Effects of Planetary Science Cuts
Impact of Delays in Selection and Funding of Research and Data Analysis Program Awards, PSI
“Consequences include: The personal assumption of research expenses by scientists, the potential loss of students, funding instability or inadequacy for postdocs, undermining funded research, general loss of efficiency in programs and research, a sense of overall lack of support for these foundational programs that underpin our solar system exploration efforts, and the potential loss of scientists from planetary science.”
It is curious that these folks will gladly kill funding to planned and ongoing research, kill funding to support current graduate and post-graduate students, and then turn around and wonder why American students aren’t interested in STEM careers.
Pretty good point. What good is going all out to study in a field that Congress is going to cut off at the knees?
Congress didn’t cut it off, the White House did. It’s interesting that the Dems are the ones killing off science at NASA. Doesn’t quite fit the stereotype typically espoused here that it’s the “low-brow GOP” that is anti-science.
Bullshit. They are both/all to blame.
IMHO its a standoff. Shelby and Hutchinson (and others) forced SLS, others forced Webb, … and to stay within budget Obama cuts planetary – he doesn’t want to get blamed by non-space constituents for increased spending in a fragile economy in an election year.
We can’t afford SLS period. We shouldn’t have accepted Webb as budgetted, and we should’ve after the fact restructured Webb to run over a longer interval with more happening in later years with a different set of milestones.
Its a game of budgetary chicken. And my students are taking it in the shorts, all indirectly due to fund a rocket that will never be flown and a telescope that was sold at quarter price.
Amen
I saw a very fine group of young scientists at LPSC this year. It would be stupid to let that be destroyed. On top of that I was watching the movie last night about the fall of Lehman Brothers. The guy who found the problem with the algorithm that everyone was using to pile up debt was a PhD Aerospace engineer from MIT. When they asked him why he was there he said that Wall Street paid a lot more money and that numbers were numbers.
Sad to see that kind of brainpower wasted on Wall Street.
OK, it’s the space science folks turn to cry. Manned space already started, hope you brought extra kleenex, we’re all out over here.