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Posted by: elakdawalla Feb 14 2006, 06:27 PM

The Planetary Society has issued a call to action, for people to contact House Science Committee Chairman Rep. Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY) to demand that NASA not cut their 2006 spending on science priorities like Europa before their 2007 budget has even taken effect; and to demand that they reconsider their priorities in the 2007 budget. Go to our http://www.planetary.org/programs/projects/advocacy_and_education/space_advocacy/ for more on how to participate in this campaign. Please participate!

--Emily

Posted by: Jeff7 Feb 14 2006, 07:53 PM

Done. I redid most of the letter before sending it...something about sending form letters that I just don't like.
I'm amazed that they're trying to cancel the Europa mission. Isn't Europa the only other body we know of that has a significant amount of liquid water? (Or at least, damn strong evidence of it.)
And taking funding away from projects already promised funding by Congress? Well, promises and the current administration in the US....they just don't go together.

Retire the shuttle fleet (or heck, just one of the things), and auction off some of the parts on eBay. It could be great PR - Own your own piece of the shuttle - and it'll bring in money for the rest of the budget. Heck with selling small pieces of the ceramic tiles - sell them whole. It'll be the new Pokemon - collect them all!

Posted by: djellison Feb 14 2006, 09:54 PM

What's TPS's advice for non-American-tax-payers - what can us foreigners do? (apart from bitch and moan about it)

Doug

Posted by: elakdawalla Feb 15 2006, 12:55 AM

For this particular call to action, there is not much that non-U.S.-taxpayers can do. There is no harm in participating in the email campaign, but of course in a discussion about the U.S. budget the reps rightfully don't really care what anybody but their constituents thinks. Other calls to action are more international in scope, but this one is pretty much for people to say "you're spending my tax dollars on the wrong things."

--Emily

Posted by: AlexBlackwell Feb 15 2006, 01:59 AM

I've been a TPS member since, I believe, late 1989 or early 1990; therefore, forgive me for asking what might turn out to be a rather naive question. Out of curiosity, and also because I haven't really paid that close attention, does TPS directly lobby non-U.S. governments for funding increases for their respective space science programs? I assume that there are not a few non-U.S. TPS members, so I was wondering if TPS, say, organized letter and/or e-mail writing campaigns to, for example, the Russian Parliament, EU ministers, CNES, ASI, etc.

Posted by: MahFL Feb 15 2006, 02:25 AM

Message sent from this US Tax payer.

Posted by: dvandorn Feb 15 2006, 02:58 AM

And also from this one.

Of course, I edited the pre-packaged message a little -- especially since "program" was mis-spelled "porgram" at one point in it.

-the other Doug

Posted by: MahFL Feb 15 2006, 04:30 PM

I would not worry about spelling, it's well known politicians can't spell

Posted by: Bob Shaw Feb 15 2006, 04:52 PM

It's still worthwhile ensuring that the politicos don't get the idea that there's a demand for an expanded space pogrom... ...we got one of those.

Bob Shaw

Posted by: elakdawalla Feb 15 2006, 05:51 PM

Yikes -- a perennial problem -- I'll get on that.

Also, Alex, I'm looking for an answer for your question.

--Emily

Posted by: AlexBlackwell Feb 15 2006, 06:16 PM

Thanks, Emily. I was just curious.

BTW, the February 16, 2006, issue of Nature has a couple of related items:

Excerpt from:

Editorial
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v439/n7078/full/439764a.html
Nature 439, 764 (2006).
doi:10.1038/439764a

[...]

"But the Hansen debacle is just one element of the increasingly adversarial relationship that is developing between NASA and the research community. The sour mood was apparent at last month's American Astronomical Society meeting in Washington DC, when NASA's science chief Mary Cleave told assembled scientists that her most important 'stakeholders' were the White House and Congress. Cleave's real (if unintentional) message was clear: don't expect NASA to advocate research, as we work for other interests.

"Scientists were also dismayed at how fast NASA administrator Mike Griffin reneged on a promise made last autumn not to take 'one thin dime' from space science to address the budget problems of the space shuttle and the space station. At his budget news conference on 6 February, Griffin confessed to doing just that, shifting $2 billion over five years from research to the astronaut programme.

"The cuts to science were deep, and they were decided behind closed doors. Take the research and analysis grants that fund the basic intellectual work underlying NASA's space missions. Previous NASA administrators, recognizing that many space scientists rely on these grants to stay in business, kept the grant programme healthy. But the new budget slashes research grants by 15–25%, and by even more in areas such as astrobiology. And NASA is yet to give details of how deep the cuts actually are."

Excerpt from

News
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v439/n7078/full/439768a.html
Tony Reichhardt
Nature 439, 768-769 (2006).
doi:10.1038/439768a

[...]

"Planetary scientist Alan Boss of the Carnegie Institution of Washington says the cuts would devastate US space science — just as physics was jolted when the Superconducting Super Collider was cancelled in 1993, after $2 billion had been spent on it. 'High energy physics never quite recovered from that.'

"Scientists appreciate that NASA's administrator, Mike Griffin, is struggling to balance his books. Griffin explained during the budget press conference that the science cuts were necessary to pay for shuttle flights required to complete the International Space Station. 'It's what we needed to do,' he said regretfully.

"But Jonathan Lunine, a planetary scientist at the University of Arizona, Tucson, sums up the view of many when he says he finds it 'puzzling and frustrating' that NASA would divert money from science, widely considered its most productive enterprise, to keep the aged space shuttles flying. 'It seems that NASA is trying to capitalize on its failures rather than its successes,' says Lunine.

[...]

"There is fury not just at the size of the cuts, but at how they were decided and announced to the science community. Heidi Hammel, a planetary researcher with the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado, says that NASA's advisory council was not operating during much of last year and so 'there was absolutely no way to know how these decisions had been made. It's sort of like a black hole over there.'"

Posted by: elakdawalla Feb 15 2006, 11:30 PM

I got this answer from Lou Friedman (our esteemed Executive Director):

Posted by: AlexBlackwell Feb 15 2006, 11:42 PM

Thanks for taking the time to track down a response, Emily. Also, please pass along my thanks to Lou Friedman for the reply.

I listened to the http://planetary.org/radio/show/00000164/. Given Murray's experiences as JPL Director, when the Shuttle program threatened unmanned space projects (e.g., Galileo), I was wondering if Murray, to paraphrase Yogi Berra, thought the current situation was a case of "déjà vu all over again."

Posted by: Redstone Feb 16 2006, 02:55 AM

We'll have a chance to see how effective the combined protest efforts of the Planetary Society, scientific community and public regarding NASA's budget request have been when Griffin and Shana Dale face the http://www.house.gov/science/press/109/109-192.htm tomorrow at 10 am EST (3 pm GMT). The session is scheduled for 2 hours, and will be on NASA TV.

The representatives will say, "Why did you cut science so much?"
Griffin will say, "Because we need the money for Shuttle and Station"
Reps will say, "Why not keep the science and cut the budget for Shuttle?"
Griffin will say, "Because we can't delay Shuttle, or save money flying fewer missions. But we can delay the science."

What happens next is the interesting part. I'm hoping some of the 30% increase going to Exploration will go back to Science. It really doesn't cost much to keep SIM and TPF ticking over, and start work on EO.

Expect also a lot of complaints about cuts to aeronautics.

Posted by: Stephen Feb 16 2006, 04:19 AM

All the complaints about shuttles taking money from space science and grumbles about how there would be more for science if only Griffin would retire a shuttle strike me as naive. NASA's new mandate to send people to the Moon & Mars is also consuming money. Why not cut that back instead, or delay its schedule?

The real problem is that NASA is underfunded for what it wants/needs/has to be able to do. The shortage of money for space science is merely a symptom of that. These sort of shortages are not new and the present shortages are not likely to be the last. (Indeed, I cannot help thinking that this present situation is partly an inevitable consequence of the generous tax cuts Bush persuaded Congress to make a few years back. If you cut back the amount of money a government has available to spend then inevitably there will be less in the kitty to spend.)

What we should be hearing are calls for NASA to be given more money in general. Trying to take money from one NASA pot to give to another is merely a case of robbing Peter to pay Paul.

Manned moon missions and manned Mars missions are going to be even more expensive even if the CEV itself is cheaper than the shuttle. What happens a decade from now when inevitably the budget cutters strike again? The shuttle will no longer be around to act as whipping boy. Will we instead be hearing calls from this board for fewer manned missions to the moon and/or delays in the manned Mars program, not to mention complaints about what a bottomless pit the CEV is and how we ought to have less of them to free up funding so they can start planning for that nice Triton orbiter everyone is talking about?

======
Stephen

Posted by: Redstone Feb 16 2006, 05:02 AM

There is a good summary of the overall NASA budget situation, produced by the House Science Comittee staff, at spaceref.com.

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=19645

Posted by: dvandorn Feb 16 2006, 06:03 AM

To give him credit, that's exactly what Griffin tried to do last year. In an appearance before a Congressional committee, he said that he cannot accomplish everything on NASA's plate without significant funding increases.

I'm assuming that the White House changed the message they gave to Griffin, at first telling him that VSE would get the political support to get funded independently of the unmanned side. But the new Bush budget proposal shows that the White House hasn't kept its word -- instead of providing the ramp-up funding levels needed to begin the VSE development, Griffin is now being told to do exactly what he told Congress last year he cannot do: maintain both sides of the house, with the necessarily rising VSE development costs, on a fixed budget.

I would have to think that, if Griffin was telling that to Congress, he was also telling it to the White House. So, all I can say is, it ain't Griffin's fault he had to change his tune.

Let's all hope Congress can bring themselves to give NASA the money it needs to accomplish *everything* it's been tasked to do. In spite of the Administration's inability to try and do so.

-the other Doug

Posted by: BruceMoomaw Feb 16 2006, 08:43 AM

Well, I won't. There are, lest we forget, lots of other uses for that money, and -- at the risk of harping yet again on the subject -- I can think of a lot more morally (and strategically) justifiable than a bloated manned-spaceflight effort, or for that matter an oversized unmanned space program. But then, I'll go so far as to say that NASA should be dissolved and its functions redistributed among other, more appropriate government agencies -- which is what would have happened from the start had it not been for the historical freak of the Moon Race.

Posted by: Stephen Feb 17 2006, 08:30 AM

"[F]rom the start"?

1. NASA was formed in 1958 back in the days of Eisenhower. It had thus been operating for several years before Kennedy's famous announcement which led to "the historical freak of the Moon Race".
2. Before NASA was invented America had not one space program but three: one run by the Army, one run by the Navy, & one run by the Air Force. Each had their own rockets, probes, launch sites, bureaucracies, and boffins. That had the potential--in the fullness of time--to lead to three manned space programs and three unmanned ones, much as the army to this day buys and runs its own helicopters and the navy operates its own (carrier-borne) jets--despite the existence of the air force.

Regarding your comments about disbanding NASA...

Are you proposing a return to the days of multiple space programs or "merely" the fragmentation of a single American space program (or at least its space effort)? Eg one agency launches rockets, another operates space probes, a third designs and builds the bits and pieces that go into space probes, a fourth picks and trains astronauts, a fifth operates the DSN, etc etc.

And what are these "more appropriate government agencies" anyway? You presumably mean pre-existing agencies like the US military & the FAA.

As for the "bloated" or "oversized" remarks...

Manned spaceflight was not and is not ever going to be cheap. Trying to do it on the cheap is merely a recipe:

1. For more Challengers and Columbia's; and/or
2. To stay in LEO. (Going beyond LEO is hardly going to be cheaper.)

Similar things might be said of claims for America's unmanned program being "oversized". If you want to explore (say) Europa at the same time as you're sending probes off to Mars & the Moon, putting research satellites around Earth, and space telescopes in orbit, then of course you're going to be running a sizeable unmanned space program. If you want landers as well as flybys, and rovers & sample return missions as well as simple fixed landers, you are talking about expensive missions which have the potential to either gobble up a budget or inflate one.

In short, do your comments amount to a suggestion that America is being overly ambitious and should cut back on what it is doing with its space program? (Disbanding NASA and farming out its functions to other agencies could be interpreted in the same fashion. Instead of a single agency with space travel & exploration as its primary rationale you would seem to prefer America's space exploration be handled by a variety of agencies each with own (possibly conflicting) priorities; and where space travel & exploration, or providing support for the same, may in any case be one of a number of functions they are required to perform, and not necessarily at the top of their "to-do" lists.)

======
Stephen

Posted by: Jeff7 Feb 17 2006, 07:07 PM

It might not be an entirely popular viewpoint here, but I do oppose the manned moon mission, and moreso the one to Mars. If just getting people to the moon is this expensive, getting to Mars could make the Iraq war look cheap.
Some day, yes, we'll land people on Mars. I just don't think that now is the time to get started on that particular goal.

Posted by: ljk4-1 Feb 17 2006, 09:30 PM

From Bob Park's latest What's New newsletter:

"Bush asked for another $72 BILLION for the war on terror and $20 BILLION for Katrina relief."

Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.bobpark.org

Posted by: JRehling Feb 18 2006, 01:03 AM

Good question. The cynically-delayed ramp up in Moon/Mars costs is a bomb that will go off, but we can only speculate as to how the world will look after the explosion.

The simple answer is that we will not send people to Mars on anything resembling the proposed timeline. On the other hand, a measured return to the Moon is at least conceivable if it were given the SS/ISS budget and then some.

In the classic film "Paths of Glory", a colonel orders infantry and artillery to undertake a suicidally impossible assault during World War I. As soon as the order is given, the failure of the assault is assured. The only thing to watch is how things proceed during and after the failure. This manned Mars business is the same deal, minus all the immediate bloodshed.

If robotic exploration is put in the behemoth's path, it could be entirely gutted. At least, it cannot compare in size to the shortfalls the behemoth will create.

One of the nicer ways this could fail would be to have people return to the Moon at enough of a "little at a time" approach that this goal could be met, the successes could distract us from the Mars goal, and robotic exploration could continue its up-and-down life cycle.

JIMO died in a nice way: Before much of the money (and organizational misdirection) had been devoted to it. That's how bad ideas should die. (Well, even sooner, but that's overly optimistic.)

ISS is dying in the worst way: Taxing more resources than any of us could even estimate (esp. in opportunity cost). It's even a major resource drain when it is clear that its farcical goals will be discarded.

What we have to hope for is that the Mars mistake dies like JIMO and not like ISS. If the latter, we'll get to the year 2030 with some huge not-useful-for-anything infrastructure having blanked the organizational priorities before it dies under its own weight like a whale in a parking lot.

Posted by: BruceMoomaw Feb 19 2006, 05:28 AM

The fact that Shuttle and ISS are so big that Congress is reluctant to cancel them despite their wastefulness reminds me of what Rep. Spark Matsunaga (D-HI) said in 1970 about Lockheed's ultimately successful demand that the federal government bail it out: "It reminds me of a dinosaur that wanders into your yard and says, 'Feed me, or else I'll die -- and then what are you going to do with 40 tons of dead, stinking dinosaur in your front yard?' "

Posted by: The Messenger Feb 19 2006, 06:19 AM

I have sat through budgets sessions, and gasp when my manager has ranked a sacred cow much lower than less important projects. His strategy is simple: We will get money for these other projects, if I tell corporate everything above the sacred cow is more important than this sacred cow that you wouldn't dare cut.

Usually it works, but not always. I wonder if this is not what is happening to some extent, with Griffiths knowing full-well congress will kick in more money for science.

Another possibility is that the W is punishing scientists for being godless heathens.

Posted by: The Messenger Mar 27 2006, 05:56 PM

-- NASA Decides to Reverse Cuts to Astrobiology
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewnews.html?id=1106

NASA has decided to reverse (at least in part) its decision to drastically cut funding for Astrobiology.
Details have not yet been released - but will be discussed this evening at the Astrobiology Science
Conference in Washington, DC.

Posted by: The Messenger Mar 27 2006, 10:08 PM

Mar. 27, 2006 | 11:28 PST | 19:28 UTC
Dawn has been reinstated!Permalink: http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00000509/

Way to go, Emily

Posted by: Jeff7 Mar 28 2006, 01:38 AM

What of any plans for Europa missions? Are they included in this restored budget?

"He then said that based on input he had been receiving that it was 'clear that we should money back [into Astrobiology]" and that "we have decided to put money back - and we will be doing that as soon as we can.'"

Input, like from most of the UMSF forum perhaps?

Posted by: mars loon Mar 29 2006, 01:00 AM

Clearly there was no logic to these science cuts in the first place. reason may yet prevail

Pehaps a restoration of the top priority Europa orbiter will follow

Posted by: BruceMoomaw Mar 29 2006, 01:19 AM

We should be so lucky.

Posted by: AlexBlackwell Mar 29 2006, 06:42 PM

http://www.slate.com/id/2138943/
NASA's new budget blows it.
By Gregg Easterbrook
Slate.com
Posted Wednesday, March 29, 2006, at 12:27 PM ET

Posted by: BruceMoomaw Mar 29 2006, 06:56 PM

Easterbrook was singing a similar tune back in his 1991 "New Republic" summary -- actually set up like an encyclopedia, in alphabetical order -- of "what's wrong with NASA". Readers of this blog will immediately notice some howlers he's committed in this new article, but the most important things he says are correct. More comments later.

Posted by: AlexBlackwell Mar 29 2006, 08:47 PM

Yeah, I just slogged through it myself. Typical Easterbrook piece, and some of the wording in the article is, to put it charitably, very sloppy.

Posted by: BruceMoomaw Mar 31 2006, 06:58 AM

It's easy to jump on his factual errors (no unmanned U.S. Moon probes since Apollo; Triana would have been at an Earth-Moon Lagrange point). And there's his one really substantial error: his bizarre insistence that Solar System and extrasolar-planet missions are ALWAYS far more important than longer-range space astronomy and cosmology missions because they study things that are "reasonably close" to us and therefore "might have some effect on us".

But the fact remains that his main points -- the stupidity of Shuttle/ISS; the downright criminal stupidity of shorting space-based studies of climate and environmental changes -- are correct. And so is his argument that Bush's manned lunar program may be an even bigger boondoggle than the Station -- given the fact that any actual Moon base would certainly cost several times what ISS cost, and that the science from manned lunar exploration will be of interest solely to the extremely small flock of specialists in lunar geology (unless Moon-based helium-3 mining or solar-power station construction pans out, which is, to put it mildly, questionable without a lot of further ground-based study). If we're going to start develop manned deep-space ships to Mars or the near-Earth asteroids, we should start working directly on those and not be diverted by the Moon. Except, of course that -- as he says -- the manned program drags on owing to the desire of NASA, its contractors, and its home-district Congressmen and voters to keep bleeding off the money of other taxpayers.

Posted by: mcaplinger Mar 31 2006, 07:21 AM

I might be prepared to argue that satellites are a very cost-ineffective way to study most aspects of climate change, especially given the extreme difficulty of calibration and the relatively small effects they can see. To date, despite all the hoopla, has EOS delivered on many of its promises?

I'd be happier if the money was spent doing something about the obvious reality of climate change, rather than studying it from orbit. Not that that's likely given the current administration.

Posted by: BruceMoomaw Mar 31 2006, 07:53 AM

I've always heard that satellites are absolutely crucial to separate local changes from global changes in climate-change observations. Consider the fight, lasting for years now, over whether weather balloons really provide adequate data on changes in global atmospheric temperature -- or the fact that, until ERBS went up, we couldn't even answer such an obvious question as whether the current cloud cover is warming or cooling the planet. (Also note that one of the main arguments being used by the remaining skeptics is Richard Lindzen's belief that previous satellite observations of the Pacific have shown a cloud-related negative-feedback effect that he thinks will automatically choke off man-made global warming -- an argument that can only be settled in any reasonable length of time by better satellite data.)

The more data we get to nail this down, the less alibi this Administration -- or the next one -- will have for resisting the need to start doing something about it. Indeed, over the last few months, you'll note a decided softening of this Administration's rhetoric regarding its supposed doubts on the subject (even if the President himself, when torn away from his comic books, has developed an attachment to the ludicrous conspiracy theories of Michael Crichton).

Posted by: remcook Mar 31 2006, 01:38 PM

..and don't forget by far the largest part of the planet is inaccesible to man, or at least not accessed by man (i.e. the oceans). Oceans store most of the energy for climate, but data coverage from ground-based observations is very sparse. If you want to have a global picture, you need satellites.

Posted by: mcaplinger Mar 31 2006, 04:30 PM

Sure, you generally hear this from people who are involved in satellite missions.

It may be that there are reasonably-priced satellite missions that can answer environmental questions. The EOS mega-system, however, really muddied the water. It's a classis big-mission/small-mission dichotomy, which in my opinion didn't weigh heavily in favor of big missions.

Posted by: tty Mar 31 2006, 05:09 PM

Not to mention the ice caps. Actually the claims about melting ice caps are rather shaky since they are almost completely based on measurements from parts of Greenland and the Antarctic Peninsula while we have very little data from East Antarctica which is the really important area. Theoretical studies seems to indicate that the East Antarctic Ice Cap is probably growing, but we don't know for sure, and satellite measuremets is the only realistic way to find out.

tty

Posted by: BruceMoomaw Mar 31 2006, 08:16 PM

Well, there are certainly enough smaller satellites in the "A-Train" sequence as well. (Notice that they're the ones that the Administration was trying to knife, since the funding for EOS is pretty much complete.) Frankly, if I'm going to waste any money unnecessarily on space, THIS is the best possible place to unnecessarily waste it.

Posted by: The Messenger Apr 3 2006, 02:00 PM

http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/060329_techwed_nasa_tech.html

This article may deserve its own thread - it would seem to take a lot of seed money out of the universitys needed to harvest a new crop of space scientists and engineers.

Posted by: PhilHorzempa Apr 3 2006, 06:54 PM

Check out today's NASA Watch for a link to an excellent article from yesterday's
Washington Post. It is entitiled, "Is NASA in Outer Space? Not After a Surprise
Round of Budget Cuts." I agree wholeheartedly with the aouthor's point that Congress
needs to erect a permanent FIREWALL in NASA's budget to protect unmanned Space
Science missions. The author highlights the "deferments" of such crucial missions
as the Europa Orbiter, SIM and TPF.

In my opinion, Griffin must be prevented from setting a precedent with NASA's
FY07 budget proposal. If Congress allows Griffin to steal funds from Space Science
this time, then he, and future NASA Administrators, will be tempted to dream up
some "emergency" in manned spaceflight that "requires" them to take funds from
unmanned exploration.

Posted by: The Messenger Apr 7 2006, 05:40 PM

-- Continued Confusion Over Astrobiology Funding by NASA
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewnews.nl.html?id=1110

c-r-e-d-i-b-i-l-i-t-y

Posted by: BruceMoomaw Apr 21 2006, 01:37 PM

Odd disparity: In a Feb. 13 article ("Time to Talk"), Aviation Week says that "NASA cut about $2 billion from its five-year runout for space science". But in an April 3 article ("Setting Priorities"), AW says that "Overall, NASA's Fiscal 2007 request trims $3.1 billion from the five-year science spending plan outlined in its Fiscal 2006 budget." Which is true?

Also, an interesting Aviation Week guest editorial from the Hubble Telescope's Bruce Margon defending Flagship-class space science missions: http://www-int.stsci.edu/~margon/awst.pdf

Posted by: BruceMoomaw Apr 24 2006, 11:32 PM

Cpurtesy of (grrr) Keith Cowing: the Planetary Science Institute has polled 1024 planetary scientists to find out just what they want done with the money the program DOES have available right now:
http://www.psi.edu/~sykes/prioritysurvey/results.html

The results are both clear and interesting. There is very strong agreement with what Andy Dantzler told Congress: R&A funds come first, then small (Discovery and Mars Scout) missions, then medium ones (New Frontiers), with Flagship missions as a whole (at the rate one per decade) being lowest priority. BUT: there is also overwhelming enthusiasm (73%) for skipping the next 1 or 2 Discovery AOs plus the next New Frontiers AO to fly ONE near-future Flagship mission.

Obvious next question: do the scientists want that one near-future Flagship to be Europa Orbiter (as currently planned), or something else?

Posted by: Bob Shaw Apr 25 2006, 03:08 PM

Bruce:

Look on the bright side - the MEPAG folk talk to *you*!

Bob Shaw

Posted by: Analyst Apr 25 2006, 03:33 PM

I agree with his points. There are other important factors in (outer) planetary exploration:

- Delta V: To go to Jupiter, Saturn or Neptune you need a large C3 and/or long travel times > big booster
- Delta V: To enter orbit you need to slow down a lot, to enter orbit around a moon even more > large propellant tanks > large spacecraft
- Long travel time means more redundancy and a long time before you get scientific results
- This means long science planning cycles and (together with the higher costs) long intervalls between missions
- If you have a mission every two decades or less you want to carry all instruments you have and may need

You have a bis spacecraft with lots of propellant, instruments and redundancy, something like Cassini. Orders of magnitude more productive compared to Deep Impact but less than one order of magnitude more expensive.

Flagship missions can't be replaced by smaller ones. Period. Physics is against it. ESA knows (Rosetta, Beppi Columbo).

Analyst

Posted by: BruceMoomaw Apr 26 2006, 12:28 AM

Which brings me to a point Emily isn't going to like -- in that "open" E-mail Bruce Betts sent her on MEPAG's April meeting, he didn't tell her a single goddamn thing that hasn't already been openly known for months. See http://mepag.jpl.nasa.gov/meeting/nov-05/MEPAG_14_Chairmans_ltr1.pdf and http://mepag.jpl.nasa.gov/reports/Mars_Progam_Plan_SAG_Report.doc . The only reason I got anything before those two public reports came out is because they DID send an emissary to the simultaneous COMPLEX meeting in November, and I was there to overhear him.

I suggest that Emily and I try simultaneously to pry open this oyster and actually get some new information about the things MEPAG discussed at the April meeting and the conclusions they reached.

Posted by: elakdawalla Apr 26 2006, 03:42 PM

Bruce, I work for Bruce Betts, which sometimes gets me more insight, but sometimes less. That is, I have to pick my battles, and I've got other stuff I'm waiting on him for. Feel free to pester him for more information. A phone call will probably get more progress (i.e. he can't put off a reply to a phone call until tomorrow...and tomorrow...and tomorrow...) He's up to his neck in preparations for the upcoming ISDC meeting and is more than usually procrastinatory these days.

As for that inexplicable NASAwatch comment about "finally allowing taxpayer insight," Lou and Bruce have been going to MEPAG for years. I'll be going to both OPAG and VEXAG.

--Emily

Posted by: The Messenger Apr 26 2006, 05:22 PM

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.nl.html?pid=20415

The power to delay is the power to destroy.


While I agree with Griffin in principle, his hand-picked advisary committee has its own agenda and bias.

Posted by: Mariner9 Apr 26 2006, 06:49 PM

I will agree that some missions just cry out for Flagship class. The Europa Orbiter is a good example. There are some things in that mission, such as measuring the tidal flexing of Europa, that simply cannot be done without going into orbit around Europa. And even with only a month in Europa orbit you can get high resolution imagary and data collection over nearly the entire surface.

However, Analyst's comments appeared to make the argument that you just can't do Outer Planets missions without going to the Flagship Class.

I doubt that this is what he meant to imply, but I would like to point out that all is not lost. I think the first two New Frontiers missions, New Horizons and JUNO, show that you can go to the Outer Planets for a lot less than Flagship costs.

Looking at the relatively conservative JUNO design, I'm not sure a 3-axis stabalized, nuclear powered, Jupiter orbiter is possible under the New Frontiers cost cap, but if it is we still could have a "Flagship-light" mission launch by the middle of the next decade. As I have argued before, we could still move forward quite a lot by a modern instrument suite flying a variation of the Galileo tour.

I'll grant you that 3-4 instruments on a New Fronteirs "Galileo 2" would not return nearly what 6-7 instruments on a Europa Orbiter would.... but a real-live New Frontiers-3 is worth a lot more than an endlessly studied, 'we hope it gets funded next-year, or the year after that', Europa Orbiter.



Mars Sample Return, anyone? Been studied since the 1980s. And studied. Designed. And then redesigned. Go-it-alone. Partner with the French. Projected for launch in mid-90s. Then projected for the 2005-2007 time period. Then mid 2010s. Latest plan is for launch in 2024.

I'll believe it when I see it.

Posted by: Bob Shaw Apr 26 2006, 08:42 PM

Emily:

I think that the perpetrator of that comment has a particular axe (or two, or more - sometimes it seems like a whole hardware store!) to grind! Still, it made *me* laugh out loud!

Bob Shaw

Posted by: mcaplinger Apr 26 2006, 11:20 PM

Uh-oh, this remark has gotten you in trouble with Cowing again

It seems we have a mole here, unless Cowing is a member.

Posted by: BruceMoomaw Apr 27 2006, 12:30 AM

I wondered if this might set Keithy howling again. It doesn't take much to do that.

Meanwhile, I'll try prying away at a few other members of MEPAG to see if I can extract any new morsels from them.

Posted by: Analyst Apr 27 2006, 06:49 AM

Good point. My fault, I have to be more specific. I was thinking about orbiters, because I believe you need them to really understand and explore an outer planet and it's moons, rings etc over time. New Horizons is a special case, a late "Voyager" doing an initial exploration of an unkhown world. Once you have been there by a flyby craft, you eigher know it's uninteresting to come back or you need an orbiter.

Well Juno is an orbiter and it's withhin New Frontiers (700 m$). But as you point out: It's a spinning craft with a very limited power supply, it avoids the interesting things (moons, rings) because of radiation and it carries a very limited suite of instruments. It's like a today's Pioneer 10 going into orbit. Maybe worth doing, but limited. It's camera is only for outreach: on a spinner, no filters, low resolution ... No Spectrometers etc.

The only remaining New Frontiers class craft to an outer planet is imo some kind of entry probe. But you better have orbiter for data return (or a flyby "bus") and you get a few hours of data maximum with no global context (therefore you need the orbiter). A Saturn entry probe as long as Cassini is working is an option (you even have a S-band link), but this window is closed.

I hope this clear things up.

I agree with you: better fly something now than nothing ever.

Analyst

Posted by: BruceMoomaw Apr 27 2006, 10:29 AM

It would be more accurate to say that missions designed to study the satellites of the outer planets seem to require Flagship-class missions. Missions to study the giant planets themselves can consist simply either of Juno-type orbiters or of flybys that drop off entry probes and relay their data back to Earth -- and in either case, a New Frontiers-type mission is feasible. But Jupiter and Saturn orbiters that fly by their satellites and examine them may break the NF cost cap -- that isn't certain -- and certainly missions that orbit or land on the satellites seem to (although it's just barely possible that we might be able to design a Titan orbiter or stationary lander within the NF cap, given our unique ability to use Titan's atmosphere for aerobraking and thus cut down drastically on the mass of propellant needed by the craft).

There seems to be a consensus developing recently that the next mission to study a giant planet itself after Juno should consist of a craft to fly by Saturn without stopping and drop off one to three Galileo-type vented entry probes, as well as doing Juno-type microwave spectrometry of the planet (an instrument which Cassini lacks), to study its atmospheric composition and structure. This craft could almost certainly be NF-class -- it could even use solar power at that distance for that particular kind of mission. Similar missions could be flown for Uranus and Neptune, which could also somewhat extend Voyager 2's imaging and spectrometry of the Uranus and Neptune systems -- and all such missions could provide adequate "context" for the entry probes. But if you want to study those two planets' moons and rings in any detail, or observe long-term changes in their weather and magnetospheres, you will also need a Flagship-class orbiter.

Posted by: Stephen Apr 27 2006, 11:13 AM

Yes, a MSR mission is looking increasingly like a desert mirage: every time you approach the thing it recedes further off into the distance.

I notice that 2024 is now within a potentially awkward time frame for unmanned Mars missions. Assuming the VSE proceeds on schedule (a big if) and NASA succeeds in returning manned expeditions to the Moon by the late 2010s then by the 2020s one would it expect it to be preparing for a manned mission to Mars--assuming Mars remains on NASA's manned itinerary. If so then at some point during the 2020s the unmanned Mars program is surely going to be increasingly turned towards supporting the manned one, such as finding potential landing sites. An MSR is really only going to be of use to the manned program if it shows the sampled site to be a potential manned landing site. If its going to require several MSR missions before a site useful to the manned program is found then at some point somebody is surely going to ask what the point is of sending even one and whether the MSR money would not be better spent on other kinds of Mars missions such as more orbiters and/or rovers.

======
Stephen

Posted by: Bob Shaw Apr 27 2006, 08:08 PM

Stephen:

In another thread I suggested that unmanned MSR is likely to end up being linked to a manned Mars orbit mission. I don't think manned Mars landings are particularly likely in the nearish term, but that a non-landing mission is - and such a mission, if integrated into an unmanned campaign, could actually do many of the things which are really rather difficult for robotic missions (such as returning samples to Earth) while being (almost) economically bearable.

Bob Shaw

Posted by: Stephen Apr 28 2006, 03:05 AM

If by "unmanned MSR" you mean a probe sent all the way from Earth to link up with the manned mission in some fashion I would consider such a thing to be highly unlikely. If however you mean a probe which the manned mission itself carries into Mars orbit then releases for landing on Mars (a la the subsatellites one or two of the later Apollo missions released into lunar orbit) and then later retrieves in some fashion, that is actually more likely (IMHO), and may even be the way the first manned mission or two will be conducted, although the reasons I would give have little to do with economics.

The moment you decide to put human beings on Mars you have to confront the problem of contamination. Not just the astronauts encountering Martian bugs but of the earthly sort contaminating the Martian environment--not to mention the samples the astronauts will be bringing back. Every human being carries with them a veritable microbial menagerie, in their gut, on their skin, in the air they breath in and out, etc. Some of that menagerie human beings depend on to survive so decontamination can only go so far.

What that means is that the moment human beings land on Mars contamination of the landing site by their hitchhiking menageries is probably inevitable. If that landing site has been chosen precisely because scientists back on Earth are hoping to find evidence of Martian life there then obviously that will complicate the situation for scientists examining samples brought back. However, it will also complicate the mission itself and its procedures. The astronauts, for example, will not be able to simply slip into a spacesuit and step outside through the airlock. They will first have to go through some kind of decontamination procedure to reduce the risk of microbial hitchhikers riding on their shoes or spacesuits. (Whether not they do the reverse as well--decontaminate their suits after coming back in from an EVA--will depend on how seriously the question of Mars life and the risks involved is taken.)

In that context your idea for a manned orbital mission makes a lot of sense. It would be one way of overcoming the headaches. The astronauts and their hitchhiking menageries can stay in orbit (or on Phobos) while (decontaminated) unmanned probes are sent down to do the onsite investigations and do the sampling. If no native Mars life is found future missions can go all the way down to the surface. (If native Mars life *is* discovered the future becomes much more complicated: do future manned missions land regardless or is the surface of Mars to be declared a wildlife preservation zone, offlimits to human beings and their terrestrial microbial menageries?)

======
Stephen

Posted by: mcaplinger Apr 28 2006, 03:42 AM

JunoCam does have filters -- it's a tricolor pushframe system that uses TDI to get good SNR given the spin rate. I think the images will be pretty spectacular, especially if we can take more per orbit than the very modest baseline.

Posted by: Analyst Apr 28 2006, 06:31 AM

It's not Cassisi's ISS, but you are right, I just checked at www.msss.com.
I guess they plan 8 to 12 pictures per orbit, maybe a bandwith limitation?

Analyst

Posted by: BruceMoomaw Apr 28 2006, 08:50 AM

The figure I have is 5-10 pictures per orbit. (I'm still trying to find out whether they may add the combined IR spectrometer/camera described in http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2006/pdf/1564.pdf to the mission -- possibly by replacing JunoCam with it.)

Posted by: ljk4-1 Apr 28 2006, 01:17 PM

How do you know there isn't life under the surface of Phobos? And/or Deimos?

What if Shklovsky was right about Phobos being hollow?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phobos_(moon)#.22Hollow_Phobos.22_claims

Will we need to just stay on the spaceship in orbit? Should we just not
boldly go anywhere?

Posted by: mcaplinger Apr 28 2006, 01:50 PM

That really wouldn't be a very nice thing to do to the JunoCam vendor, would it?

At any rate, they certainly haven't told us anything about the possibility of deleting JunoCam.

Posted by: ljk4-1 Apr 28 2006, 02:38 PM

NASA NEWS

- Mikulski Calls for Balanced Space Program To Increase Support for NASA

http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Mikulski_Calls_for_Balanced_Space_Program_To_Increase_Support_for_NASA.html

Washington DC (SPX) Apr 28, 2006 - Senator Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.), the
senior Democrat on the Commerce, Justice and Science Subcommittee, today called
on the Bush Administration to increase funding for NASA in the federal budget,
which cuts billions from science programs.

Posted by: gpurcell Apr 28 2006, 05:55 PM

What about a Saturn/Uranus or Neptune flyby (with perhaps one probe for the second target)? Seems to me if you're flinging an expensive piece of kit out there you ought to try for at least two planetary encounters.

Posted by: BruceMoomaw Apr 28 2006, 10:08 PM

Unfortunately, the outer three giant planets aren't lined up for any such neat billiards shot any time in the next couple of decades or more (I believe -- although I need to double-check on the possibility of a Saturn-Neptune mission). Obviously we SHOULD take advantage of any such opportunity we get, but we seem to have passed the deadline for them over the last two decades.

What you COULD do, of course, is send any such mission on to observe a KBO. And, given the ability of the strong gravity fields of the giant planets to produce radically different trajectories into the Kuiper Belt using just minor changes in the craft's flyby path past a giant planet, you could pick your KBO in advance, unlike New Horizons (and like the proposed New Horizons 2, which we won't be seeing -- at least in 2008). Most such missions to any of the outer three giant planets also utilize a Jupiter flyby, raising the possibility of a close Io flyby in which we could make more useful observations of that still-underexamined world. (As I've noted before, if that nitwit Dan Goldin had approved a New Horizons-type mission for Nov. 2003 -- instead of being totally opposed to any Pluto mission because "nobody gives a damn about Pluto" -- it would have made a Jupiter flyby close enough that it could easily have included a close Io flyby as a bonus.)

Posted by: dvandorn May 2 2006, 08:38 PM

Getting back to the original topic of this thread, I had a chance to watch Mike Griffin's report to Congress (well, the House science committee, whatever its official name) from last week. It was rebroadcast on NASA-TV last night, and I ended up staying up late watching it, rather than going to sleep like I ought to have. (I *love* living in a civilized community that puts NASA-TV on its cable system. Well, OK, they sometimes pre-empt NASA-TV for videotapes of local high school football games from last fall... but the 20 or so hours a day we get of NASA-TV is generally good enough for me.)

Anyway... Griffin was being *very* careful about how he spoke of budget requirements. He spoke of understanding that, in a world in which Iraq war and Katrina recovery costs were far more immediate needs than NASA's programs, there wasn't much likelihood of NASA getting any more money than it's currently receiving. He spoke of working hard to set priorities, getting the most important things (CEV and CLV development, according to him) done first, and then deploying other elements of the science and exploration infrastructure as time and budgets permit.

The chair of the committee, a guy named Shelby, responded to this by insisting that NASA needed more money. Griffin stopped him and said that he was *not* there to beg for more money -- he was only there to give a status report on what he was able to do with the money he had available.

Shelby just plowed on, insisting that no, NASA really did need more money. Griffin, tellingly, responded with an almost muttered comment, "You can say that, sir, I can't."

Griffin was asked some very pointed questions about specific programs, including the RLEP2 program. Griffin was challenged with the perception that NASA has lost all interest in pursuing the RLEP2 program, to which he replied that NASA was firmly committed to flying that mission -- but that he couldn't afford to start funding it for at least another two years.

And, as I mentioned in passing in another thread, Griffin was asked what the current estimates look like for repairs of hurricane damage at Michoud, the Stennis Space Center, and the Kennedy Space Center. He said that the current estimate is looking like about $550 million. This same committee had recommended that NASA get emergency hurricane repair funds of some $300 million last year, but that money never made it into the budget. Shelby asked how NASA was paying for the repairs, and Griffin said he was stealing the money from the Shuttle/ISS budgets. So, look at it this way -- there are even concerns so immediate that Shuttle/ISS, the Great Hog (as some of y'all would put it), is even getting some funds pinched, here and there...

All in all, Griffin gave the appearance of a basically good juggler suddenly finding himself with 20 or 30 more objects in the air at once than he's ever juggled before...

-the other Doug

Posted by: Stephen May 3 2006, 02:27 AM

Yes, Griffin may be the boss of NASA but he is still just a public servant. If his own boss says "no more money" Griffin would doubtless be hauled over the coals should be try to get that funding out of Congress directly. That would be seen as going behind the boss's back.

As a general rule you can't fill a hole except by digging another.

Right now the Shuttle/ISS may be paying to fill that $550 million hole, but it presumably did so at the cost of digging a hole in the Shuttle/ISS's own budget. Since getting the Shuttle back into orbit and finishing the ISS seem at present to be among NASA's highest priorities that presumably means that at some point down the track that new hole will need to be filled in. Unless Congress comes to the rescue with an extra $550 million do not be surprised if that other hole is eventually filled in by digging further holes in other areas of NASA expenditure. Like space science.

======
Stephen

Posted by: PhilHorzempa May 3 2006, 03:07 AM

I do hope that the JunoCam is retained for both scientific and PR reasons. The science
value speaks for itself, i.e., detailed views of Jupiter's polar region.

To me, however, equally important is JunoCam's value in capturing the interest of the
American public and Congress. They, after all, are the ones that fund these robotic
explorers that we love so much. Without PICTURES an event does not happen in our
modern world of 24/7 TV news coverage, and if it does not register with the collective
conciousness of the nation, then, subtly, support for planetary exploration is hurt.

I support spending a few million on JunoCam since it is the lever by which the
"real" science of JUNO has a fighting chance to be funded.


Another Phil

Posted by: ljk4-1 May 4 2006, 03:43 PM

NASA Lacks Resources Needed to Sustain Vigorous Science Program

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.nl.html?pid=19764

"NASA does not have the resources necessary to maintain a vigorous science
program, complete the International Space Station, and return humans to the
moon, says a new congressionally mandated report from the National Academies'
National Research Council.

"There is a mismatch between what NASA has been assigned to do and the
resources with which it has been provided," said Lennard A. Fisk, chair of the
committee that wrote the report."

Posted by: BruceMoomaw May 5 2006, 07:19 AM

The "guy named Shelby" is Senator from Alabama, which makes it rather unsurprising that he favors an overall increase in NASA's budget.

As for RLEP-2: I have advance word -- solid this time, but I can't say a thing about my source -- that the gargantuan version of it has been mercifully axed, and that they're planning a sensible small version now.

And as for how Congress will handle this whole problem: as always with democracies, they'll delay dealing the crisis as long as possible, until the entire roof is actually starting to fall in -- at which point they'll finally start frantic jury-rigged home repairs, leading to God knows what final outcome.

Posted by: Stephen May 9 2006, 09:39 AM

As opposed to non-democracies where you may only find out that there even was a roof problem a decade or so after the roof has fallen in--and then you have to flee the country to keep the secret police from throwing you in a gulag to shut you up.

======
Stephen

Posted by: BruceMoomaw May 13 2006, 06:45 AM

Entirely correct. I hope to God no one thinks I'm recommending non-democracy as a preferable alternative. What I was trying to do is point out that a tendency to delay dealing with tough problems at all is an inevitable, if undesirable, side effect of political democracy, and that this kick-the-can-down-the-road behavior is now predictably being applied to NASA's funding crisis.

Meanwhile, the reports are just in from NASA's four Space Science Subcommittees on how to cope with the funding crisis:

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=20587
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=20588
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=20589
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=20590

As one might expect, they all wax indignant about the cuts in Research and Analysis and demand that they be restored. Most of them, however, dodge the question of how this is to be paid for, and just how the reductions in actual missions should be divided up if NASA refuses to increase total space science funding. But the last of the four -- the Planetary Science Subcommittee -- does not dodge this issue: "The ratios of launch frequencies for small, medium and large missions given in the latest Solar System Exploration Roadmap are appropriate. Actual launch frequencies should be paced by budgetary considerations." Also: "The plan for the next five years should include an investment in concept or Phase A studies of one or more candidate outer planet missions. In the absence of such an investment there will be too long a hiatus between major outer planet missions."

Two other important recommendations:

(1) " Strategic planning for solar system exploration should integrate the currently distinct plans for Mars and the Moon with those for other solar system bodies. Maintaining separate planning efforts runs the risk that intellectual gaps will arise between plans for different solar system targets and that technological and programmatic efforts will be unnecessarily duplicative. Such a synthesis of planning efforts does not imply integration at the programmatic level."


(2) "The cuts to the Astrobiology Program, apparently made in the absence of advice from the scientific community, are particularly damaging. First, even if a 50% cut to an R&A program were warranted on scientific grounds, because many awards are for multiple years, the implementation of such a reduction over 1 or even 2 years means that many of the research projects that will be terminated, sharply reduced, or simply not started will include some of those most highly rated by the peer review process.

"Moreover, the central scientific themes of astrobiology underpin strategic plans for the exploration of Mars and the outer solar system, inform plans for the renewed exploration of the Moon, and constitute the basis for elements of the plans of the Astrophysics Division to characterize the habitability of planets around other stars. Targeting the Astrobiology Program for anomalously large cuts is sufficiently inconsistent with the rationale enunciated for a broad sweep of SMD programs that budgetary restoration for that program should receive immediate attention."

Posted by: PhilHorzempa May 17 2006, 02:55 AM

The latest word on NASA's FY07 budget is that Congress probably will not save them
by adding $1 b to its budget. See details in this article.

http://space.com/spacenews/businessmonday_060515.html


How do the members of the UMSF community feel about this situation now that
a "rescue" of NASA's budget does not appear likely this year?

I feel that, since Bush has obviously withdrawn his support from the VSE, the Congress
should restore about $500 M to NASA's Space Science programs. The funds should
be taken from the VSE. If Bush were serious about returning people to the Moon and then
going to Mars, then his adminstration would obviously have given NASA sufficient
funds. They, just as obviously, did not.

Therefore, I urge Congress to restore the balance in NASA funding and allow
NASA's program of unmanned explorers to continue to return exciting results.
In particular, the Europa Explorer project needs to be started THIS year, as
Congress earlier directed. I was shocked to learn recently that not only is
NASA planning to delay the Europa Explorer (Orbiter/Lander) this coming year,
it is not contemplating starting the Europa project until AFTER the next 5-year
budget cycle!

I do not object to continuing the VSE. However, it should only proceed as fast
as manned spaceflight funding allows. Congress should not allow NASA to
accelerate the VSE by stealing funds from unmanned space. By enabling NASA's
attempt at this theft, the Congress will be agreeing to NASA's plan to delay
unmanned science programs for years, if not decades. I want to see landers
on Europa and Titan and Enceladus in the near future.

Also, if Congress allows Griffin to declare a manned spaceflight 'emergency' to
justify draining funds from Space Science, then NASA will be tempted to pull this
same trick in the future. Are we to believe that the CEV, the CLV, the CaLV, and
the LSAM will not overrun thier budgets?

When (not if) they do, we can all imagine a future NASA Administrator telling
Congress that he simply MUST take funds from unmanned Space Science again.
NASA now spends most of its funds on manned spaceflight. Unless the President
adds more money to the manned portion of NASA's budget, that sector
should learn to live within its budget.


Another Phil

Posted by: gpurcell May 17 2006, 02:59 AM

Just remember that the Senate is called the "upper" house for more than one reason....

Posted by: dvandorn May 17 2006, 10:15 AM

One more time....

The issue is *not* whether to proceed with VSE or not. The issue is whether to allow the U.S. to withdraw entirely from manned spaceflight. The Shuttle cannot keep flying after about 2010. If we do not develop at *least* the CEV and the CLV, the U.S. cedes the entire realm of manned spaceflight to Russia and China.

Now, if money were being diverted from UMSF because of CaLV and LSAM development, I could agree with you, aPhil. But it's not. No significant money is being spent on either yet. Until and unless money starts flowing into CaLV and LSAM development, what Griffin is doing has nothing to do with funding VSE. It has to do with trying to ensure that, come early next decade, the U.S. has a manned spaceflight capability. Period.

-the other Doug

Posted by: Bob Shaw May 17 2006, 11:08 AM

oDoug:

Oh, I dunno - I'm sure that Mr Rutan will sell NASA a ticket or two! No touching the controls, though!

Bob Shaw

Posted by: dvandorn May 17 2006, 11:27 AM

Mr. Rutan is twenty *or more* years away from fielding an orbital vehicle -- if ever. I don't see that approach providing orbital services anytime soon.

-the other Doug

Posted by: PhilHorzempa May 18 2006, 01:54 AM

I couldn't disagree with you more. The CEV and CLV are only the FIRST elements
of the VSE. You might have noticed that those projects did not exist before Bush's announcement,
in January 2004, that launched the VSE.

Also, I am not against the CEV and CLV. What I am against is the siphoning of funds
away from unmanned Space Science in order to speed up the development of the CEV
and CLV. The unmanned side of NASA has been very successful and very productive
and should not be made to suffer because of poor planning by NASA and the US
Government.

NASA's manned spaceflight program has suffered from a lack of planning and
from the fiscal drain of Shuttle and ISS. Griffin is trying to reverse this and I give
him credit. However, it took about 30 years to get into this mess and Griffin cannot
undue that in only 5 or 10 years. It will take time.

Therefore the US may have a manned spaceflight gap of 4 or 5 years after the Shuttle
is retired. That is regrettable, but in no way does that mean that unmanned exploration
of the Solar System and the Universe should suffer. Compared with manned spaceflight,
the unmanned programs have been very efficient with their funds.

If the Congress and the President are so concerned with a manned flight gap, then
they should pony up the funds to shorten that gap. So far, going by the budget that he
submitted, the President doesn't seem so upset. We shall see what the Congress does.

Again, I am worried about this year's NASA budget setting a precedent. I hope that
Congress doesn't allow that to happen, as it will endanger the funds for unmanned
Space Science next year, and the year after that, and into the indefinite future.


Another Phil

Posted by: dvandorn May 18 2006, 02:15 AM

The President proposed the VSE and then made it clear he had no intention of funding it to the levels required to maintain his own stated schedule. I don't see any change in Bush's attitude here, at all. He never was willing to fund it properly. Congress either needs to stand up and face the funding issues (since the White House can't or won't), or yes -- we WILL see Griffin go crazy trying to get $25 billion worth of 'action' a year out of NASA on a $7 billion budget. The results of which will NOT be good for space science, or for ANY NASA program.

I disagree with you that NASA has been getting itself into this position for 30 years -- they've been planning (and funding) Shuttle follow-up vehicles for 20 of those 30 years. Talk about money that's gone down the drain! VentureStar (the most costly dead-end program), the CRV and the OSP -- all had money spent on them to one degree or another. (A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon you're talking real money...)

CEV/CLV are only the latest stab NASA has taken at coming up with a Shuttle replacement. So VSE isn't driving NASA's identified need for a Shuttle replacement -- that's been going on for nearly 20 years. VSE may have helped define an *approach* to their latest stab at a Shuttle follow-on, but CEV/CLV is simply the latest in a string of heretofore-failed projects designed to allow us to retire the Shuttle system when the time comes.

But don't lay the blame for needing to get the CEV/CLV up and running on VSE. That blame lies on those who have tried, and failed (spending several billion dollars along the way) to create a Shuttle follow-on for the past 20 years.

-the other Doug

Posted by: ljk4-1 Jun 9 2006, 09:13 PM

http://www.nap.edu/catalog/11644.html

An Assessment of Balance in NASA's Science Programs

Authors:

Committee on an Assessment of Balance in NASA's Science Programs,
National Research Council Authoring Organizations

Description:

When the space exploration initiative was announced, Congress asked the NRC to review the science NASA proposed to carryout under the initiative. It also asked the NRC to assess whether this program would provide balanced scientific research across the established disciplines supported by NASA in addition to supporting the new initiative. In 2005, the NRC released three studies focusing on a portion of that task, but changes at NASA forced the postponement of the last phase. This report presents that last phase with an assessment of the health of the NASA scientific disciplines under the budget requests imposed by the exploration initiative. The report also provides an analysis of whether the science budget appropriately reflects cross-disciplinary scientific priorities.

Posted by: Bob Shaw Jun 9 2006, 10:12 PM

oDoug:

The historical 'stop-start' funding problem isn't within the power of individuals, however well-intentioned, to alter - it's a cultural problem linked to the sort of rampant short-termism which now seems to plague all except the few remaining command economies. Sadly, we now also have a blame culture, which seeks scapegoats - most of whom were mere mortals doing impossible jobs. Dan Goldin seemed like a breath of fresh air when his tenure began, and is now treated like a clown, which he certainly wasn't. For all the recent paradigm shifts, I still despair of NASA, and of most 'big science' - it's the mammals which will one day make the grade, not the dinosaurs...

Bob Shaw

Posted by: GravityWaves Jun 10 2006, 10:50 PM

Mike Griffin on the NASA budget

http://www.nature.com/news/2006/060508/full/441134b.html

James Pawelczyk, associate professor of kinesiology at Penn State, testified before Congress Wednesday, June 7, regarding NASA's budget and programs.


http://live.psu.edu/story/18210

Posted by: The Messenger Jun 13 2006, 07:16 PM

Does NASA Have the Right Strategy and Policies to Retain and Build the Workforce It will Need?

From Testimony of Gregory J. Junemann, President, International Federation of Professional & Technical Engineers, AFL-CIO & CLC

Prepared For: House Subcommittee on Space & Aeronautics Hearing:

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.nl.html?pid=20989

Things are looking more top heavy...

Posted by: The Messenger Aug 3 2006, 08:05 PM

I think Griffin has made it quite clear that under the current administation, planetary science will have to take a back seat to manned flight...or if you prefer, planetary science has been reeled out the window of the bus of a string, and is bouncing along the road, hanging on for dear life.

Posted by: PhilHorzempa Mar 26 2007, 03:56 PM

For those of you interested in the future of UMSF (I mean the actual
spacecraft missions), I direct your attention to
a new campaign featuring Carolyn Porco. I received an email asking for help
in supporting Space Science in the FY2008 budget. If you want to be able to
play with new data from the planets in 10 years, then I suggest that you join the fight.
Remember what happens if good people do nothing.

If you are interested, then send the following message

subscribe NASAscience

in the body of an email message to

majordomo@ciclops.org


Just think about those missions to Europa, Enceladus, Titan, Comets, Saturn's Rings,
missions to seek out Exo-Planets, missions to return samples of Mars, Europa, Venus.
At this time, NONE of those are funded - they are only dreams, and will remain only
dreams unless action is taken.


Another Phil

Posted by: djellison Mar 26 2007, 04:10 PM

An I would refer people to The Planetary Societies S.O.S (Save our Science) campaign -
http://www.planetary.org/programs/projects/sos/

Posted by: PhilHorzempa Jul 6 2007, 02:04 AM

ALERT, ALERT!

Senator Mikulski has recently announced that she and several other
Senators will be introducing an amendment to the NASA FY 2008 Appropriations
bill when it reaches the Senate floor. The other Senators who are sponsoring
this amendment are Hutchison, Shelby and Landrieu. This proposal would
add $1 Billion to NASA's FY 2008 budget to pay back NASA for the costs
of returning the Shuttle to flight after Columbia. This would, as a result,
reimburse Science, Aeronautics and Exploration programs that were
cut to pay for the Shuttle repairs.
As Mikulski points out, NASA was never fully reimbursed after the double
shocks of Columbia and Hurricane Katrina. This proposed amendment would
help alleviate some of the cuts that were made to pay for those 2 incidents.

To me, the crucial element in this proposed amendment is the fact that
the WHOLE Senate will be voting on it. This means that EVERY Senator gets
a say in whether NASA's Space Science program will be restored to
a healthy level of funding. Usually, it is only a handful of Senators, on
the relevant subcommittee, that decide NASAS's funding level.
This time, the Senators from EVERY state will be deciding.

I am surprised, and disappointed, that groups,
such as The Planetary Society, have not jumped on this opportunity and
sought to rally the masses. I know that The Planetary Society has a Save Our
Science campaign, and I commend them for that. However, if you check their
website, this effort by Senators Mikulski, Hutchison, et al, gets no mention.

This upcoming vote in the Senate is crucial. It will help decide what gets
written on the UMSF website in the next decade, or so. Will NASA's
planetary robots get adequate funding? The decision is coming soon.
Where is The Planetary Society, the Mars Society, the National Space Society?


Another Phil

Posted by: Littlebit Jul 6 2007, 02:13 PM

You can almost bet that the Planetary Society is working the backroom on this one: When the senator's march out on the floor, they expected to get credit for the effort, and this is not the best time to be yelling from the grandstands.

Posted by: PhilHorzempa Jul 6 2007, 02:59 PM

Excuse me, but this is exactly the right time to be yelling from
the grandstands. Most Senators are not concerned about NASA
one way or the other, since most do not have major NASA centers
in their states. Unless these 70 or 80 Senators hear from their
constituents, they are not likely to increase Federal funds for NASA.

Senators Mikulski and Hutchison have done their part. Now, the ball is
in the court of the space interest community.

The Planetary Society, and other space interest groups, should be
screaming from the rafters, imploring their members to write, call,
e-mail their Senators NOW. Politicians are more willing to vote
a certain way if they hear from citizens of their respective states.
The Senators need to hear a collective, and loud, yell - We want
NASA to have more funding!

What are The Planetary Society and other space groups waiting for?


Another Phil