[FPSPACE] NASA cuts global warming research and Lunar missionto send yet...

[E.P. Grondine]

David:

$1.8 Billion?  That's $1,800,000,000, and how many cities would not like to 
have that much money added to their budgets for their schools and hospitals?

To put this $1.8 Billion in perspective, NASA's NEO detection budget has 
been .004 Billion per year, or $4,000,000.

Pathfinder, the MERs - I think they came in at what $.3-.4 Billion each?  
Why now $1.8 Billion? Oh yeah, I forgot - testing manned Mars lander descent 
engine technologies, instead of using air bags to land.

Griffin claims the "private sector" provides goods and services for 1/3 to 
1/7 the cost to the government - okay then 1/3 of $1.8 Billion would be .6 
Billion; 1/7 of $1.8 Billion would be .260 Billion; why then, let's turn 
this Mars Science Laboratory over to the "private sector".

In the meanwhile the cosmologists also get their cut as the Webb telescope 
gets funded, while "NASA does not have the money" for a dedicated infrared 
NEO warning scope in Venus orbit  - like the rest of the universe won't be 
there later on...

But I agree that its no problem losing the Moon rover - after all, China is 
doing several missions, along with several other nations.

its simply all too much "fun",
E.P. Grondine
Man and Impact in the Americas


>From: DSFPortree at aol.com
>To: MATULAT at uhv.edu, FPSPACE at friends-partners.org
>Subject: Re: [FPSPACE] NASA cuts global warming research and Lunar 
>missionto send yet...
>Date: Sat, 7 Apr 2007 10:00:44 EDT
>
>Tom:
>
>Provocative post, but not grounded in reality. The Mars Program has been 
>cut
>and cut - MSL is really all that's left. Mars is politically popular,
>scientifically interesting, and culturally relevant. NASA couldn't very 
>well abandon
>MSL at this stage.
>
>Guess what - I expect the Mars Program will be at least partly restored as
>NASA turns away from the moon in the next couple of years. Looking for life 
>on
>Mars is a cheap way for the U.S. to do things in space that Americans and
>people around the world see as relevant.
>
>The lunar lander would be a fun thing, but Griffin says it's not entirely
>required, which seems to be accurate. Of course, the same can be said for 
>the
>entire lunar program.
>
>It is unfortunate about the Earth obs cuts. However, blaming the Mars 
>Program
>is like blaming NASA aeronautics, or like blaming school lunch programs for
>the Federal deficit. The Mars Program just isn't that big. Why not look for
>scapegoats among the programs that dominate the budget, not the incidental
>programs?
>
>David
>
>
>David S. F. Portree
>author & educator
>dsfportree at aol.com
>(928) 226-1427
>Flagstaff Arizona USA
>
>DSFP homepage
>http://members.aol.com/dsfportree/dsfp.htm
>
>DSFP blog
>http://altairvi.blogspot.com/
>
>"It's like when you're a kid, the first time they tell you that the world's
>turning and you just can't quite believe it because everything looks like 
>it's
>standing still. I can feel it - the turn of the Earth. The ground beneath 
>our
>feet is spinning at a thousand miles an hour, the entire planet is hurtling
>around the Sun at sixty-seven thousand miles an hour, and I can feel it. 
>We're
>falling through space, you and me. Clinging to the skin of this tiny little
>world, and if we let go..." - The Ninth Doctor
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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