have to do either if NASA would just cancel the Curiosity-2 (i.e. Mars 2020) effort. If we can’t afford to operate more than one flagship, why is NASA directing that a second Curiosity-sized Mars rover be built and launched and operated (at flagship mission levels to be sure)? Terminate Mars 2020 and keep both Cassini and Curiosity operating. Of course, that is contrary to the desires of JPL which effectively runs SMD anyway.
Why be surprised when you do the same things as you’ve previously done over and over and get the same results?
NASA has a now long history of failing to deliver on time and to budget. Why should anyone be surprised that nothing changes and all they can do is ask for more money and continue to blow schedule and budget?
Further, when you have most of your funds tied to a couple of ginormous flagship missions and do that, then you have no margin to move.
All the Science Divisions within SMD are facing the same f
They only have enough money to mount one large mission per decade (and that may not even be a ‘flag ship’, now that JWST has pissed of everyone except B Mukulski) and a few of the competed Explorers (Helio and Astro) and Discoveries (Planetary) etc.
Which means no more big science gains in quantities to keep any of their respective science communities alive.
The smaller missions feed a few scientist; the large ones feed a community.
And since the next flag ship planetary, or astrophysics, will focus only on once aspect of that Divisions science goals, the other sciences disciplines go lacking – which drives away the young post doc’s who see 20+ years till a large flight mission.
And of course, you don’t need the work force NASA has right now with such a dismal flight rate of science missions. JPL, GSFC, LaRC, all will have way too many employees/contractors for the budgets these Science Divisions have to spend on missions.
If someone does not make the case to up the science budget to at least reflect inflation, the Congressional Budget Office will be offering up options to Congress that end SMD all together…along with their recent suggestion to whack HSF.
America is fracked up, and it shows in lack of funding for science, along with the unbelievable debt, and yearly deficit’s we pile up.
All the Science Divisions are facing the same ‘FUTURE’..sorry about that…fat fingers..
“The smaller missions feed a few scientist; the large ones feed a community.”
That’s simplistic. The smaller missions have their own communities. Moreover, the ratio of yearly operations funding (~$160M) to total cost (~$8.8B) is somewhat lower for JWST than for, say, a Midex. So if JWST had been divided up into 50 Midex’s, more scientists would have gotten fed.
“If someone does not make the case to up the science budget to at least reflect inflation, the Congressional Budget Office will be offering up options to Congress that end SMD all together …”
Makes no sense. Inflation and sequestration doesn’t make a Directorate disappear. CBO is suggesting the demise of human space flight because it might not offer obvious value. No one is saying that NASA science doesn’t offer obvious value.
But a $3B/yr investment in SLS while science suffers is a credible sign of being fracked.