NASA Needs $3 Billion More a Year, Panel Tells Obama (Update1)

[bananas]

Source: Bloomberg

NASA needs an extra $3 billion a year to send astronauts back to the moon or to deep-space flybys of Mars or asteroids and avoid an “unsustainable trajectory” of setting goals without adequate funding, a panel told President Barack Obama.

The space program “is perpetuating the perilous practice of pursuing goals that do not match allocated resources,” the U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee said in a summary of its report. The panel is led by Norman Augustine, former chief executive of aerospace contractor Lockheed Martin Corp.

<snip>

The U.S. should keep the station in orbit to 2020, five years longer than the current plan, to get more benefit from the billions of dollars spent to build it, the panel said. United Space Alliance, a Houston-based company owned equally by Chicago-based Boeing Co. and Bethesda, Maryland-based Lockheed, is involved in shuttle and space station operations.

<snip>

The panel said that Mars, already visited by U.S. robotic probes, should be the “ultimate destination” for human explorers.

Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=arN6HfgXtPPM

[Parche]

1. and to think GW Bush wanted to send men to the Sun

:woohoo: :hi:

[imdjh]

2. fuck nasa

[Xipe Totec]

4. They already have. Thoroughly.

And thank you for your concern. :eyes:

[madmax]

5. I hear that

NASA probably spends more money on repairs to the space stations than we spend here on bridges that are crumbling beneath us.

[imdjh]

7. Not to mention that we have spent all this money on space, and how much on ocean?

Relative to the importance to civilization it has to be astronomical. Yes.

So we can land on the Moon, and return from it, but there are depths of the oceans which we cannot safely explore, nor can we retrieve submarines trapped down there while people die on them.

[kentauros]

25. Hmm, looks like you could benefit from reading NASA Tech Briefs, too

:)

Robots Explore the Farthest Reaches of Earth and Space

Most NASA probes, including the historic Voyager I and II spacecraft and especially the Mars rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, feature remote operation, but new missions and new planetary environments will demand new capabilities from the robotic explorers of the future. NASA has an acute interest in the development of specialized ROVs, as new lessons learned on Earth can be applied to new environments and increasingly complex missions in the future of space exploration.

[imdjh]

28. Do they have footage of the sea floor under the Arctic ice?

[kentauros]

33. Seeing as how "Oceanography" isn't part of the acronym

"National Aeronautics and Space Administration" I wouldn't know, or not personally.

However, as I also see that searching a given link for more information is not within your skillset, I did a minor amount of digging for you and found the following:

FLIPPER: Validation for Remote Ocean Imaging

In order to better understand our solar system and the ways it supports life, scientists and researchers at NASA study the planets. Of course, one of the planets on which NASA focuses most of its research is the Blue Planet, Earth, since this is the only one currently known to support life; and it is also, for all practical purposes, the most accessible. These scientists and researchers know that one of the determining factors in the planet’s ability to support life is the same factor that makes the Blue Planet blue: water. Therefore, NASA researchers have a focused interest in understanding Earth’s oceans and their ability to continue sustaining life.

A critical objective in this study is to understand the global processes that control the changes of carbon and associated living elements in the oceans. Since oceans are so large, one of the most widely used methods of this research is remote sensing—using satellites to observe changes in the ocean color that may be indicative of changes occurring at the surface. Major changes in carbon are due to photosynthesis conducted by phytoplankton, showing, among other things, which areas are sustaining life. Although valuable for large-scale pictures of an ocean, remote sensing really only provides a surface, and therefore incomplete, depiction of that ocean’s sustainability.

True and complete testing of the water requires local testing in conjunction with the satellite images in order to generate the necessary algorithm parameters to calculate ocean health. For this reason, NASA has spearheaded research to provide onsite validation for its satellite imagery surveys.

Also, since I suspect you'll retort with "Well, that's not visual footage under the Arctic ice, now is it?" I might also point out that visual is only one of the five senses available to humans and certainly not the only one that scientists use. It also won't tell you all the other pertinent information, like water temperature, microsopic life densities and so on.

If you want to know more, you'll just have to search their site yourself. It's free, so what's holding you back? ;)

[One_Life_To_Give]

36. Bet the Navy has detailed Sonar images

Probably all highly classified. But that is where Soviet boomers used to go and hide.

[Psephos]

14. And you type that on a computer based on IC technology spun out of the space program

My guess is the irony is not apparent to you.

[comtec]

19. earth-firsters always ignore the glaringly obvious when it suits them

we would not even have solid confirmation/proof of the damage done to the earth, the ozone hole, weather forecasting, satellites, et al, if not for the space program.

but who care, earth first, fuck space!

[sofa king]

30. You heard that wrong.

NASA spends just about as much as the feds spend on America's Native American tribes, where the bridges, and schools, and hospitals have already crumbled.

Edit: It's a pain in the butt to prove that, because Indian programs are now split across many departments and earmarks. But here's NASA's budget request for $18 billion:

http://www.nasa.gov/news/budget/index.html

And here's NHTSA's budget request for 2008 for $67 Billion:

http://www.dot.gov/affairs/dot1507.htm

Furthermore, NASA's budget has remained stable at around $18 billion for the entire twelve years I've been following its budget requests, meaning that the budget shrinks in real dollars every year.

[Craftsman]

21. In 1994 the year I have figures for, every $1 spent on Apollo it made $7 of economic developement

NASA is a great investment in this country, and if I had my druthers we would back a 18 wheeler up to them loaded with $100's and tell them to evelope stuff the sifi channel has not dreamed up.

[bananas]

3. The report is on the ostp.gov website

www.ostp.gov
direct link to pdf: http://www.ostp.gov/galleries/press_release_files/Augustineforweb.pdf

edit to add: that looks like the summary, not the full report.

[fascisthunter]

6. 3 billion for NASA is a pretty good investment

[imdjh]

8. How many profitable patents does NASA hold?

We're always told about the technology that NASA generates. How much is the country making off those discoveries? IF not the US, then who is making that money?

[DavidDvorkin]

9. $8 for every $1 invested

That was from a study I saw years ago, calculating the return in terms of GDP growth for every dollar invested in NASA. Patents aren't necessary.

[imdjh]

10. I'm naturally suspicious of that number both in scale and meaning.

And it doesn't answer my question. But let's look at such a claim.

If our government were to drill for and pump oil in the Gulf Of Mexico which it then gave to Exxon for free, wouldn't Exxon be able to defend the practice using the NASA model? After all, the expenses of drilling and pumping were "returned" 100 fold in the GDP, would it not be the case?

My question was how much money the US government makes from the patents generated by NASA. Not makes in a roundabout way through taxes allegedly collected on the production and sale of products which have grown out of the space program. I want to know who holds the patents generated by NASA and who collects the royalties.

[Psephos]

15. When a wise man points at the moon, the fool looks at the finger

Sufi saying, that.

You're focused on the patents?? NASA's real contribution was the creation of an aerospace ecosphere in which American R&D and applied science became the world's best.

You don't have enough digits on your (NASA spin-off) calculator to display the dollar value of that.

[excess_3]

18. NASA's humans in space effort, has helped us exactly how?

NASA's humans in space effort, has helped us exactly how?

innovations?
patents?
science?

please be as specific as you can

[DRoseDARs]

22. These are just some of the many things we've gotten as a return on our investments in space programs

http://www.independent.co.uk/extras/features/50-years-50-giant-leaps-how-nasa-rocked-our-world-879377.html

There are far too many to list, and that article's list goes from irreverent to life-saving, but one would have to be skull-fuckingly ignorant to believe we've gotten nothing useful out of 50+ years of space exploration.

[kentauros]

23. Here ya go:

Bio-Medical Tech Briefs

You have to register to be able to see the "white papers" section. I think it's free, but I haven't been to the NASA Tech Briefs site in a while...

:)

[Zorra]

34. Yeah, I was wondering the same thing. Why do they need $3 billion more if they are

generating so much capital?

Or are all the profits from our investment in NASA going to private industries?

It would be interesting to find out.

[Vidar]

11. It would be far better spent that the 800 odd billion to bail out Wall Street.

[neverforget]

12. Or the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan

[Vidar]

13. No argument there either. The space program has more than paid

for itself in spin-off technologies.

[Dogmudgeon]

16. Just $3 billion?

If we want a serious space program, we should allocate $200 billion each year and take it from the military budget.

We could make incredible advances in science, engineering, exploration, and international cooperation in less than a decade for less than half of what we spend on defending ourselves from threats that don't exist.

I just don't get it. We ought to be abandoning our obsession with warfare and transferring that aggressiveness into constructive pursuits.

--d!

[Joanne98]

17. Waste of money.

[kentauros]

24. You've never seen NASA Tech Briefs, have you?

http://www.techbriefs.com

;)

[Odin2005]

27. What a very ignorant post.

[unhappycamper]

20. We could end the occupations a week earlier and save $3 billion. n/t

[Odin2005]

26. Wow, the anti-NASA luddite morons have popped up quick.

:puke:

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

29. They always do.

I'm sure their computers are all running off of biofuels in their little hobbit holes.

[joshcryer]

31. Tell me about it.

:sigh:

[kentauros]

32. I'm trying to help with links to the free NASA Tech Briefs

but it isn't doing much good. And though most of it's over my head, I think I'll go read some more :)

[neverforget]

35. Of all the federal agencies, I would think NASA would be one of the more

liked since it's science and exploration. But from reading some of the replies to this thread, I guess not.

[Fluffdaddy]

37. This thread shocks me. How can you hate NASA?

science and exploration is where we are and must stay No1

[neverforget]

43. Yeah but according to some it's a waste of money. To me, it's money

well spent with advances in science, technology, medicine to just name a few.

[shireen]

38. some responses in this thread are quite astonishing

they need to look past their noses. NASA is one of the very few federal agencies that directly invests in the long-term FUTURE. Some people have posted good responses. But there are also intangible benefits: inspiration, discovery and exploration, awe and wonder. Anyone with a curious mind knows what i'm talking about.

[fascisthunter]

39. now this pic is what is miraculous to me

I don't need a god when I look at pictures like this.

[Mudoria]

40. Money well spent..

both for the technologies that are invented and for the knowledge gained from space exploration. One day, if we survive as a species, we will be traveling to the planets and stars and this is a building block for the future. Beam me up, Scotty!

[KansDem]

41. Well, just close down 1/1,000 of the Iraq war...

...and you'll have your $3 billion!

Simple, isn't it? :D

[dougkeenan]

42. The dinosaurs are extinct because they didn't have a space program

It's a classic, because it's true. No amount of under-bed knee-knocking will change that.