NASA Watch quotes from a TV interview with Barack Obama:
“I’ve got a strong belief in NASA and the process of space exploration. I do think that our program has been stuck for a while – that the space shuttle mission did not inspire the imagination of the public – that much of the experimentation that was done could have been conducted not necessarily with manned flights. I think that broadening our horizons – and looking at a combination of both unmanned satellites of the sort that we saw with the Jupiter launch – but also looking at where we can start planning for potential manned flights. I think that is something that I’m excited about and could be part of a broader strategy for science and technology investment … The only thing I want to say is that I want to do a thorough review because some of these programs may not be moving in the right direction and I want to make sure that NASA spending is a little more coherent than it has been over the last several years.”
It would be good to have a President who understood the difference in science payoff between manned and unmanned spaceflight. The former is exciting and inspirational, the latter gets enormously greater results per dollar. The Bush administration, with their magical ability to screw up everything they touch, has been killing off science at NASA in favor of a misguided Moon/Mars initiative (despite public apathy). But the situation is not hopeless. The way we fund science in this country is completely irrational, starting up a ten-year project one year and canceling it (leaving international partners high and dry) the next. The good news is that we can use such capriciousness to our advantage, pulling the plug from expensive boondoggles that were initiated for political reasons rather than scientific ones. I would rather have a thoughtful system of setting research priorities and a track record of commitment to long-term projects, but you go to war with the army you have.
Perhaps all it would take would be a convincing public relations campaign based on the premise of wanting to “fight them there instead of over here”. At 1/6th of the cost of the Iraq debacle, I would expect another “slam dunk”.
Gee, Prof. Carroll is somewhat negative about manned space flight. Doesn’t he realize that this negativity will place him alongside Prof. Bob Park on Dr. Phil Plaits’ list of scientists who don’t know what they are talking about?
It seems very likely that if Obama becomes president NASA will face deep cuts. He does not seem like a friend of NASA.
I think he is just getting started. Isn’t there another way to pay for all these programs?
Here are a few blurbs from his website:
“Well, what we’re going to do is, we are going to delay or cut programs that I DON’T THINK are as high a priority. And we’ve identified a range of ways that we can save money in terms of how we purchase goods by the federal government. There are some programs related to NASA, for example, that we would not eliminate – but defer – so that the spending is spread out over a longer period of time. There are a host of programs at the federal level that I think are less of a priority than making sure that our kids are getting a good start in life.”
“The early education plan will be paid for by delaying the NASA Constellation Program for five years”
SLC on Mar 5th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
Gee, Prof. Carroll is somewhat negative about manned space flight. Doesn’t he realize that this negativity will place him alongside Prof. Bob Park on Dr. Phil Plaits’ list of scientists who don’t know what they are talking about?
You need to address some central questions.
The first is for what purpose will we send astronauts to the moon? Beyond a possible replay of a space race with China, or some American flag jingoistic thing on the moon, a pretty clear case has to be made for why humans are needed on the surface of the moon. I am not utterly against this whole return to the moon idea, but I do think that some very clear reason must be given for this. The only hint I can think of is with the HST shuttle missions, where a manned presence was needed to facilitate scientific instruments. Maybe a similar argument can be made. Without that I think it is far better to invest in an added 1000/year PhD’s in science and engineering, or building infrastructure, and frankly energy development is a looming MUST DO.
The second big question is a question on the whole idea of human colonization of space. Is there any real prospect for this? Consider Antarctica, there has been no large movement of people to the continent. Why? The answer is simple — it sucks there, at least as a place to make one’s life. The planets are far worse: no breathable air, lack of water, solar UV and charged particle radiation problems, extremes of temperatures, and on and on. There is not a lot there for us aqueous bags of polypeptides, carboydrates, lipids and the like. It is a great place to do space science and astronomy, but people just are not going to homestead on the moon any time soon.
And please drop this analogy with the 15-17th century explorations. These were done first to open trading lanes because people were already in these distant regions of the planet. The Ottoman empire bottlenecked the Silk route and that stimulated the development of the caravel for open ocean voyages. When Europeans colonized the Americas there were also people there who taught them how to make a living, and a lot of thanks we gave them! At least there was breathable air, game to hunt, wood to make shelter and the rest. Space offers us mostly just space.
Now I will say the idea of closing down manned space programs gives me a bit of a twing. As kid I watched one of the Apollo launches, which is a very early memory indellibly burned in my mind. I’d hate to close the door to our possible presence in space just yet. But if that happens it will be about baby crawling and then baby stepping out there. It will take a long time if this happens at all. To be honest I also say there is a prospect that most the people who have or will ever go into space may have already done so. We might end up as permanent Earthlings — here to stay.
Lawrence B. Crowell
Indeed, we may yet remain Earthlings. Honestly, Earth is already a hospitable spacecraft hitched to an incredible fuel source hurtling through space at 200 km/s or thereabouts. We have everything we need right here if we just figure out how to live in harmony with it. Perhaps we’ll harness the potential energy of our own orbital mechanics to shack up with a new star system when the time comes. Check this out:
http://www.viewzone.com/milkyway.html [Scroll down a little, check out the Star Map of Infrared data]
Maybe we already are intergalactic travelers?
Anyways, I agree with Obama’s cuts. Our country has already had it’s generational suck of tax payer monies for the war. We went to the moon to stay on technological par with Russia in the Cold War. This time we went to Iraq to secure oil fields, not quite the moon, but essentially as desolate with similar results (not to mention the military proliferation, which is exactly what Earth needs more of). We need to focus on us now, the people, their well-being, and education. We need to resurrect this Red, White, and Bluely indebted corpse. We need to recover.
The space program won’t die so long as humans remain on this planet, our spirit to explore won’t just go away. NASA isn’t going to evaporate, but it will need consolidation. Give it time. Space exploration is wonderful and inspiring, but if we siphon the rest of the money we don’t have, there won’t be an America to go anywhere anyway. Send in the robots.
Wayne
I have been aware of Sagittarius clouds impinging on the Milky Way. I am unaware of any literature which claims our sun was a part of this dwarf galaxy.
http://www.viewzone.com/milkyway.html [Scroll down a little, check out the Star Map of Infrared data]
Also some of the terrestrial claims can’t be correct. Remember the Milky Way galaxy is over 50,000 light years across, and the remnants of the Sagittarius galaxy have been tidal rendered into extended clouds many tens of thousands of light years long. This process has been a multi-hundred million year process. Statements about global warming or planetary perturbations are not likely to be correct.
Lawrence B. Crowell
Re Lawrence B. Crowell
My comment 52 was meant as a bit of a snark on Prof. Carroll. For the information of Mr. Crowell, Prof. Bob Park is a professor of physics at the Un. of Maryland and was formerly the representative of the APS in Washington, DC. Prof. Park publishes a weekly column on his Un. of Maryland web site called What’s New. Dr. Park, who is a pretty snarky character, has opined that the manned space program is a waste of money and that, from a scientific point of view, unmanned space probes can do the job much cheaper because they don’t require the life support systems that manned space flights do. A link to his web site is attached. Dr. Phil Plait, the Bad Astronomer, is 180% out of phase with Prof. Park and has stated on his blog that, in his opinion, Prof. Park doesn’t know what he’s talking about in his opposition to manned space probes.
http://www.bobpark.org/
I get Park’s “What’s New” every Friday. I generally agree with most of what he says about these things. I will say I am not as hard on the manned space program as he is, but to be honest I think that without some real justification for it that it will in due time be closed down.
Lawrence B. Crowell
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We need the Constilation program to study the potental of looner Heluim 3. NASA is finnaly developing a ration package of vihels to explore the solar system. The Aries 5 could put humans on the Moon, telscopes in orbit or send Robots to Jupitor. We need that sucker bad.