Congress

A House hearing on astrobiology seems alien to some

Later this morning, the full House Science Committee will hold a hearing on “Astrobiology: Search for Biosignatures in our Solar System and Beyond.” The hearing is primarily an exploratory and informational one, designed to collect information on the state of astrobiology research. The closest the hearing may come to policy issues is a statement in the hearing charter about assessing “existing and planned astrobiology research strategies and roadmaps.”

Such hearings are not that unusual: the committee’s space subcommittee held a hearing on exoplanets earlier this year, for example, and the hearing may allow some discussion on whether NASA is devoting the proper funding to astrobiology research. But the idea of holding a hearing on the potential for extraterrestrial life seems, to some, to be a case of misplaced priorities. “With only seven workdays left between now and the end of the first session of the 113th Congress, a full House committee has found time to hold a hearing on extraterrestrial life,” complained The Huffington Post in an article yesterday.

One of the members of the committee, Rep. Suzanne Bonamici (D-OR), defended the committee’s decision to discuss astrobiology. “If members of Congress were occupying floor time with discussions of extraterrestrial life, that would be a problem,” she told The Oregonian. Some might argue that such discussions could actually be an improvement on the current level of debate on Capitol Hill.

20 comments to A House hearing on astrobiology seems alien to some

  • Coastal Ron

    There is some irony here in that the Republican-led House is concerned about life on other planets, but not concerned enough about life here on planet Earth that they will focus on doing the job their constituents expect them to do…

    • amightywind

      There is some irony here in that the Republican-led House is concerned about life on other planets, but not concerned enough about life here on planet Earth that they will focus on doing the job their constituents expect them to do

      A dem on the committee defended the discussion:

      If members of Congress were occupying floor time with discussions of extraterrestrial life, that would be a problem

      You can’t even score cheap political points well.

      The fact cures for the nation’s ills have been passed by the House and sit on a recalcitrant Harry Reid’s desk.

      • Coastal Ron

        amightywind said:

        You can’t even score cheap political points well.

        You can’t even keep track of who is saying what – that quote is from the article above, not me.

        The fact cures for the nation’s ills have been passed by the House and sit on a recalcitrant Harry Reid’s desk.

        47 different versions of repealing the Affordable Care Act are not “cures for the nation’s ills”, especially when that means denying healthcare to those who are ill and need healthcare the most. I don’t know about you, but I’m going to be saving thousands of $$ under ACA for my family, and we’ll have the same (if not better) healthcare coverage.

        As to Dems being involved with this hearing, what else are they to do in the crazy political system that Boehner uses to run the House, where only the “majority of the majority” are allowed to bring bills to the floor for vote? Might as well hold hearings on something.

        And let’s remember that Boehner’s House is the least productive in modern history. Time to vote the non-functionals out – the people deserve people that will make government work, not tear it apart while reaping $Millions from special interest groups.

        • It’s kind of crazy to judge Congressional “productivity” by how many laws they pass. There is no shortage of federal laws. Shouldn’t the quality of the laws passed be a factor?

          • Hiram

            “It’s kind of crazy to judge Congressional “productivity” by how many laws they pass.”

            Very true. Every one of those 47 failed versions of the ACA repeal was of higher quality than the previous one, I have to assume. They were just reaching for quality, and didn’t dare settle for anything less than the highest.

            But actually, with regard to “improvement on the level of debate”, there was no debate in this hearing. None whatsoever. There was complete agreement that what we really needed to do we probably couldn’t afford to do.

  • Hiram

    I too find such a hearing a little unusual, especially as a full Committee hearing, in that it would seem to be more an informational matter of scientific curiosity and less Congressional policy. More power to Congress for being curious about such things. But there are some linkages that might have policy relevance. Planetary protection is talked about a lot these days, and at least biological protection is founded on precepts of astrobiology. But the future of space exploration is going to be HUGELY constrained by biological planetary protection, especially as we consider shipping unsterilized humans back and forth to other worlds. It can be assumed that costs and opportunities for future space exploration will be similarly impacted. So congressional perspective about whether there is anything to protect, or to be protected from, is of some relevance.

    If that were the reason for this hearing, however, I’d have to wonder why it isn’t simply about planetary protection. I don’t believe there has been a congressional hearing on biological planetary protection before this, though we’ve had a number on terrestrial impact protection. In fact, the word “protection” is golden in titles for congressional hearings. Much more so than the word “biosignatures”.

  • Aberwys

    Exoplanets are not the only biosignature source.

    This was fund pandering for Kepleresque work as well as for TESS and TESSesque work as well as NAI and SETi.

    Smells like Ames to me.

  • Aberwys

    Alao, this hearing was not about planetary protection. It was about observing stuff waaay out of our solar system.

  • Hiram

    “This was fund pandering for Kepleresque work as well as for TESS and TESSesque work as well as NAI and SETi.

    Smells like Ames to me.”

    Curious statement. TESS is led by MIT (where witness Seager is faculty — no big surprise), and mission management would be done by Goddard. SETI has nothing to do with Ames (except they happen to be down the street from each other), and for a hearing on the excitement about astrobiology, Ames just happened to have it’s ducks in a row with NAI. Something smells here … in this statement.

    The importance of Mars, Europa and Enceladus were highlighted in the hearing, as were exoplanets. So it wasn’t just stuff waaay out. Now, if one found life on an exoplanet, it would make us think quite differently about the possibilities for life elsewhere in our own solar system.

    As to pandering, yep, you could call it that. Much of what NASA does is essentially pandered in congressional hearings. Welcome to the real world.

  • The Washington Post on yesterday’s hearing.

    This from our obtuse Congressman here in the Space Coast, Rep. Bill Posey:

    At one point, Rep. Bill Posey (R-Fla) asked the panelists what they considered to be the greatest danger to life on Earth. Dick said asteroids, Seager said overpopulation, and Voytek mentioned the quest for energy resources.

    Then Posey asked whether they could recall the highest temperature ever recorded on Earth.

    Seager answered delicately: “I always tell my students, every day is like a PhD defense. I actually don’t remember that number off the top of my head.”

    • Nom de plume

      Obtuse? Posey seems to always have an agenda, he represents my district, and I haven’t found anything that I agree with him about. I think Posey was expecting that at least one of the “experts” would claim that the greatest threat was climate change. Didn’t matter, he asked his follow-up question anyway, which fits right into his CC-denial position. Dr. Seager is a bright guy – overpopulation was the best answer of the 3 and his response to the follow-up question didn’t give Posey the chance to ridicule CC science.

      • Maybe Posey thought the hearing was about astrology and was asking them to tell his future.

      • Professor Seager is a woman. And that was a dumb answer. Overpopulation isn’t a threat to life on earth at all, let alone the greatest one.

        • Arthur Dent

          Cuz some guy with a blog on the internet says so.

        • Doug

          One has to agree that overpopulation isn’t a threat to life on Earth. No one will die because they’re living too close to their neighbor. By the same token, hydrogen bombs and rogue asteroids aren’t threats to life on Earth, though they can certainly cause trouble if the former are misused and the latter have the wrong trajectory. Of course, guns don’t kill people either.

        • Nom de plume

          Yes, she is, my apologies, and I was thinking “threat to our way of life on earth.” Seems to me this century it’s a toss up between overpopulation, threat to our oceans/fisheries, and climate change. But now we’re off topic, so let’s move along.

          • None of those are serious threats this century, compared to (e.g.) biowarfare, or a massive solar event like the Carrington in 1859, which would hurl us back into the 19th century overnight and probably starve millions. Technology will mitigate environmental problems.

  • Hiram

    This hearing was basically a celebration of scientific accomplishment, curiosity, and potential. The intros by Chairman Lamar Smith and Ranking Member Eddie Bernice Johnson were nicely done, as expressions of scientific wonder. What was significant about this hearing on a space enterprise was that there was little talk about job creation, economic value, nor about astronaut worship, SLS, or China (though U.S. leadership in the field was proudly noted). Smith introduced this scientific work as an “inspiring era of space exploration”, and a “fascinating frontier”. Witness Mary Voytek, NASA Senior Scientist for Astrobiology made the point clear – “This is an agenda for inspiring the next generation of explorers and stewards to sustain NASA’s mission of exploration and discovery”. These words were echoed by witness Steve Dick, a NASA historian now at Library of Congress. Geez, where have we heard those words before?

    In fact, the only words expressed about jobs and China were from astronomer witness Sara Seager! Those came across as parenthetical.

    There were several questions about boldness in space. Whether that was important, and how it could be achieved. In that context, Seager somewhat curiously brought up Cubesats. Dick very briefly used that opportunity to bring up the importance of sending humans to Mars. Voytek made the comment that by doing work robotically, boldness, and risk acceptance, were straightforward and economical.

    Now, the purpose of this hearing wasn’t entirely clear, but at face value, Chairman Smith just wanted these words of excitement to be heard, and perhaps raise expectations about the upcoming NASA Astrobiology Roadmap. It came up several times in the hearing by both witnesses and members that the American people have strong interest in this work, and that was a powerful rationale for it.

    As noted above, Rep. Posey’s questions were just weird. He was leaning toward turning it into a climate change hearing. The guy is nuts.

  • David

    Coastal Ron and some others need to do research. The so called republicans are really democrats and the democrats are socialist. Except they want socialism for everyone but themselves. The two world organizations that rank each countries corruption has rated obama much more corrupt than bush ever was. That’s bad cause bush was terrible. The rich have gotten richer and the poor, poorer in three years under obama, than eight years under bush. He has surpassed bush in every bad catagory in half the time. They are facts. Republicans are criminals but the democrats are beyond redemption.

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