House Space Subcommitee’s Surreal NASA Budget Hearing
Lamar Smith
I woke up early this morning with a low-grade headache. Checking Twitter, I discovered I’d slept through the beginning of a House Subcommittee on Space’s hearing on NASA’s budget with Administrator Charlie Bolden.
My headache immediately worsened as I found the hearing webcast on my cell phone. A whole range of largely unprintable words and phrases came immediately to mind, but there was one that kept coming back: clown car. The House Science Committee really needs a bigger clown car.
It’s not the committee members’ criticism of the Boulder (sorry, Asterorid) Redirect Mission that I had a problem with. Or their demands that NASA actually present a road map to help guide the nation on the road to Mars. I even understood why they felt the Obama Administration’s request for Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion was low. And the Europa mission probably needs more money. All those things are the subject of legitimate debate.
What really got my head pounding was a line of questioning and statements from the Republican majority best summed up by a paragraph in House Science Committee Chairman’s Lamar Smith’s opening statement.
“The Administration continues to starve NASA’s exploration programs to fund a partisan environmental agenda. NASA simply deserves better.”
It was yet another spectacularly false claim made in an institution already well know for its overabundance of bullshit.
Let’s go through this. NASA wants to spend $8 billion on human spaceflight programs in FY 2016. The Earth Science budget Smith is complaining about would be just under $2 billion. Human spaceflight is hardly starving. Nor is our robotic program.
The Earth Science budget — which Smith and others conflate with global change research — has risen significantly over the past six years. The main reason is that it was underfunded for the eight previous years by the Bush Administration, which was run by a couple of Texas oilmen. Republican point to a large percentage rise in the budget (Ted Cruz says 41 percent) while ignoring the relatively small base from which the increase came.
The Obama Administration has taken Earth Science seriously. It has responded properly to a decadal survey that identified both chronic underfunding and a number of pressing scientific needs. This is an example of the government doing its job responsibly, yet NASA gets nothing but grief about it from its Republican overseers on Capitol Hill.
Smith said in his statement that Earth Sciences was crowding out other priorities within NASA’s Science budget. On this, he has a point. Or at least half a point. NASA’s budget is limited, and there need to be tradeoffs made. But, this isn’t entirely the Administration’s fault; Obama has consistently wanted to spend much more on NASA than Congress.
Smith conveniently ignores the biggest problem within the Science budget: the massively over budget and perpetually behind schedule James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). If Congress was really concerned about out of control science programs crowding out planetary exploration, it would have canceled Battlescope Galactica years ago. It didn’t, so everyone has to live with the consequences until JWST is launched in 2018. (Providing it doesn’t slip further.)
There was discussion during the hearing that NASA really shouldn’t be in the business of studying the Earth. Once Congressman helpfully pointed out the Bolden that the first “A” in NASA stand for “aeronautics” and the “S” stands for space. There’s no “E” in the name for “environment” or “CC” for climate change.
Bolden patiently pointed out — and not for the first time — that the study of the Earth has been part of NASA’s charter since it was founded in 1958. This fact is clear to anyone with a basic understanding of the space agency’s budget and history, but seemed strangely lost on certain committee members.
“There are 13 other agencies involved in climate change research, but only one that is responsible for space exploration,” Smith said in his statement, ignoring the fact many of the agencies get their data from NASA.
Alabama Rep. Mo Brooks proposed that NASA’s Earth Science work should be transferred to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The EPA would be given $2 billion to do environmental research, while NASA would be able to shift $2 billion toward other priorities.
This is clearly non-sense. Brooks and his brethren would not fully fund EPA to conduct climate change research. They don’t believe human-created global warming exists. If Republicans had their way, they would transfer all research into it to EPA and then slowly starve the program’s budget.
What Brooks wants is more money for his constituents in northern Alabama who work on SLS and Orion. Pure and simple. Without NASA- and defense-related jobs, the economies of Huntsville and Decatur would collapse. And Brooks would probably lose his job. It’s that simple.
And how exactly would that work even assuming EPA received full funding? EPA would take its $2 billion dollars and pay NASA to secure the satellites and other systems needed to collect Earth science data. This seems unnecessarily complicated. Why not just give NASA the extra $2 billion Brooks thinks it needs to do space exploration properly?
An alternative would be wrench Earth science from inside NASA, where it is integrated within a larger Science program, and shift the whole kit and caboodle over to EPA. This is the type of thing that looks really good on paper but often turns into a bureaucratic nightmare when you try to implement it. (See: Homeland Security, Department of)
The whole thing doesn’t make any sense. There’s no evidence that Earth Science is really dragging down the rest of NASA. Or that the space agency can’t study the home planet and run human spaceflight operations simultaneously. It’s been doing that for more than 50 years. Whatever problems the human spaceflight and science programs have, they can’t be blamed on the Earth Science program. At least not entirely.
I think I learned my lesson from this morning. The next time Congress has an early morning hearing on NASA’s budget, I’m going to sleep in.
65 responses to “House Space Subcommitee’s Surreal NASA Budget Hearing”
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Doug listens to the Congressional hearing so we don’t have to. Thanks for taking that bullet for us. I used to watch this stuff and I wound up becoming a drywall repair expert from fixing all the dents my forehead made in the walls.
There’s a basic misunderstanding going on here. Earth is in space. 100 km over your head it’s space, 13,000 odd km directly under your feet … It’s space again.
We are at the bottom of a shell of spherical shell of gas 13,000 km in diameter and only 150 odd km thick. We dump all our combustion products into this. It has nowhere else to go. Oh, and on the outer parameter of this shell its …. space.
Earth science is just a subset of planetary science, to exclude Earth is pretty silly.
The James Webb has been a real sea anchor, dragging things to a near standstill.
I remember back when I got to NASA Goddard for my stint as NASA Academy program support, and going through various E/PO (as they’re now called) materials to find goodies for my nascent Lunar Library. What baffled me was that it was all about Earth: deserts, oceans, rain, &c. &c. Where was all the, you know, -space- stuff?
Conceptually, the issue remains. Why does NASA study the Earth? There are lots and lots of folks who study the Earth. There are very, very few who study space. How does the study of movement through the air (aero-nautics) become the study of the Earth’s environment?
Is it because of the Earth-study assets being in space? Does that mean only NASA can operate them? The Satcomm industry belies any kind of assertion that only NASA can operate space assets.
Is it because of the instruments? Sure, an instrument that studies the (token) atmosphere on Mars can also be used to study the Earth’s atmosphere, but why does that make it NASA’s bailiwick? Shouldn’t they be spreading the technology around for everyone to benefit?
Is it because some dingus in congress put language in a bill calling for NASA to study the Earth’s environment? Yeah, probably, but that doesn’t mean it’s sensible for NASA to do so. Anyone with any kind of military background understands the issue of ‘mission creep’.
NASA is broadly understood to be the -space- agency, and it needs to focus on that. Diluting its efforts with a focus on terrestrial matters only weakens its space efforts, and sows confusion as to its purpose.
By the same token, why is the USGS still doing Moon maps?
I consider myself to be an environmentalist, but I actually kinda agree with Ken on this. For me, I’ve had similar reactions.
A number of years ago NASA was touting its “Mission to Planet Earth”, using its space technology to study our own planet in the same way that we were getting such incredible knowledge about the other planets in our solar system. Presented in that way, it makes sense. For none of us alive today does it matter in any immediate sense what the particle size, composition and morphology are of the particles that make up the rings of Uranus, for example. That stuff is interesting, it’s pieces of the puzzle. Perspective shifting. Important in the sense that knowledge is intrinsically important. But we only have this one planet (Mars will long be marginal at best; the stars so far into the future as to be effectively a fantasy for the people of today). This Earth is the one we really have to figure out and learn to work with if we want our species to survive and thrive.
However, I’ll definitely admit to seeing what to me seems like just another Earth science mission and either thinking, “Yawn”, or “Is this really NASA’s job?” , or “Man, there sure are a lot of Earth science missions.” It’s an emotional reaction, along with a simple urge to properly categorize things — NASA does space and aeronautics, EPA does the environment, NOAA does the oceans and atmosphere, etc. Does this really fit here?
“Does this really fit here?” — there could be a rational debate on that. The problem is that the debate that we actually have is one highly charged with ideology. It’s not so much people trying to make the most rational decision, it’s about people who don’t want to know what the science will say if we investigate the climate (because the results likely won’t fit their predetermined conclusions) trying to, in the longer run, prevent those scientific investigations from ever occurring. Well, they don’t come right out and say it like that but, based on past statements by some of the key individuals involved, that is very much the fear.
Thank you for your cogent and thoughtful reply. Two issues I have:
1) “if we investigate the climate” – but we do investigate the climate, a lot. From the weather station at the elementary school down the street to UNEP, there are a tremendous amount of resources dedicated worldwide to doing just that. Now, what people do with that data…
2) “prevent those scientific investigations from ever occurring” – so why then is it NASA’s job to ensure those scientific investigations occur? Is it that NASA scientists are somehow “purer” than scientists at other agencies? (which is a gross insult to the scientists at other agencies) Is it that NASA has better instruments? (then why don’t they spread the technology around?) Is it because the investigations are conducted from orbit? (NASA’s not the only entity that can operate space assets)
I’m not trying to rationalize in any way what the idiots in government (both republicans AND democrats – they’re equally culpable for our sad state of affairs) are doing. But diluting NASA’s focus with terrestrial studies does them no benefit, and leaves us with an agency that is less than the one we deserve.
Well, I basically agree with you. Some of this stuff probably isn’t NASA’s job.
I’d say that in general, cutting edge stuff, Earth science missions that require technology development, has to be done by NASA. More routine monitoring would seem to be more appropriately handled by agencies (or in some cases even commercial providers) more directly involved in the subject being studied.
Implementing such distinction could prove tricky, but there’s probably room for improvement here. Tasks and technologies that were once cutting edge become well established. You gave the example of commercial communications satellites (once pioneered by NASA, and NASA still does technology demonstrations in the area). Another could be Earth imaging, a field which has numerous commercial providers, with more getting into the game. I believe the NOAA handles its own weather satellites. Even rocket and capsule design can now be handled by others (with NASA help).
NASA doesn’t have to directly fund, design, operate and control every single activity done in space anymore, a fact for which they should be praised, and the furtherance of which should be a continuing goal.
The study of the Earth is literally the number one reason for the existence of NASA.
“Objectives of Aeronautical and Space Activities.–The aeronautical and space activities of the United States shall be conducted so as to contribute materially to one or more of the following objectives:
(1) The expansion of human knowledge of the Earth and of phenomena in the atmosphere and space.”
This language has been in NASA’s charter since 1958.
The USGS does Moon maps because its focus is on Geology. Maps are its thing. This is not limited to the Earth. It is also doing work on extraterrestrial geology. One of the best places to find updated reports on the activities of the Curiosity rover is the USGS Astrobiology “news” section.
http://astrogeology.usgs.go…
So why then is NASA not the National Atmospheric and Space Administration? NOAA gets to have Atmosphere in its title.
Aeronautics would be a rather dreary discipline were it not to conduct any atmospheric studies. Atmospheric studies relevant to aeronautics seems entirely appropriate. However to extrapolate that to ‘NASA needs to study the Earth’s climate and environment’ seems rather disingenuous, especially given how many folks worldwide are already doing so.
And as I’ve already pointed out several times: “I have no issue with NASA studying the Earth AS AN OBJECT IN SPACE. (All caps for emphasis). Solar Wind interactions with the magnetosphere,
magnetotail fluctuations, the Earth & Moon as a system, impactor
flux in near-Earth space – these are all logically within the purview of
NASA, especially since (as I noted earlier) there aren’t a whole lot of
folks so doing.”
I really don’t get why some folks are so insistent on NASA being a political pawn because…climate science! It just doesn’t seem like a good use of limited resources. Not that the current generation in charge has ever acknowledged any kind of limit to resources – just throw it on the kids’ credit card!
Just as an object in space?
You do realize that NASA studies Death Valley and Antarctic to understand what conditions might be like on Mars? What about looking at life around undersea vents as an analog for Europa? If we don’t understand our own world, we’re going to be at a disadvantage in studying exo-planets.
Or NASA could, you know, go study the conditions on Mars. Or go probe Europa. To compare with the data provided by all of the folks studying Earth besides NASA.
Scientists figured out runaway global warming when they went and looked at Venus.
Why is everyone convinced that only NASA can study Earth?
NASA’s kind of been studying Mars for 50 years. There are five active missions going on right now at the Red Planet.
It’s not that NASA is the ONLY agency that can study Earth. It’s that NASA has unique capabilities and experience to do so. They know how to procure and operate satellites, analyze the data, and distribute those data to other parties. Where do you think these other agencies get part of their data sets?
People want to go fix something that isn’t broken to satisfy some ideological belief they have about global warming. It makes no sense.
“NASA has unique capabilities and experience to do so” – so why aren’t they sharing and expanding the technological capabilities available in that sector? In the private sector there’s a little something called ‘cross-training’, wherein skills and capabilities are spread around to ensure robust capabilities. Lack of doing so is considered a business risk.
There’s also something the private sector calls opportunity costs. Resources deployed studying Death Valley are resources not available to gather data at Mars.
“People want to go fix something that isn’t broken to satisfy some ideological belief they have about global warming.”
OR
People want NASA to study the climate and environment to satisfy some ideological belief they have about global warming.
OR
People want NASA to focus on technology and data gathering beyond Earth to satisfy some ideological belief they have about space exploration.
It’s all about the frame of reference.
They do studies of Death Valley as an analog to understand what Curiosity is seeing on Mars. They also test equipment there.
The title of an organization doesn’t limit that which it can do. (Have you noticed, for example, that Google has a lot of other things going on than simply doing web searches?)
No matter which way you want to slice it, the study of the Earth is under the purview of NASA. The Earth is a planet, like any other planet, and is worthy of study by NASA. The climate of the Earth is part of Earth, and so falls under the realm of that which can be studied by NASA. Your “all caps for emphasis” is off point. It doesn’t matter how many other people are studying the things that NASA does. There are multiple other space agencies. Does that mean we don’t need NASA?
You are okay with NASA studying the atmosphere, but want them to ignore the climate? … that’s nonsensical. The two are deeply intertwined.
Keep in mind that the NOAA (and a great deal many other organizations, like the USGS, etc.) make use of NASA data. While NASA’s not the only source of climate data, it does provide some climate data from various satellites that isn’t available from anywhere else.
NASA shouldn’t be a political pawn, but it is. So are a lot of other things (like healthcare, taking care of veterans, who can marry who, and the study of the climate).
I dunno. NASA is America’s civilian space agency. It has responsibility to study the the moon and the planets. Earth is a planet. NASA is charged with studying it. And the agency has the expertise to do so in an organized, systematic way. And the data it collects are useful to other agencies and parties.
That’s what people figured in 1958. That’s what NASA’s been doing ever since. And the logic still holds today.
How are we going to understand processes on other planets — in this solar system or others — without understanding our own? How would handing this all over to the EPA help matters? I wonder how this exo-planet compares with Earth? Let’s go ask the EPA. You really want to put NASA in that position?
It seems it’s only in recent years that anyone has seriously questioned that logic. The “logic” they use makes no sense. Human spaceflight is being starved at $8 billion a year. Earth science is nothing but research into bogus global warming. It’s all rhetoric to try to destroy something they don’t like.
You know, it would be nice if there was some place to actually have a civil and reasonable (and logical) discussion on this topic. I guess this isn’t the place.
FWIW, I have no issue with NASA studying the Earth AS AN OBJECT IN SPACE. (All caps for emphasis). Solar Wind interactions with the magnetosphere, magnetotail fluctuations, the Earth & Moon as a system, impactor flux in near-Earth space – these are all logically within the purview of NASA, especially since (as I noted earlier) there aren’t a whole lot of folks so doing.
The same goes with planetary studies. Studying (up close) the Moon, Mars, Venus, Mercury, Ceres, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Nepture, Haumea, Eris, Makemake, et al – that makes sense and is definitely within NASA’s purview, especially since (as I noted earlier) there aren’t a whole lot of folks so doing.
There are countless folks studying the Earth’s environment, far too many to note here. Why then is it so absolutely mission critical that NASA do so?
Ken,
Let me post a far more dangerous question. Let us for the, sake of argument, decide that we are going to reprogram all of Earth Science from NASA into EPA (or pick another federal agency – don’t care who and which). According to Doug, $2 B goes into earth science.
Explain to me why the very next action, after you transfer the responsibility to EPA (or whoever), the very next thing that happens is EPA gets its budget increased by $2 B and NASA takes a $2 B budget cut?
Well, in my view the hypothetical answer to the hypothetical question you posed in your post is that NASA’s budget would likely be cut by more than $2Bn, the EPAs budget (not where I would move it, but whatever) would be increased by less than $2Bn, and the difference would disappear into the pockets of some congresscritter’s friend.
To throw the question back, why is it so important that that $2Bn not be spent on space stuff at NASA versus not being spent on space stuff at the EPA (or NOAA, or USGS, or a myriad of other agencies)?
And my prior question that you don’t seem to want to answer: There are countless folks studying the Earth’s environment, far too many
to note here. Why then is it so absolutely mission critical that NASA
do so?
To answer your question – because it really isn’t about what agency is suppose to be studying Earth’s environment. It’s about the fact that $2 Billion is being spent on Earth Science, and certain members of Congress would rather that $2 Billion be spent on ___ (SLS, JWST, Europa, CCrew, insert your program of choice). That is why Brooks and company are making the arguement.
You ask why it’s mission critical fo NASA to do it – fundamentally, its not per se (although Doug does make a good point about the dangers of government reorganizing with DHS). Whats actually important is to get $2 Billion away from Earth Science, and towards the _______.
Similar arguements have been made about the Science portion of NASA going to NSF. To borrow a quote “Money is the ultimate fungible object”
If the NASA budget for circling in LEO looking down, is transferred to going to Sun-Earth-L2 and look up like JWST will do, then I think it would be super great!
We already know that the CO2-emission don’t affect the temperature. There’s no need to invest more in the greenhouse panic until the first data turns up which support the fear. That whole circus is winding down, that’s what the Republicans have realized, so NASA would soon lose that part of its business anyway. And for non-climate Earth observations, they should be taken care of by those who want it done. If crop observations are profitable, then some farmers organisation will finance it, and certainly do it much better than the NSA bureaucrats.
Listen to Freeman Dyson about the climate 10 days ago:
http://www.vancouversun.com…
I have just archived your comment. If Disqus and your profile are still around in 10 years, I’ll gladly show you this again 🙂
Lol. That was funny
😀
Great! Would you actually do that!?
And do put nobel prize winner Dr. Freeman Dyson on that list too, it is his judgement which I refer to.
He’s not retired yet, he published this mathematical theorem a couple of years ago:
http://www.pnas.org/content…
I don’t understand your response…
*) When has Dr. Freeman Dyson won a Nobel price?
*) When did I (or any other person) claim that he was retired?
*) How does publishing a paper on a “mathematical theorem” make him an expert in climatology?
Why did you use him as a source anyway? He acknowledges “global anthropogenic climate change”. His only gripe with “the mainstream scientific opinion” is that he thinks the predicted effects are exaggerated (without providing evidence to support his claim) and that the models aren’t accurate enough to provide a reliable prediction (which ironically kind of invalidates his first argument..).
Ah, it is true, he never got the Nobel prize. He was just nominated for it. Him being, a still active, mathematician after having been one of the greatest in his field during more than the last half a century, is of course important since global warming panic build upon one single pure physics equation.
But since that hasn’t happened, it is obvious that the climate is much more complex than the simple computer models have assumed. That is the logical explanation of why they all have failed so humiliatingly totally. Or what is your explanation of what they all have failed so humiliatingly totally?
CO2 emissions do increase exponentially. But temperatures haven’t moved at all in two decades. And since temperatures haven’t moved at all, no climate effect has been caused by CO2 emissions during the last two decades. Any changes in ice covers or glacier melting, cannot have any relation to CO2 emissions, since the connection goes via temperature increases, which haven’t happened.
Sooner or later the rats leave the sinking ship. It is happening now, and the Republicans take the fullest advantage of it. NASA does best to follow the new big trend.
Dyson makes the point that thus far increased CO2 emissions have only have good consequences. Wildlife has spread out faster than the sum of deforesting. And human harvests have gone to all time high to all time high, directly thanks to the increased CO2 level in the atmosphere, without any temperature changes. Isn’t that great news!?
Some have made efforts to decrease their CO2 emissions. The result of that has thus far only been that they have very indirectly killed wild animals and plants, and starved some humans to death. I think they should stop doing that, but hey, I can only use words to try to explain for them. I would never go Hitler and use governmental violence against them
Sorry, I’m not in the mood to remove tin-foil hats today. It is late here and I’ve had enough of pointless discussions against immovable ideology for this week.
Yeah, I understand. The heatwave is too much for your brain. Plus zero-point-zero degrees since 1998 is too much for you. Better just obey the dictates of the environmentalistic politicians and abolish all space flight, all transportation, all energy production, all industry, all agriculture. Just to be “safe”.
Since it has been conclusively proven that wildlife and human society always has been exactly as it is today, and never can adapt to anything, every millimeter increase of the sea level is a new holocaust all over again. (And don’t think about the Netherlands or Venice, they are all “deniers”, ignore ignore ignore!)
Sorry, you can’t tease me into an argument and/or flamewar.
Keep your beliefs if you want.
Haha, the Senate hearing later in the day was even worse… just a bunch of old coots worrying about the jobs in their respective districts and chairman Shelby constantly referring to ‘Or-ee-on’.
Maybe he think’s NASA will launch Oreo’s or something :S
I caught part of it. Pretty funny to watch the Republican pro-business Sen. Shelby complain about NASA wasting money on a competitive crew process.
It summed up Shelby’s dilemma well enough. He’s a conservative Republican from a red state that takes in far more from the federal treasury than it contributes and whose economy would collapse without the largesse of rest of the country.
As others have pointed out: you can’t isolate earth research from space research. Earth is part of space, it is surrounded by space, it is influenced by space on a daily basis.
The time when we as a species were so ignorant that we could view Earth without considering space should have passed in the 1960ies – unfortunately that idea got stuck in the head of some people.
oh and btw: what has “aeronautics” to do with extraterrestial initiatives? 😉
“Earth is part of space…”
Absolutely, which makes for about half of the tricky part. I was thinking of the ISS and the astronauts looking out through the cupola windows. The space shuttle orbiting “upside dow” with the windows and open payload bay typically facing Earth. The Earth’s right there — you’d have to actually work hard to avoid it!
Still, I think that non-cutting edge stuff that isn’t directly about exploration or technology development could be handed off such as comm sats, visual Earth observation sats, weather sats, and now even some rocket and spacecraft development and operation have been. The basic idea of that kind of thing being that activities in space should, in order to thrive and/or be fully integrated into the greater sphere of human endeavor, move beyond being solely a NASA effort.
Anyway, I think there’s merit in the discussion and the politicians speaking here may have some good points — but I don’t at all trust their motives. I love that picture Doug posts of Lamar Smith with that big ol’ grin — I can almost see his hand in the cookie jar, just outside the frame 😀
And as I’ve already pointed out: “I have no issue with NASA studying the Earth AS AN OBJECT IN SPACE. (All
caps for emphasis). Solar Wind interactions with the magnetosphere, magnetotail fluctuations, the Earth & Moon as a system, impactor flux in near-Earth space – these are all logically within the purview of NASA, especially since (as I noted earlier) there aren’t a whole lot of folks so doing.”
“what has “aeronautics” to do with extraterrestial initiatives?” Nothing. That would be astronautics. Aeronautics does happen to be the first A in NASA, and so they’re stuck with it, as much as some folks would wish that it weren’t. At the NASA Academy we did get insider tours of Langley and Wallops – talk about benign neglect. Nevertheless, that research has helped lead to things like the winglets now found on pretty much every single commercial airliner.
Since you are from Germany, why do you insist on NASA doing the “outer space” research/exploration?
And what about the situation in Europe? ESA is also doing earth science (a lot), yet I haven’t heard similar complaints around here. Maybe because as many have assumed, the real issue are the climate change deniers? (Who are far less relevant and/or noisy here as their US counterparts…)
Ah, this takes me back to my first year in college in Gov 101, which wasn’t about government institutions and functions, but all about game theory.
I am not unfamiliar with the concept of FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt – a psychological control methodology). So what is the “doubt, which you seem to be willing to swallow whole” of which you speak? As I noted in my first comment, I had issues with the whole ‘Mission to Planet Earth’ thing back in my NASA Academy days, which was in 2002, well before this current kerfuffle.
I understand you’d like to engage in a game theory discussion, which can be an addictive form of mental masturbation. I’d be happy if you’d just address the questions I posed.
Then it’s a good thing that he’s not attacking Freeman Dyson.
Seems he hasn’t read NASA’s charter then… It’s literally the number one reason for the existence of NASA.
“Objectives of Aeronautical and Space Activities.–The aeronautical and space activities of the United States shall be conducted so as to contribute materially to one or more of the following objectives:
(1) The expansion of human knowledge of the Earth and of phenomena in the atmosphere and space.”
“Astrobiologists already know that life is ubiquitous in the solar system and in the universe.”
No, they don’t. It boggles the mind how you can make such an obviously false statement.
One of the first statements on NASA’s Astrobiology page is this question: “Is there life beyond Earth and, if so, how can we detect it?”
So clearly, they don’t know.
If you are not simply lying (or are you perhaps just plain delusional?), then provide some evidence to back that statement up.
You have a lot to learn, if you think that’s the case. Start doing some google searches.
“Reality is that which is sensed and observed, everything else is a model, starting with the one constructed in your mind so that you can sense your measurements and observations.”
Hmm. Let’s consider that in the context of your other statement:
“Astrobiologists already know that life is ubiquitous in the solar system and in the universe.”
Since this statement is not based on anything sensed or observed, we must conclude that it is merely a “model” which you have constructed in your mind.
In other words, it is your delusion. I see I nailed my earlier assessment of that one.
Life exists in many places on earth that we have found surprising. Similar places exist off earth. I would not be surprised if we found life on other planets or moons. But to do this, we would have to look.
We are looking for life elsewhere. But we haven’t found any yet. That is my entire point.
We have barely started looking, which was my point.
And that’s completely irrelevant to what I said.
Clearly, some would like to see changes made. Some citizens, too. I think it’s within their powers to recommend such changes, but the Congress would have to pass it. However, in this political climate I doubt it would pass. Pun intended.
So, looking through the comments, the reasons for NASA to study the terrestrial environment seem to boil down to:
1) An interpretation of the 1958 charter (you know, back when Sputnik was the boogeyman and everyone knew what space was all about)
2) Study of the Earth is the number one reason to have a space administration
3) Earth is a planet (and apparently more of a planet than all those other ones out there in, you know, space)
4) We can’t understand other planets unless NASA studies our own (because Earth has so much to teach us about, say, Jupiter)
5) We have to foil those climate skeptics (eyeroll)
6) NASA is a political pawn – deal with it
7) If you don’t agree, you’re a political stooge
Cripes we’re doomed…
No Ken. Here’s the reality:
1. NASA was given this job from the start.
2. It’s been doing this job for nearly 60 years
3. The agency does the job fairly well.
4, NASA has unique capabilities and experience to conduct the research.
5. The work meshes well with the study of other worlds (Mars, Europa, exoplanets)
6. Shifting the job to another agency would probably end up “fixing” something that isn’t broken.
Interestingly, as I’m reading through “The Handbook of Astronautical Engineering” (1961, H.H. Koelle. Ed., w/Krafft Ehricke, Dr. Robert Jastrow, Frederick Ordway III, et al, really an excellent book), their notes on atmospheric studies are focused on things like communications, upper-atmosphere affects on satellite orbits, signal attenuation at various altitudes, energetic particles and magnetic fields, and so on. There’s some mention of meteorology, largely in the context of affects on transportation. I hope no one here is arguing that we should be getting our weather forecasts from NASA.
Shifting the job of environmental and climate studies to other agencies would allow NASA to focus on what is ostensibly their real mission, which is space exploration. Or at least it should be; that’s not so clear any more. Some of us would rather that NASA not become the National Environment & Climate-Change Research Organization (NECRO), which is the mission creep path it appears to have been on.
Yes, that’s an engineering book. It would certainly focus on engineering issues. What else that proves I don’t know.
Mission creep path? With $8 billion being spent on human spaceflight alone, and another $3 billion plus on planetary exploration and space science? Seriously?
Well, it’s not the only book in the Lunar Library, just the one I happen to be reading. One could always go to, for example “Exploring the Unknown: Selected Documents in the History of the U.S. Civil Space Program, Vol.1: Organizing for Exploration” (1995, J. Logsdon, Ed.), which includes such tasty tidbits as:
1) Special Committee on Space Technology, “Recommendations to the NASA Regarding a National Civil Space Program,” Oct. 28, 1958, which states that “The major objectives of a civil space research program are scientific research in the physical and life sciences, advancement of space flight technology, development of manned space flight capability, and the exploitation of space flight for human benefit.” There’s a passing mention of upper atmosphere research, but in the context of “vertical and time-wise variations of various atmospheric parameters and cosmic radiations”, heat-transfer, ablation, and vehicle-control dynamics.
2) Office of Program Planning and Evaluation, “The Long Range Plan of the NASA,” Dec. 16, 1959, which states “It is the responsibility of NASA to interpret the legislative language in more specific terms and to assure that the program so generated provides an efficient means of achieving the following objectives expressed in PL 85-568, Sec. 102(c) as:
‘The aeronautical and space activities of the United States shall be conducted so as to contribute materially to one or more of the following objectives:
(1) The expansion of the human knowledge of phenomena in the atmosphere and space;
(2) The improvement of the usefulness, performance, speed, safety, and efficiency of aeronautical and space vehicles;
(3) The development and operation of vehicles capable of carrying instruments, equipment, supplies, and living organisms through space;”
&c.
Later documents make mention of things like meteorology, communications, navigation and surveys of Earth resources, primarily in the context of “Economic Applications”.
I could go on, but fundamentally I’m still calling bunk on the position that NASA was chartered to do terrestrial environmental and climate science.
With regards to mission creep, one can certainly look at the early budgets and see that the amounts are vanishingly small, especially as compared to the ($2.0Bn/$17.6Bn notional FY 2016 budget=) 11.4% of NASA’s total budget seen today. Looking at the 1962 budget shown on page 450 of the above referenced text, Meteorology represents a grand total of ($28.2Mn/$1,235.3Mn present 1962 budget=) 2.3% of the budget. Mission creep? Oh yeah!
I make no apologies regarding my position that NASA should be focused on space exploration. Why folks are arguing so vociferously that it should be otherwise is something that I frankly find baffling.
Good Article.
So we don’t have to look for life to find it…
Hmm. Your “reality” is, sadly, quite different from the reality of the rest of us.
Your delusion has taken you off the rational path.
“Reality is that which is sensed and observed”
Where are the observations that demonstrate that “life is ubiquitous in the solar system and in the universe.”
JPL is part of NASA. it is a NASA field center.
I find it extremely unlikely proposition that any astrobiology department would be unaware of a discovery of extraterrestrial life.
The paper you linked to is a discussion of the possibility that life began to form around underwater hydrothermal vents.
No discovery of aliens here. Try again.
“I think we’re going to have strong indications of life beyond Earth within a decade, and I think we’re going to have definitive evidence within 20 to 30 years,” NASA chief scientist Ellen Stofan
Ellen Stofan has predicted that signs of extraterrestrial life will be found within 10 years.
… You’re shooting yourself in the foot here. She is saying that we may find signs of life.
You are claiming that life has already been found. Try again.
The only one who thinks they are special is you – since you see fit to declare, apparently through divine fiat, that extraterrestrial life is everywhere in the solar system and in our galaxy, without providing any evidence to back that claim up.
The probability for all those things is not unity. Nobody but you seems to think it is.
The articles you cite disprove your claims.
It’s possible, but we do not know if it is inevitable. We simply do not know that yet. You keep proclaiming “this is so” without any evidence that it is. There is the probability, nothing more. It is possible that we are the very first. We do not yet know this one way or the other.
Liar.
We do not know that life exists elsewhere.
If you can find a paper where a team of scientists sign off on a UFO report as being a visit by aliens from another planet, I’ll go with that.
You claim that life definitively does exist. To back that claim up, you provide a link where someone predicts we will find evidence of life within 10 years. So the link does not back up your claim.
No, those various papers, reports, studies, et al. only say that there is a strong probability that there is life elsewhere in the universe. You cannot go beyond those conclusions and claim that life definitively does exist out there. We just plain do not know that yet.
Everyone who lives in reality.
Those who actually care about and pay attention to science, logic, reason, etc. People like Ellen Stofan.
As opposed to you and your leaps of faith, or divine inspiration.
Good luck going through life lying through your teeth and making claims that have no supporting evidence. Wait, I forgot you were a lawyer, so I suppose that ability has served you well.
That is correct, however, JPL’s budget is part of NASA.
It might be thought of as a corporate structure. NASA is the parent company, and provides the funding for the subsidiary, but the subsidiary itself is independently managed and operated.
The pieces of the puzzle may be there, but they still haven’t been put together. It’s like saying SpaceX doesn’t need to land a first stage because they have all the pieces of the puzzle on how to land a first stage.
Thank you for all the links, though I was already aware of most of the ideas in them. Particularly interesting was the paper on the Thermodynamic Origin of Life.
We do not know that life, aside from us, exists in this universe. It’s highly probable, yes, and many people, both scientists and laypersons alike, expect that it is, but we do not know for certain yet.
Even as likely as it is that life develops virtually everywhere that the conditions are right for it to form; much less certain is that life must develop into intelligent forms, and even less certain than that is that such intelligent life forms are able to go on to develop sophisticated tools and technology. It is still possible that we are an aberration in that regard.
You are simply jumping the gun. Wait for the actual detection of life elsewhere in the galaxy (or in the solar system) before you proclaim that life is everywhere. You’ll actually have solid data points supporting that argument then.
There’s a whole bunch of irony in your railing about critical thinking skills, when the analogy I used went straight over your head.
You are the one who has said that we should stop looking for extraterrestrial life because the probabilities that it exists are high.
This is like telling SpaceX to stop trying to land a first stage because the probability that they will succeed in doing so is high.
No other purpose in that statement but to demonstrate that you are an idiot.
We do not know that life on Earth is not unique – not yet. We have yet to observe otherwise. Yes, we probably will. That’s no reason to stop trying to observe extraterrestrial life.
Simply thinking about extraterrestrial life isn’t evidence that it exists.