Obama's nee fiscal year budget to cut $226 million dollars from Mars expedition
34 replies, posted
[quote]The plan kills a deal between the US and European space agencies to cooperate on Mars robotic rover missions in 2016 and 2018, with a view to preparing to return samples from the red planet in the next decade.NASA administrator Charles Bolden admitted that "tough choices" had to be made in axing the European deal, but vowed to restructure the Mars program so that future robotics mission could potentially be revisited in 2018-2020.
"This means we will not be moving forward with the planned 2016 and 2018 ExoMars mission that we have been exploring with the European Space Agency," Bolden said.
The fiscal 2013 budget, which is unlikely to face a vote in Congress while Obama seeks re-election, called for a $226 million reduction, or a near 39 percent cut in the US space agency's Mars exploration program from $587 million to $361 million.
Meanwhile, it funds other big projects such as the James Webb Space Telescope and a new heavy-lift rocket to propel an eventual deep space mission to an asteroid, and provides seed money for private companies seeking to replace the space shuttle which was retired last year.
The overall proposal is to give NASA $17.7 billion, a decrease of 0.3 percent or $59 million less than 2012.
"It is a real scientific tragedy and I personally believe it is a national embarrassment," G. Scott Hubbard, a Stanford University professor who served as the first NASA Mars program director, told AFP.
"Here we had one of the most successful NASA programs of the last decade and it is being effectively turned off."
Obama's budget pointed to the successful launch last year of the Mars Science Laboratory, also known as Curiosity, the biggest and most advanced rover ever built which should land in August, as it called for reduced support for new robotic projects.
"It is sad for science," said Pascale Ehrenfreund, research professor of Space Policy at George Washington University.
"But you have to focus on the future. I am very convinced that when the Mars Science Laboratory lands in August and takes successful measurements on Mars that the situation might change rather fast. The budget may be reconsidered."
According to Bill Nye, chief executive of the Planetary Society, an association of scientists skilled in the search for alien life, program cuts could have devastating consequences.
"We are concerned that once planetary exploration programs are stopped, they just can't be restarted," Nye told AFP.
NASA currently employs the world's top experts in landing robotic vehicles on Mars, he said, noting that the recent failure by Russia to get its Mars probe off to a successful launch provides evidence of the danger.
"If all the (NASA) people expert in Entry, Descent, and Landing (EDL) on Mars have no missions and then retire, the program just cannot recover," Nye said.
Russia has been floated as potential partner with Europe in the ExoMars project should the United States withdraw.
According to the ExoMars deal made in 2009, NASA would have contributed $1.4 billion to the project and ESA would have chipped in $1.2 billion to send an orbiter to Mars in 2016 and two rovers to land on the red planet in 2018.
Tens of millions of US dollars have already been spent on the plans, according to Hubbard.
John Logsdon, an external White House adviser and longtime space analyst, said the United States withdrew from ExoMars because it "cannot afford now to commit itself to another multi-billion dollar project."
Other politically controversial projects did receive funding, including the elaborate James Webb Space Telescope, 100 times more sensitive than its predecessor, the Hubble.
The Obama budget urges that the project be capped at $8 billion. NASA said in December that the project was on track to launch in 2018 at a total project cost of $8.8 billion, after a series of delays and cost overruns.
NASA would also get $3 billion for developing new spacecraft and rockets to take the next generation of astronauts to space, after the space shuttle program ended last year, leaving Russia as the sole taxi to the International Space Station.
Big projects include $1.86 billion for the continued development of a Space Launch System (SLS) heavy lift rocket and $1.2 billion for the Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle to "with a key initial goal of visiting an asteroid next decade," it said.[/quote]
[URL]http://www.physorg.com/news/2012-02-obama-slashes-mars-exploration.html[/URL]
Once again, us nerds get ax'd again :/
Shit, can an admin fix the title please?
Not Obama's fault. He's just trying to clean up the overall mess.
Blame the ones who caused the deficit.
The sensible thing to do would be to shut down every space agency in the world and redirect their budgets into a single global space agency (with a massive budget)
Which is why it won't happen
[QUOTE=smurfy;34688005]The sensible thing to do would be to shut down every space agency in the world and redirect their budgets into a single global space agency (with a massive budget)
Which is why it won't happen[/QUOTE]
Why not create two? Competition breeds winners.
[QUOTE=smurfy;34688005]The sensible thing to do would be to shut down every space agency in the world and redirect their budgets into a single global space agency (with a massive budget)
Which is why it won't happen[/QUOTE]
They were going to do that, and go into a big collaboration with Europe to go to Mars.
Carl Sagan is rolling in his grave.
You son of a BITCH, why would you take money from a budget that is a 10th of 1% of the national budget.
I want my kids to be starmen and major toms, playing with ziggy stardust on Mars!
[editline]13th February 2012[/editline]
HTTP/1.1 200 OK Cache-Control: private Pragma: private Content-Length: 203 Content-Type: text/xml; charset=windows-1252 Server: Microsoft-IIS/7.5 Set-Cookie: bb_; path=/; domain=.facepunch.com; HttpOnly X-UA-Compatible: IE=Edge Date: Tue, 14 Feb 2012 03:48:00 GMT [QUOTE=Combin0wnage;34688042]They were going to do that, and go into a big collaboration with Europe to go to Mars.[/QUOTE]
The ESA have a 3rd of the budget NASA has, any way we should be striving for US hegenomy in Space!
[editline]13th February 2012[/editline]
Uhh
[QUOTE=DesolateGrun;34688835]You son of a BITCH, why would you take money from a budget that is a 10th of 1% of the national budget.[/QUOTE]
Because NASA's not marketable.
When they make a tangible [I]thing[/I] or do something the media can run with, saying "and it happened because of my funding" helps you. This is becoming more and more rare because, well, that's how work goes, you need to put in a fuckton of it before you get something shiny and new to show off.
When they're busy doing said actual fucking work, your opponents can say "see look he's throwing money at nothing, shame on his frivolous spending" because it has no results you can present to our stupid fucking populace.
So Mars isn't going to be colonized in lifetime? That's a shame.
I think the timetable before the budget cuts was 2026 (?) for a manned mission. I assume that's going to be pushed back at least a decade.
When our deficit is this big, [I]everything[/I] needs to be considered for the chopping block.
I personally think there are cooler things scientists can do than take people to Mars.
[QUOTE=person11;34689023]When our deficit is this big, [I]everything[/I] needs to be considered for the chopping block.
I personally think there are cooler things scientists can do than take people to Mars.[/QUOTE]
Such as?
Grand Unified Theory
[QUOTE=person11;34689023]When our deficit is this big, [I]everything[/I] needs to be considered for the chopping block.
I personally think there are cooler things scientists can do than take people to Mars.[/QUOTE]
Space is cooler by default.
[QUOTE=person11;34689023]When our deficit is this big, [I]everything[/I] needs to be considered for the chopping block.
I personally think there are cooler things scientists can do than take people to Mars.[/QUOTE]
So instead of taxing the rich and buissnesses MORE, we should tax them slightly more and still cut budgets.
We shouldn't be going to Mars yet... we need to build mining facilities on asteroids or the moon, the profits garnered from that would be gigantic. We'd get so much money and surplus metal we could have civilian colonies in free space by 2040.
The rubbish thing about this is that we (the Europeans) have already spent massive amounts of money on it. It's not the first time that NASA has done this to us.
[QUOTE=Hidole555;34689043]Such as?[/QUOTE]The Oceans. Nothing but myriads of untouched resources and space, all below our feet. Far more research should be put into technology that can harvest the ocean's bounty without destroying the hydrosphere.
[QUOTE=ExplodingGuy;34692447]The Oceans. Nothing but myriads of untouched resources and space, all below our feet. Far more research should be put into technology that can harvest the ocean's bounty without destroying the hydrosphere.[/QUOTE]
Any human settlement or further mining WILL damage the ocean system more than is done today
Damnit just move half the Defense budget over to NASA for one year. They'll have us to mars in no time haha
Shouldn't have bailed out the banks.
[QUOTE=DesolateGrun;34701056]Any human settlement or further mining WILL damage the ocean system more than is done today[/QUOTE]
We're killing our oceans, if anything we need to leave them the fuck alone.
Why is it the world has this idea that space exploration is for profit? Do people not realise that space is our future? At our current rate of growth we're facing a global population crisis within a couple of centuries and all the politicians can think about is the $$$ in front of their eyes, 24/7. For the sake of money and the economy we could be dooming ourselves to extinction every time we postpone/cancel an outreaching project.
Maybe the last century or so has proven that humans, might never reach the stars. Maybe human nature is just not right for that kind of endeavour.
Suck it Gingrich
We have a lot of time to reach for the stars.
A good time to start will be after we are done with this recession and slow growth business.
Oh and crippling debt it would be nice to get rid of that too first.
Humanity will explore, and possibly even terraform and colonize mars.
America just likely won't be a part of it.
[editline]14th February 2012[/editline]
We've gotta look to China and India now.
[QUOTE=person11;34703929]We have a lot of time to reach for the stars.
A good time to start will be after we are done with this recession and slow growth business.
Oh and crippling debt it would be nice to get rid of that too first.[/QUOTE]
The universe is probably littered with the one-planet graves of cultures which made the sensible economic decision that there's no good reason to go into space--each discovered, studied, and remembered by the ones who made the irrational decision.
[QUOTE=archangel125;34704750]Humanity will explore, and possibly even terraform and colonize mars.
America just likely won't be a part of it.
[editline]14th February 2012[/editline]
We've gotta look to China and India now.[/QUOTE]
Europe, actually. Remember that they are the ones who picked up where we left off after we cancelled our supercollider(SSC) and built their own supercollider(LHC) near Geneva. China seems to wanna flex itself as far as science goes, but it seems like Europe is the area actually putting their money where their mouths are really building shit.
Just looking at statistics, our population is bound to rise by yet another billion in maybe twelve years, and that rate is expected to continue until 2100 when it plateaus because of over-exploitation, and in order to alleviate pressure on our planet and ensure stability on the ground to secure future space missions, we need to start moving people of our marble. Cutting the NASA budget is okay I guess, as long as they are provided with all the proper assets and then some once the American economy is finally stabilized.
[QUOTE=Canuhearme?;34704832]The universe is probably littered with the one-planet graves of cultures which made the sensible economic decision that there's no good reason to go into space--each discovered, studied, and remembered by the ones who made the irrational decision.[/QUOTE]
We will get around to it when our economy is not on the gutter.
Space is awesome, I love it, but we have to be realistic here.
[QUOTE=person11;34705163]We will get around to it when our economy is not on the gutter.
Space is awesome, I love it, but we have to be realistic here.[/QUOTE]
Science and space provide tangible benefits that increase our standard of living. If you want to look at it from a practical perspective, stimulating scientific research stimulates the economy.
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