Division for Planetary Sciences Challenges NASA FY 2013 Budget
APS Division for Planetary Sciences: American Planetary Exploration Is in Grave Danger
“Under the proposed budget NASA will be forced to cancel its plans for its most ambitious exploration missions, slash the Mars Exploration Program, and kill the Lunar Quest Program. The cuts will also end collaborations with the European Space Agency on the 2016 Mars Trace Gas Orbiter and the 2018 ExoMars rover, delay the economical Discovery and New Frontiers space programs, and force cuts in operations and data analysis for a number of current missions.”
Pretty diplomatic of them not to bring up JWST. I wonder how long the spirit of diplomacy will prevail.
Planetary Science refuses to acknowledge their problem, so therefore they continue to “whither on the vine”.
As long as these organizations continue to drink the JWST kool aide the more danger they will be in. Planetary science has no one to blame but themselves as they voted to support JWST – well you supported JWST alright, with your budget.
Respectfully,
Andrew Gasser
TEA Party in Space
I hope JWST and SLS are worth it. One is billions over budget and may fly and be successful, the other will spend billions and likely never fly.
This is the price of SLS and JWST. Much as I try, I cannot foresee either program returning useful or necessary knowledge or capabilities in the near-term, or middle term. While they may have been proposed with the best of intentions, neither is worth the money, and JWST is a textbook case of mismanagement that should be shelved for that reason alone.
Meanwhile, Congress under-funds commercial crew, which is the nation’s only near-term hope of getting humans back into space.
A friend of mine jokes that if there were still a USSR, he would see Congress’s approach to NASA funding as a KGB plot to keep the USA a second-rate space power.
I wish I found that funny.
Old,
Your comments ring true to me, but I still find it hard to accept penalizing science (JWST) for the actions of non-scientists. I don’t think SLS is worth any further comments.
Steve
As a young man I was stunned when we simply walked away from the Apollo program.
Now that we’ve simply walked away from space altogether nothing surprises me.
We now find ourselves debating tiny expenditures that should be footnotes to a real space program. Instead, we spend 8 billion on the first of a new class of aircraft carriers that are not even questioned.
I am a military veteran and consider national defense of the highest national priority. However, every military strategist in world history advocates holding the high ground.
The future of humanity lies in space, or nowhere. No amount of conservation can increase the finite resources of this already overloaded, tired world. Mother Earth is our womb, and we’ve already overstayed our welcome.
I can think of but few problems on this earth that cannot be solved or amerliorated by the exploration and colonization of space.
Both national parties have presided over the gradual dismantling of our space program to the point of appearing to be in near perfect agreement. I cannot comprehend their rationale in relinquishing our leadership in the most important science of all, and one in which our expertise and investment was unequaled.
Godspeed to Burt Rutan, SpaceX, AdAstra, the Chinese, and all who remain committed to leading us into maturity as a species.