Science vs. Mars

Phil at the Bad Astronomer breathes a sigh of relief that an amendment by Barney Frank to prevent NASA from spending money on a manned mission to Mars has been defeated in the House. I haven’t been following this issue closely, so I’m not precisely sure what the amendment says, but from the looks of it I completely disagree with Phil. If I understand it correctly, the bill would not have cut NASA funding at all, just have prevented it from being used for the specific purpose of studying the possibility of sending astronauts to Mars. There is a huge difference between those two things.

Right now NASA is seriously underfunded, and there are three huge drains on the budget: the shuttle program, the Space Station, and the Moon/Mars initiative, all of which are mismanaged money pits. What is being hurt in all this is real science, which is being cut to the bone — essentially all of the Beyond Einstein missions (to study black holes, dark energy, and inflation) have been delayed, some essentially indefinitely. Studying Mars is interesting and fascinating. Spending money now on the idea of sending human astronauts to Mars is a politically-motivated boondoggle. There used to be a sensible procedure by which priorities were set, in which high-powered National Academy panels would look over the possibilities and use sensible scientific criteria to decide what was both interesting and feasible. The Bush administration has made a shambles of that process, and it has to stop.

Astrophysics in space, the one thing that NASA does well, is being killed off. The Moon/Mars initiative, according to people who know a lot more about the political wrangling than I do, is directly to blame. Sorry to hear that the amendment didn’t pass.

71 Comments

71 thoughts on “Science vs. Mars”

  1. The shuttle program isn’t the same thing as the mars program. I agree that the space shuttle has essentially reached the end of its “regularly scheduled” usefulness, although there are some long-shot scenarios where it could prove to be temporarily invaluable.

  2. Island,
    knowledge, perceptions, point of views, and physics or sciences are never quite as ‘fixed’ or concrete as some would like to think.
    Several centuries ago, if you would have told people that we would have floating ‘cities’ or cruise liners going from one exotic port of call to another, with no particular purpose other than leisure & tourism, people would have not believed. If you told people, that those with the time and inclination would pay thousands or tens of thousands of dollars each, amounting to several $USmillions per trip/cruise, people might have thought you were a luna-attic.

    Equally one hundred years ago if you would have told people that we would have Space Shuttle Missions, as if they were the launch of The Titanic, some people would have laughed. The sinking of The Titanic did not stop Transatlantic travel by sea, it was superseded by transatlantic flights.
    Supersonic flight or Concorde is history, not science fiction. Space Shuttles & Space Missions are history, not science fiction.

    And once you leave earth’s atmosphere there is no reason why hook cannot deploy the rigging, like probes do.
    But he will need to wear an oxygen mask to go outside.
    .

  3. I’m no scientist, just a lifelong fan but it should be obvious by now that the Bush administration is no fan of science. From Astronomy to Warming, if it doesn’t support their agenda, they just don’t want to hear it. Instead they stock the various agencies with their idealogically motivated shills and lackeys to “vet” and to edit real reports from real scientists. I think you guys should be as furious about this situation as a lot of the rest of us are. I find it frankly very disturbing that more in the scientific community haven’t spoken up on this issue.

  4. What Chimpanzee said in post 41 is what we’ve always known. “What I experienced at JPL/NASA defies description:” It’s human nature to screw off when you don’t have to worry about staying in business. In the real world, we have to work as hard as we can or we lose our “funding,” and no matter how hard we work, there’s no guarantee we are going to get any funding anyway.

    The trip to Mars is just a side show put on by Bush so he can claim he is for science, when he really isn’t.

  5. Taxpayer
    *********************************************************
    Twenty percent of what we’ve spent on the Iraq debacle would be a good start in my opinion.

  6. Someone made the (excellent) point that the mars mission is primarily an engineering program rather than a science program. Just because a project isn’t science, doesn’t mean it isn’t worthwhile. Supporting the mars initiative doesn’t mean not supporting science. The problem here is not that a mission to mars is a boondoggle, but that the question is being posed as mars mission or science.

    There are many competent engineers who believe that the mission to mars is financially realizable using a live off the earth strategy. The dollar amount is in the range of $40-50 billions dollars over ten years. Not cheap, certainly, but doable. The technical challenge is similar to the challenge of sending people to the moon fifty years ago. This isn’t some science fiction impossibility.

    Engineering challenges like this improve technologies, open up new possibilities, and inspire engineers and explorers. A mission to mars will answer scientific questions that aren’t accessible to robotic probes. (As cool as they are, their abilities really pale in comparison to an actual person on the ground – an awful lot of work goes into figuring out how to navigate around obstacles a person would just walk around, for instance. There’s a reason they don’t use these things in terrestrial geology.)

    There’s nothing for learning like doing. Trying to go to mars and live there will teach us things we can’t imagine yet.

    (Check out ) for good reasons to go to mars and questions about the technologies – like the radiation hazard and such. People have thought through these things.)

  7. “As cool as they are, their abilities really pale in comparison to an actual person on the ground – an awful lot of work goes into figuring out how to navigate around obstacles a person would just walk around, for instance. There’s a reason they don’t use these things in terrestrial geology”

    Disagree chucko. Think of the probes/rovers 10 or so years down the road. Those will make Spirit and Opportunity look primative, and those rovers lasted over a year, scaling craters and hills, drilling into and analyzing rocks, etc. Isn’t that what a geologist would do? I would guess the only reason similar probes are not used in terrestrial geology is the cost, plus the fact that humans can easily access most if not all geologic formations here without cumbersom spacesuits, oxygen supplies, etc. Just walk up to a rock formation with your tools here on Earth.

  8. Q said:
    …knowledge, perceptions, point of views, and physics or sciences are never quite as ‘fixed’ or concrete as some would like to think.

    No, but some are more absolute than others, which is why it’s called the “preferred theory”, per the scientific method. It’s the most accurate reflection of nature in the least possible number of steps.

    My point was that strings or loops aren’t necessary to the preferred theory of quantum gravity, not that I’m too conservative to buy the hype.

    I don’t buy the hype because I honestly believe that I have very good reason to feel this way, but not because I’m purely skeptical.

  9. Island said: – “I don’t even believe that loops are necessary to a *real* theory of quantum gravity, much less the big ball of spun yarn that lives in neverNeverland with tinkerbelle, hook, and god.”

    Island, you and I know the world is full of lies & falsehood. The world is full of error, misinformation and misconceptions. The world is full of theories, fantasies and dreams.

    Start unravelling the yarn
    (1) what is real – the unreal is real in its unreality
    (2) what is fact – the falsehood is real in its falseness
    (3) what is fiction – fiction is real in its fiction
    (4) what exists – the existing is real in its existing
    (4i)what exists – the nonexisting is real nonexisting
    So what are you asking:
    (A) What is physical fact & real?
    (B) What is physical reality & fact?
    (C) What is fact & reality, and physical?
    Because we couldn’t see, touch, taste, hear or measure DNA 100 years ago, does that mean DNA did not exist 100 years ago?
    Because we couldn’t see, touch, taste, hear or measure PLUTO 75 years ago, does that mean Pluti didn’t exist before 75 years?

    As to your statement, well we lived without nuclear power fine for thousands of years – it was not necessary before the 20th C, and some will argue it still isn’t.

    We lived without trains, planes, and space shuttles for thousands of years – they were not ‘necessary’ before they were discovered/invented/created/designed? – some people will argue they still aren’t

    As for evermore powerful & faster laptops and PCs, were they necessary – are video games REAL? – They evidently are you can go and buy one, it has cost, it has weight, it has volume, it has code. BUT DOES IT EXIST?

  10. I’ll tell you what’s real and actually exists. An 1/8 inch wide crack in the fuel tank foam on the space shuttle, and a little piece of foam found on the launch pad underneath. What are they going to do now?

    The idea that we have to spend endless amounts of money just because we can, or because past discoveries indicate there are future discoveries to be had, is just not a very smart way of handling money.

    If there are discoveries to be had, they will come in their own due time. Galileo financed his own research by selling telescopes. He didn’t need massive amounts of the population’s gross product in order to make his discoveries.

    If you think an expensive experiment is absolutely necessary, you should also think of a way to pay for the experiment as well. Taxpayers should fund experiments that have an identifiable way of possibly benefiting society as a whole, and not just to provide incomes for researchers.

    What are they going to do with that shuttle now? Can it tolerate an 1/8 inch crack in it’s fuel tank foam, or are they going to have to install a new fuel tank? And what if that fuel tank gets a tiny crack in it too? Would we really miss the space station, if it didn’t exist?

  11. Mike Schuler, so cut all government spending

    I hope your business doesn’t count on any GIs eating burgers, buying DVDs, drinking coke, smoking marlboro, furnishing their homes, installing PC’s and gadgets, or selling them cars and later servicing them. I hope you don’t need to sell them lawnmowers or the one thousand and one do it yourself tools and bits and pieces that fill garages, bikes for the kids or whatever else…

    Because that is where government spending ends up, in the pockets of thousands of little businesses, suppliers and services. Oh did I forget the filling station where they fill up, the travel agent where they book their holiday, the hotel or guest house where they stay, the tyre fitter who changes or replaces the tyres on their cars. The clothes shop where they buy their clothes.

    And the same with all the money the government spends on civil engineering projects. Do you think the architects, draughttsmen, contractors, labourers and suppliers all take the money and run …
    or do you see that they then go and spend it on small or big businesses, food, shops, and services.

    The same with all those on NASA contracts. Oh and incidentally the same with all those on defence contracts and arms manufacturing. They all take their wives out to dinner, buy flowers for their darlings, send their kids to schools, and the thousand and one things that ‘make the world go round’ and make the economy grow. Trade, business, velocity of money = wealth

    Better to build shuttles and dump them in the sea or the desert, than build more missiles and go looking for more countries to destroy and invade. like Israel in Gaza, knock out the power station and the bridges, and who gets the contract to rebuild? – uhh dunno or don’t want 2

    Incidentally if there were no government spending and social security, just to use round figures take a 1/3 of the money out of the economy – who do you think would be the first to suffer. Yes, small businesses and the food industry, and other basic or necessary services, like hot dog salesmen, etc.

    If you give more to those who have (ie: reduce taxes) they cannot possibly eat any more than they do.
    Take away from those who have little or have not, and you force them into crime. Now I haven’t got enough pages to deal with this circular or downward spiral, which would drag the economy into recession, but suffice it to say that you did not create the money or the wealth. You are just a ‘cog’ in the machine. No more and no less important (or indispensable) than any other.

    Why don’t you state what your business is, and why you think people should give you their money. You complain about taxes.
    You are the TAXMAN – you want to charge people for services or goods they probably don’t need, for what you consider a fair margin or profit. But tell me why should they give you their money, and not someone else. Someone who you would put out of work (employment diversity) who would then be forced to compete against you in your trade, and possibly be forced to undercut you. Then you’d be griping about too much competition and not enough diversity, and crying that your business and profit margins are suffering.

    So learn to be grateful for what you have and what you get. And by all means exercise your right to state whether you prefer the government to waste taxpayers money dropping a whole load of ordinance on another country, to keep arms manufacturers in business, the military have to replace all that old stock and junk. Or like Germany & Japan have done in the last 60 years invest in civil engineering: cars, tvs, fridges, etc etc

    And whether you prefer the government to spend tax payers money to bring clean running water, basic needs housing and electricity to Africa to reduce civil wars and diseases …

    Or like Dubai to build luxury fomes for Americans in the desert, with vast artificial lakes.
    Or build 10 shuttles capable of travelling to the Moon with 1000 plus men on board to start work on a Lunar base.

    But whatever your preference, do not be a miser or a scrooge, do not be afraid to be ambitious or to dream the impossible …
    Everything before you (good & bad) is because someone dared to dream and to take chances. It is not private citizens built the roman empire, roman roads and acueducts, but the Senate and/or government, who had the power and authority to see the ‘bigger picture’.
    It is not private citizens built the dams, highways, power plants in the US, but successive governments, And when private enterprises did do anything it was as part of government contracts, or with serious government subsidies, from money the government CREATED.

    Not from the ‘peanuts’ they collected in taxes from individuals. Not in the US, not in Europe, not in Japan, and not even in China.

  12. Mike Schuler: “If there are discoveries to be had, they will come in their own due
    time. Galileo financed his own research by selling telescopes. He didn’t
    need massive amounts of the population’s gross product in order to make
    his discoveries.”
    Hmm, are you sure about Galileo? I probably need to read more history, but I thought he had a teaching position at the University of Padua, renewed every year. He supplemented his teaching salary by selling a special ‘military compass’. After the Flemish telescope discovery and his subsequent building of his own telescopes, he showed the Venezia Dogon from the position of the the bell tower of San Marco how useful his telescope could be for war and gave the telescope as a gift, and was given a job position for life. I think his new position was funded by the Medici family, but I need to check. Note that he renamed the moons of Jupiter “The Medicean Planets”. Do you have a reference that he sold telescopes? From this book: _Galileo and the Scientific Revolution_ by Laura Fermi and Gilberto Bernardini (page 58) I read: “Though he built a large number of telescopes, not all were equally successful; only ten were sufficiently good to show all the new phenonmena.”

    Here is some food for thought about NASA funding.

  13. Margaret:

    Would that fully fund things?

    *********************************************************
    Twenty percent of what we’ve spent on the Iraq debacle would be a good start in my opinion.

  14. Taxpayer, 20% of the cost of Iraq would be a ‘start’
    Matbe instead of wasting as much again destroying another country, you could waste it on Space Missions.

    At least you wouldn’t be destroying another country, just to prove you can. Better to ‘conquer’ Space, even if only to prove you can. Less Cosmic karma for USA, if there is such a thing as Cosmic or karma.

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