Boo! Hiss!

[cosmolinguist]

I wrote a couple days ago about what a shame it is that NASA would rather see Hubble die prematurely because they don't want to send anyone up to repair or maintain it after Columbia. That irks me.

Today on Slashdot I saw an article saying that the International Space Station will be scaled back--'fewer astronauts and less science'--so that NASA can meet a 2010 deadline for ending shuttle missions. Deadline? I guess they're being phased out. How disappointing.

The next paragraph said that NASA's international partners--Europe, Japan, Canada, and Russia--agreed to this. That surprised me a bit, until I read that 'in exchange, NASA will continue with plans to launch research modules owned by its partners'. Ah, bribery, of course. And who else but America could get away with saying, 'if you let us weasel out of our agreement, we promise to actually do for you what we said we were going to do anyway'?

It seems I'm not the only one irritated by this; the article also claims that while those other countries are voicing public support for Shrub's 'space initiative' that swaps all this shuttle and space-station stuff for trips to the MOon and Mars. But luckily they recognise that for the nonsense it is; they're privately said that the US is not living up to its commitments.

I know there are other things to worry about, but come on. This is even worse than not fixing Hubble,a nd for the same stupid reason. Shuttle missions aren't all bad. There have been tons of them since the reusable space shuttle was introduced, and they've done all kinds of cool things. The ISS has--or had--great promise for advancing both science and cooperation among much of the industrialised world.

The station was intended to hold seven astronauts for a long time, but thanks to the new agreement will have only four, and it will 'never become the beehive of scientific and commerical research envisged.' There seem to be more stingers than honey going around in the US space program these days.

Comments

[davmoo.livejournal.com]

When the station was originally only on paper and being designed, in the Reagan era, it was going to be named "Freedom". By the time anything was actually done it had been so scaled back that the running joke at the time was the station was only going to be long enough to paint the name "Fred" on the side of it.

This goes in both the "grain of salt" and "believe it when we see it" catagories, but rumor coming out of the Whitehouse is that Shrub Bush is threatening to veto any budget that shortchanges NASA.

[cosmolinguist]

That sounds nice ... but really, I'm amazed he's ever mentioned NASA at all. Unless someone told him there's oil on Mars.

Or weapons of mass destruction.

General research funds die every time

[5-rings.livejournal.com]

NASA's budget has been stagnant since the end of the first Bush Presidency. The idea behind the ISS has little to do with science and a lot to do with self-interested realpolitik -- keeping Russian rocket scientists busy -- and as a result, it had to be scaled back from the initial goals of the SSF project while simultaneously becoming more, not less, expensive. Countries complaining about the US scaling back are actually complaining that we're not giving them money ;-)

On the whole, general research like most NASA funding is undervalued in Congress. Applied research is favored by officials since it produces an end product and is therefore more suitable as pork. This means a great many projects are aborted in favor of cash cows or have their funds shifted elsewhere. Hell, I'm still pissed about the Superconducting Supercollider being canceled in anticipation of paying for Clinton's stimulus package back in 1993.

[(Anonymous)]

You misspelled "industrialized."

[cosmolinguist]

But I spelled industrialised just fine.

[dracole.livejournal.com]

Eh, perhaps NASA just needs a complete overhaul, it seems the poeple there are too scare by losses, mistakes, and failures, and too beat down by the voice of 'who gives a fuck about space' to fight for what they believe in anymore. That's a shame. EIther NASA is going to have to change and get back on track, or I hope there's a big push for a personal agency(ies) to do what they won't anymore.

[cosmolinguist]

Oh, privitization is definitely the future of space travel. Look at the X Prize (which I find terribly cool and interesting) and SpaceShipOne (which I don't, really, but I'm not surprised at it). being the weird sort of person I am, I'd prefer the government to be exploring space, if only because they can worry about something other than commercial success. They might do a bit of science. And I like science, especially astronomy. I want to know everything.

But the money is always an issue, and with the government, politics is an issue too. I konw I'm setting myself up for disappointment by being a romantic about this, but I do it anyway.

[stealthmunchkin.livejournal.com]

You *did* misspell 'privatisation' though :-p

[cosmolinguist]

If Noah Webster were here, I'd punch him for all the trouble he's causing me.

[gentleman-lech.livejournal.com]

[grumble grumble grumble] They can't discontinue the shuttle without first having a replacement.