According to NASA Watch...
sfjcody
<expletive deleted>
I will be thirty in 2012. I'll probably be very old/dead when the first
Pluto rendezvous occurs. Oh well. Clyde Tombaugh must be rolling around in
his grave.
John Cody
Christopher Michael Jones
> <expletive deleted>
Freakin' frackin' bloody hell.
Grrrr, I hate the pitifully small amount of money that is spent on space
science. The stupid space shuttle eats up most of NASA's budget, damn
thing.
Edward Lyons
Christopher Michael Jones <cjo...@ix.cs.uoregon.edu> wrote in message
news:8lq9u1$ri4$2...@helix.cs.uoregon.edu...
> sfjcody (sfj...@ntlworld.com) wrote:
>
> Grrrr, I hate the pitifully small amount of money that is spent on space
> science. The stupid space shuttle eats up most of NASA's budget, damn
> thing.
>
>
Don't fall into the simplistic trap of blaming all the ills of space science
on the Space Shuttle. The fact is, American space science efforts are
underfunded -- regardless of how much or how little money is spent on
Shuttle operations. Try placing the blame firmly where it belongs -- on
those in Congress who are more interested in spending hundreds of billions
of dollars on military uses of space rather than adding a relatively measly
few hundred million to NASA's space science budget.
Eddie Lyons
Portsmouth, UK
Paul Kniest
Well, that was to be expected, wasn't it? The moment it got lumped
together with Europa Orbiter and Solar Probe it was to be cancelled. My
guess is that the Solar Probe will be cancelled too, so that all
available funds go to the Europa Orbiter in the vain hope of finding
life. I think that that was the sole purpose of putting those three
together in the Outer Planets/Solar Probe project.
The current hype about finding traces of live in every remotely possible
place drains a lot of money into projects that would otherwise not be
interesting. I seriously doubt whether projects like a Solar Sail
(Interstellar Deep Space), Messenger (Mercury), Titan or Triton Orbiters
(Saturn, Neptune) stand a chance if they can't proof or disproof the
existance of life somewhere.
And in the meantime we still don't know what our solar backyard looks
like. But maybe I'm too pessimistic (I hope).
Paul
sfjcody wrote:
>
> ...Pluto-Kuiper express is about to be canned.
>
> <expletive deleted>
>
> I will be thirty in 2012. I'll probably be very old/dead when the first
> Pluto rendezvous occurs. Oh well. Clyde Tombaugh must be rolling around in
> his grave.
>
> John Cody
Christopher Michael Jones
> Well, that was to be expected, wasn't it? The moment it got lumped
> together with Europa Orbiter and Solar Probe it was to be cancelled. My
> guess is that the Solar Probe will be cancelled too, so that all
> available funds go to the Europa Orbiter in the vain hope of finding
> life. I think that that was the sole purpose of putting those three
> together in the Outer Planets/Solar Probe project.
I'm not so certain about that. The Solar Probe is a solid program
that is very low cost.
> The current hype about finding traces of live in every remotely possible
> place drains a lot of money into projects that would otherwise not be
> interesting. I seriously doubt whether projects like a Solar Sail
> (Interstellar Deep Space), Messenger (Mercury), Titan or Triton Orbiters
> (Saturn, Neptune) stand a chance if they can't proof or disproof the
> existance of life somewhere.
I doubt that, especially since Messenger is a Discovery program
mission, which have traditionally been solidly funded and well
supported, as well as having good mission designs.
> And in the meantime we still don't know what our solar backyard looks
> like. But maybe I'm too pessimistic (I hope).
We're getting to know what our solar backyard looks like, and
we will know a lot more about it very soon.
NEAR, DS1, Stardust, SOHO, Genesis, CONTOUR, Messenger, Deep Impact,
Rosetta, Muses-C, taken together, these missions have given and will
give us detailed information about:
7 Comets
6 Asteroids
The interplanetary and interstellar medium
The Sun
Mercury
Plus, they will also deliver back to Earth samples from a Comet,
an Asteroid, and the Solar wind.
Additionally, we've got some really awesome exploration of Mars
coming up, as well as Saturn, and study of the Sun continues
to be a very hot issue (no pun intended).
That's some amazing exploration any way you slice it.
Christopher Michael Jones
> Don't fall into the simplistic trap of blaming all the ills of space science
> on the Space Shuttle. The fact is, American space science efforts are
> underfunded -- regardless of how much or how little money is spent on
> Shuttle operations. Try placing the blame firmly where it belongs -- on
> those in Congress who are more interested in spending hundreds of billions
> of dollars on military uses of space rather than adding a relatively measly
> few hundred million to NASA's space science budget.
Yes, space science is woefully undefunded, but the responsibility is
distributed between Congress / the President et al _and_ NASA. The
fact of the matter is that there have been times in the past when
overruns in space shuttle and space station costs have directly
resulted in cuts in space science budgets. I am reminded
particularly of a recent space station cost overrun that resulted
in 60 million dollars being cut from the Mars Surveyor Project
budget which prevented them from sending a rover on the 2001 lander
mission. Only with political pressure from space interested
citizens were enough funds (about $20 million) restored to send
even the much less capable "Marie Curie" rover to Mars in 2001.
Despite the fact that the shuttle and space station takes up the
large majority of the NASA budget, apparently they still feel the
necessity to "steal from the poor" when they so choose.
Russell Wallace
> The current hype about finding traces of live in every remotely possible
> place drains a lot of money into projects that would otherwise not be
> interesting. I seriously doubt whether projects like a Solar Sail
> (Interstellar Deep Space), Messenger (Mercury), Titan or Triton Orbiters
> (Saturn, Neptune) stand a chance if they can't proof or disproof the
> existance of life somewhere.
I think they're right to assign the priorities like that. To most
people, life is far more interesting than dead rock. Look at what
happened when someone spotted in a Martian meteorite what could be
equivocal evidence for long-dead bacterial life if you squint at it hard
enough - the President called a press conference. I personally am more
enthusiastic about planetary exploration for its own sake than the
average person is, but even I paid more attention to the Europa data
than to the rest of the Galileo results put together.
Now you may disagree, fair enough. But consider: if they did find solid
evidence for life on Europa, NASA's budget could be doubled overnight.
That's the one thing NASA can do that would definitely get them more
funding. And that'd mean more resources to gather physical data as
well, so everyone would benefit. It mightn't come to anything, but the
potential payoff is very high.
--
"To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem."
Russell Wallace
mailto:rwal...@esatclear.ie
http://www.esatclear.ie/~rwallace
Edward Lyons
Russell Wallace <rwal...@esatclear.ie> wrote in message
news:398397...@esatclear.ie...
>
> Now you may disagree, fair enough. But consider: if they did find solid
> evidence for life on Europa, NASA's budget could be doubled overnight.
NASA's budget probably would be increased in short order, but for how long
would that last?
Only until such time as NASA showed that all that existed in the way of life
on Europa was "lowest"-order forms of life, and little of it photogenic, to
boot. After the hype, once the politicians and public had seen it and said
"Is that it?", then NASA's budget would probably be slashed to the bone
again.
Remember Apollo -- history does repeat itself.
Eddie Lyons
Portsmouth, UK
Russell Wallace
>
> Russell Wallace <rwal...@esatclear.ie> wrote in message
> news:398397...@esatclear.ie...
> >
> > Now you may disagree, fair enough. But consider: if they did find solid
> > evidence for life on Europa, NASA's budget could be doubled overnight.
>
> NASA's budget probably would be increased in short order, but for how long
> would that last?
Quite awhile, I think.
> Only until such time as NASA showed that all that existed in the way of life
> on Europa was "lowest"-order forms of life, and little of it photogenic, to
> boot. After the hype, once the politicians and public had seen it and said
> "Is that it?", then NASA's budget would probably be slashed to the bone
> again.
>
> Remember Apollo -- history does repeat itself.
But there's a _lot_ more study and press potential in an ecosystem,
however simple, than in dead rocks. Maybe it wouldn't last forever;
nothing does. But I think it'd last a lot longer than the Apollo
project.
Neil Saunders
the benefits of going to Pluto? Basically, the only reason for going there
is because it's the only planet we haven't been too. Perhaps there are
arguments about it representing a primordial piece of solar system, but what
would we really learn after several years inflight, followed by a brief
flyby? Some spectroscopy and some pictures, most probably of a fairly dull
frozen rock. The Voyagers are still giving us data about the outer solar
system, things like NEAR are giving us good data on 'primordial bits of
solar system'.
On the other hand, the return from probes nearer to home is enormous
already, even given the recent Mars failures. And if we're serious about
exploration of Mars, looking for past/extant life there or on Europa,
possibly even future colonisation, surely this is where the money/effort
should be focused. Personally I don't think there is/was life on either
place and find the PR hype quite objectionable. The way things are going, I
also don't see a manned Mars mission in my lifetime, much less the first
colonists. But if NASA or anyone else is truly serious about pursuing these
topics, I guess that's where money and resources should be directed, or they
will certainly never happen. Particularly if they can't figure out how to
land things on Mars fairly reliably, without daft embarassing errors.
Neil
--
School of Microbiology & Immunology,
University of New South Wales,
Sydney 2052,
Australia
Ph: +61 2 9385 2093
Fx: +61 2 9385 1591
email: neil.s...@unsw.edu.au
http://www.crosswinds.net/~nfws/index.htm
ArchaeaWeb
http://www.crosswinds.net/~nfws/archaea/index.htm
Paul Kniest
Christopher Michael Jones wrote:
>
> Paul Kniest (Paul....@nugen.azn.kun.nl) wrote:
>
> > Well, that was to be expected, wasn't it? The moment it got lumped
> > together with Europa Orbiter and Solar Probe it was to be cancelled. My
> > guess is that the Solar Probe will be cancelled too, so that all
> > available funds go to the Europa Orbiter in the vain hope of finding
> > life. I think that that was the sole purpose of putting those three
> > together in the Outer Planets/Solar Probe project.
>
> I'm not so certain about that. The Solar Probe is a solid program
> that is very low cost.
Perhaps. However, a solid program and very low cost is not a guarantee
that it will fly. IIRC Pluto Express should have been a low cost mission
too, they even tried to rate as a Discovery class mission. Being not a
solid program and not very well funded just means that it gets slashed first.
> > The current hype about finding traces of live in every remotely possible
> > place drains a lot of money into projects that would otherwise not be
> > interesting. I seriously doubt whether projects like a Solar Sail
> > (Interstellar Deep Space), Messenger (Mercury), Titan or Triton Orbiters
> > (Saturn, Neptune) stand a chance if they can't proof or disproof the
> > existance of life somewhere.
>
> I doubt that, especially since Messenger is a Discovery program
> mission, which have traditionally been solidly funded and well
> supported, as well as having good mission designs.
And a couple of them also relied on having the spare parts of previous
missions. That way they could reduce the cost and effectively have a
more expensive mission for less money. That's OK with me. However, once
they run out of spare parts everything has to be designed and built new,
driving up the costs and making them less likely to fly.
> > And in the meantime we still don't know what our solar backyard looks
> > like. But maybe I'm too pessimistic (I hope).
>
> We're getting to know what our solar backyard looks like, and
> we will know a lot more about it very soon.
>
> NEAR, DS1, Stardust, SOHO, Genesis, CONTOUR, Messenger, Deep Impact,
> Rosetta, Muses-C, taken together, these missions have given and will
> give us detailed information about:
>
> 7 Comets
> 6 Asteroids
> The interplanetary and interstellar medium
> The Sun
> Mercury
If the ones that haven't been launched or built yet will ever fly.
> Plus, they will also deliver back to Earth samples from a Comet,
> an Asteroid, and the Solar wind.
>
> Additionally, we've got some really awesome exploration of Mars
> coming up, as well as Saturn, and study of the Sun continues
> to be a very hot issue (no pun intended).
This whole Mars obsession is what I meant with my remarks about trying
to find life. I'm afraid they are trying to read evidence of (possible)
live in every feature they see on Mars, in order to get more funding. In
the end, when it turns out that there is no life and never was on Mars,
NASA gets even less funding. Don't get me wrong, I'm also very
enthusiastic about these Mars missions, but I fear the end result for NASA.
> That's some amazing exploration any way you slice it.
Very true, if these missions go ahead.
A note of caution: I seem to have broken of a little discussion, but is
Pluto Express really cancelled or is it just rumor?
Paul
Paul Kniest
Russell Wallace wrote:
>
> Paul Kniest wrote:
> > The current hype about finding traces of live in every remotely possible
> > place drains a lot of money into projects that would otherwise not be
> > interesting. I seriously doubt whether projects like a Solar Sail
> > (Interstellar Deep Space), Messenger (Mercury), Titan or Triton Orbiters
> > (Saturn, Neptune) stand a chance if they can't proof or disproof the
> > existance of life somewhere.
>
> I think they're right to assign the priorities like that. To most
> people, life is far more interesting than dead rock. Look at what
> happened when someone spotted in a Martian meteorite what could be
> equivocal evidence for long-dead bacterial life if you squint at it hard
> enough - the President called a press conference. I personally am more
That's what scares me: NASA's gambles on the prospect of finding life or
traces of it. If it turns out that there is, or ever was, no life on
Mars, the whole case for Mars breaks down. And with it a lot of other
projects. Raising money will be ever more harder even for cheap missions.
> enthusiastic about planetary exploration for its own sake than the
> average person is, but even I paid more attention to the Europa data
> than to the rest of the Galileo results put together.
And so did I. But the case for life on Europa is weak. I think that
Europa merits a closer look, but not for the possibility of finding
life, but for the strangeness of this little world. And so does Pluto
and the KBO's. So does Triton, with its nitrogen geysirs (did anybody
raise the possibility of life there?)
> Now you may disagree, fair enough. But consider: if they did find solid
> evidence for life on Europa, NASA's budget could be doubled overnight.
They can't even tell yet whether the Mars meteorite is evidence for
life, and that one is here on earth being examined by the most elaborate
means available. Unless a fish or squid is swimming in front of a camera
on a submarine diving below the frozen surface of Europa, no orbiter,
lander or rover will give us solid evidence. And therefore no solid
funding. People will get tired of hearing that there is yet another
possible clue, but still no proof.
> That's the one thing NASA can do that would definitely get them more
> funding. And that'd mean more resources to gather physical data as
> well, so everyone would benefit. It mightn't come to anything, but the
> potential payoff is very high.
And so is, I'm afraid, the potential backfire.
Paul
Michel Morton
Christopher Michael Jones wrote:
>
>
> Freakin' frackin' bloody hell.
>
> Grrrr, I hate the pitifully small amount of money that is spent on space
> science. The stupid space shuttle eats up most of NASA's budget, damn
> thing.
The nice thing about international projects is that as well
as splitting costs, they don't tend to get canceled. The
diplomatic sh*t would hit the fan with a great deal of force
of ESA, NASDA or NASA discovered their investment in a mission
was wasted because another partner unilaterally pulled out.
I think this also explains why even ESA only missions are rarely
canceled, it's a multi-national agency. The only big example that
comes to mind is Hermes.
--
Michael Morton
>==========================================================<
School of Information Systems | Everything is linear if
University of East Anglia | plotted on log-log with
Norwich | a fat magic marker.
>==========================================================<
Henry Spencer
Michel Morton <m...@sys.uea.ac.uk> wrote:
>The nice thing about international projects is that as well
>as splitting costs, they don't tend to get canceled. The
>diplomatic sh*t would hit the fan with a great deal of force
>of ESA, NASDA or NASA discovered their investment in a mission
>was wasted because another partner unilaterally pulled out.
It has happened, mostly because the US pulled out. (ESA and NASDA tend to
make firm multi-year commitments to major projects, but in the US it's all
up for grabs every year.)
The downside of international projects, alas, is that they do tend to cost
more than doing the same project in one country.
--
Microsoft shouldn't be broken up. | Henry Spencer he...@spsystems.net
It should be shut down. -- Phil Agre | (aka he...@zoo.toronto.edu)
Edward Lyons
>
> Yes, space science is woefully undefunded, but the responsibility is
> distributed between Congress / the President et al _and_ NASA. The
> fact of the matter is that there have been times in the past when
> overruns in space shuttle and space station costs have directly
> resulted in cuts in space science budgets. I am reminded
> particularly of a recent space station cost overrun that resulted
> in 60 million dollars being cut from the Mars Surveyor Project
> budget which prevented them from sending a rover on the 2001 lander
> mission. Only with political pressure from space interested
> citizens were enough funds (about $20 million) restored to send
> even the much less capable "Marie Curie" rover to Mars in 2001.
>
> Despite the fact that the shuttle and space station takes up the
> large majority of the NASA budget, apparently they still feel the
> necessity to "steal from the poor" when they so choose.
>
>
I don't really disagree. But, when you are working within a fixed, and
inherently inadequate, budget, priorities have to be established. Currently,
the priority is to get the Space Station finished as close to timetable as
possible. This is an investment in one particular area that has major
implications for future human spaceflight. It needs to be prioritised.
Planetary exploration isn't as high a priority. Mars will still be there
when today's planned missions are delayed for technical or budgetary
reasons. Pluto will still be around (although rather further away!) whenever
a space probe finally is launched to visit it. This, in recent parlance, is
"science delayed, not science lost". Yes, it's frustrating to have planetary
science backburnered as a lower priority, or poor relation. But that's part
of the price that's paid when politicians place an artificial cap on NASA's
budget, and effectively reduce it in real terms year on year.
NASA are not wholly innocent in this, but they are driven to "crime" by
necessity because of Congressional strictures and meddling.
Eddie Lyons
Portsmouth, UK
Edward Lyons
Michel Morton <m...@sys.uea.ac.uk> wrote in message
news:3985AEEB...@sys.uea.ac.uk...
>
>
>
> The nice thing about international projects is that as well
> as splitting costs, they don't tend to get canceled. The
> diplomatic sh*t would hit the fan with a great deal of force
> of ESA, NASDA or NASA discovered their investment in a mission
> was wasted because another partner unilaterally pulled out.
>
>
Don't forget the International Solar Polar Mission (ISPM). This was supposed
to be a dual spacecraft mission, one supplied by ESA, the other supplied by
NASA, flying complementary missions in opposite directions over the Sun's
poles, providing 3D data on solar processes. NASA eventually pulled out, and
only the ESA craft flew -- as Ulysses.
Eddie Lyons
Portsmouth, UK
Edward Lyons
>
> But there's a _lot_ more study and press potential in an ecosystem,
> however simple, than in dead rocks. Maybe it wouldn't last forever;
> nothing does. But I think it'd last a lot longer than the Apollo
> project.
>
possibly. But then, I'm a cynical SOB!
8-)
Eddie Lyons
Portsmouth, UK
Jorge R. Frank
>
> Despite the fact that the shuttle and space station takes up the
> large majority of the NASA budget, apparently they still feel the
> necessity to "steal from the poor" when they so choose.
For uselessly loose definitions of "majority", perhaps. Shuttle and ISS
combined account for $5.5 billion of NASA's $13.5 billion budget.
Furthermore, their percentage of NASA's total budget has declined
steadily for the last decade.
--
JRF
Reply-to address spam-proofed - to reply by E-mail,
check "Organization" and think one step ahead of IBM.
Christopher Michael Jones
> Christopher Michael Jones wrote:
> >
> > Despite the fact that the shuttle and space station takes up the
> > large majority of the NASA budget, apparently they still feel the
> > necessity to "steal from the poor" when they so choose.
> For uselessly loose definitions of "majority", perhaps. Shuttle and ISS
> combined account for $5.5 billion of NASA's $13.5 billion budget.
> Furthermore, their percentage of NASA's total budget has declined
> steadily for the last decade.
> --
Well, perhaps not precisely a strict majority, but certainly by far
the lion's share.
Considering the ISS + Shuttle + microgravity budget (~ $5.8 billion)
is well over 2 times the size of the $2.4 billion total space science
budget, I'd call that an imbalance.
Jorge R. Frank
>
> Jorge R. Frank (jrf...@ibm-pc.org) wrote:
> > Christopher Michael Jones wrote:
> > >
> > > Despite the fact that the shuttle and space station takes up the
> > > large majority of the NASA budget, apparently they still feel the
> > > necessity to "steal from the poor" when they so choose.
>
> > For uselessly loose definitions of "majority", perhaps. Shuttle and ISS
> > combined account for $5.5 billion of NASA's $13.5 billion budget.
> > Furthermore, their percentage of NASA's total budget has declined
> > steadily for the last decade.
> > --
>
> Well, perhaps not precisely a strict majority, but certainly by far
> the lion's share.
A plurality, perhaps. "Lion's share" is certainly a matter of opinion.
> Considering the ISS + Shuttle + microgravity budget (~ $5.8 billion)
> is well over 2 times the size of the $2.4 billion total space science
> budget, I'd call that an imbalance.
Only if you believe that space science is equal in priority with human
spaceflight. This opinion is shared by neither the president nor
Congress.
IMO, human spaceflight and space science get about the right amounts of
the NASA budget, with aeronautics possibly getting too little.