Should NASA Do Mission To Planet Earth?
Forget new crewed missions in space. NASA should focus on saving Earth, op ed, Lori Garver, Washington Post
“After accomplishing this amazing feat, the aerospace community has again and again sought presidential proclamations to go further. President Trump is the fifth president to proclaim we will send humans to the moon and/or Mars within a specific time frame, a decree without a value proposition that has never inspired broad public support nor come close to coming true. NASA remains one the most revered and valuable brands in the world, and the agency is at its best when given a purpose. But the public doesn’t understand the purpose of spending massive amounts of money to send a few astronauts to the moon or Mars. Are we in another race, and if so, is this the most valuable display of our scientific and technological leadership? If science is the rationale, we can send robots for pennies on the dollar. In a July Pew Research Center study, 63?percent of respondents said monitoring key parts of Earth’s climate system should be the highest priority for the United States’ space agency — sending astronauts to the moon was their lowest priority, at 13?percent ; 18?percent favor Mars.”
NO!! If you want a big ol yawn and death to manned spaceflight/exploration go ahead and listen to this advice from Garver. Meanwhile the rest of the world will laugh and give each other a big ol high five.
That’s exactly what she wants, at least for NASA manned spaceflight.
I’m okay with that. Climate change is many orders of magnitude more important than human spaceflight.
The headline is a bit on the provocative side – she’s saying she didn’t get to choose it on Twitter, and that she still believes in crewed missions and promoting commercial spaceflight.
She’s right that NASA shouldn’t promote human spaceflight as an end in of itself. It’s extremely expensive compared to robotic exploration, and we really need to get the cost of doing it way down.
NASA remains one the most revered and valuable brands in the world, and the agency is at its best when given a purpose. But the public doesn’t understand the purpose of spending massive amounts of money to send a few astronauts to the moon or Mars
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I bit ironic considering the brand reverence of NASA is mostly derived from spending a lot of money sending men to the Moon.
NO! This is nuts. A Climate Corps? It was public opinion on nuclear energy that help create the current crisis of global warming.
If you want to make any government agency the lead for addressing the issue of global warming it should be the Department of Energy. First, because the only way to reduce the increase in CO2 is by changing the mix of our sources of energy, which falls within their mission area. Second, it was the Atomic Energy Commission, which was folded into the Department of Energy, that first started funding global warming research in the 1950’s with the building of the Mauna Loa Observatory to monitor CO2 and it was also the A.E.C. that pushed to change the energy mix then by building nuclear energy power stations to replace coal power stations. If the anti-nuke science rejectors hadn’t stop the building of those plants CO2 would still be in the low 300 ppm today.
NASA by contrast only has the ability to study it with satellites, not to solve it.
The Department of Energy makes some sense. But what about the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration? Much as I dislike reoragnizations as a way to solve problems, this may be a good case for it. Currently, climate work is spread among multiple agencies and department. Consolidating that might make sense. That’s not too different from the recent discussion about a DoD Space Force.
In other news, I read today that Indonesia was commissioning the design and development of a 500 MW, thorium salt reactor. I think that’s the first solid plan for a commercial thorium reactor.
NOAA, like NASA, is a good agency to study it, but neither is really in a position to implement any solutions to it, and solutions are what is really needed now. And we really don’t need more studies to understand those solutions fall into four categories which are to reduce CO2 output to the atmosphere (DOE,DOT), take CO2 from the atmosphere (U.S. Forest Service), adapt agriculture to the changes caused by global warming (USDA) and fourth, harden the infrastructure to the changes of global warming (Army Corp of Engineers, Bureau of Reclamation). Since the first step is reducing CO2 output the DOE would be the natural agency to start fighting it.
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot!? Excuse me but what the heck have we been doing for the last 30 YEARS?! Exactly that!
Dear mud huggers… NUTS!
I can’t see if the article mentions it (probably), but “Mission to Planet Earth” was to old name of the current Earth Science Division, under the Clinton administration.
I was thinking it was Clinton-era too but Scott Manley found a NASA link from 1988 with the phrase.
I’m not surprised the phrase is that old, if not older. But I was thinking of the official name of what’s not the “Earth Science Division” of the Science Mission Directorate. I think it was the Clinton Administration that made it “Mission to Planet Earth.” On the other hand, NASA seems to change the titles of its science divisions every decade or so, and not always for reasons which make sense.
While I agree that Climate Change is occurring and that Earth science from space should continue to be one of NASA’s priorities, this suggestion to not send people into space is misguided. If we follow this idea then it’s not a far leap for someone to argue that ANY space exploration, human or robotic, should be avoided and we should instead focus on only the Earth. Same old argument that the money is better spent on Earth, when in fact the money is spent on Earth in helping us understand our place in the universe, not to mention the practical technological benefits. There is still opportunity to do Earth science, robotic exploration, and human space flight, and we have the resources to do all three, properly balanced. And there is some exploration and science that robotic craft will never be able to do, unless they become as intelligent as humans, but we are just not there right now with robotics. Besides, while public opinion is important, I believe we, as a species should NOT retreat from space, because our future depends on it. We should aim to send people to the Moon and Mars and wherever else we can reach.
Reminding me once again how glad I am Garver is gone from NASA.
She’s saying the quiet part out loud.
Let’s briefly review Obama Administration space mechanations.
They cancel the troubled Constellation program. Ares I was a mess. Ares V was concept art. Orion was making progress, just very slowly.
They then decide to have Orion be an escape capsule / return vehicle for the ISS, launched by a Delta IV rather than have a space role (so they didn’t have to manrate an Atlas V or Delta IV). They “look at manrating” the EELVs. That dispears into a black hole.
Finally they say “we’re going to spend money on commercial” and technologies and pick a heavy lift launch vehicle in 2016. Of course, 2016, the last year of a theoretical Obama 2nd term, meant that the Obama Administration had zero intent on actually ever using its “technology development” time to pick a heavy lift vehicle.
Commerical worked out, but from the perspective of 2009/2010… little had been accomplished and commercial space was most concept art, 2nd hand government built equipment and a lot of empty promises.
Congress, realizing the administration’s scheme, basically adopted Direct 3.0 and called it the SLS. You may remember Direct. It was the “obviously it’s the better program” program during Constellation.
I think it’s quite clear what went out. Obama and his reforminist team come in in 2009 and take a broad look at what the US government is doing, and they use the cover of the financial crisis to not just do the normal shifting of priorities that is regular among any new administration, but try to get the US out of certain things it had long been involved in. Defense saw a lot of this, with the cancellation of the F-22 at 187 aircraft, near cancellation of the F-35, and cut to 1/3rd of the Army’s heavy armor… all while standing up cyber and counterterrorism.
With regards to space, I think they just wanted to get the US out of the manned space industry. If the government could buy rides from a commerical vendor, fine…but they were committing to the argument that pre-dated them that space should be largely robotic, and science rather than “achievement” focused. And new then, that climate change should be the core of the research.
The Obama Administration had no problem launching probes and telescopes, but it wanted to basically wind down 50 years of American manned space travel. With the Space Shuttle gone, commercial some years out, and Orion years behind schedule, it was the perfect time. It doesn’t serve a core Democratic priority, it’s hugely expensive, and from their perspective, debatably scientifically useful at best.
So it’s really no surprise Garver wrote this piece, and her whine about the title is off base. It basically captures what she is saying: NASA should be the climate change agency. That is precisely what the Obama Administration and John P Holdren wanted for years. We should have a Climate Change agency. Reboot the NOAA into that like the NACA was rebooted into NASA. NASA is about space.
I was glad when she left. I was glad when Bolden left. Gerstenmaier should have been removed years ago. It needs to be made crystal clear: if you don’t kowtow to the company line as set by Congress and the Administration about what NASA is doing, and create bureaucratic hurdles along the way, you don’t get to work for NASA anymore.
I was in 7th Grade when the Boston Globe ran a story on the X-33, and I grew excited about the far off future of single stage to orbit in 2007. I’m a 37 year old software engineer now. These people… these long term NASA managers who have failed on delivering any kind of way forward on manned space exploration… they have to follow Gerstenmaier out the door. It’s hilarious that in half that time SpaceX built the most advanced and capable space launching program on Earth with a fraction of the resources and none of the technology.
It’s like with Artemis 1’s schedule… skip the goddamn green run. Enough with the reviews, and studies and excuses. Build the thing and freakin launch it.
So all I say to Lori Garver is: we’re aware of your opinions and have seen your record. Nobody cares, and your help is not required.
That would have to be an awful big asteroid. Even Chicxulub didn’t do more than remove a number of species and encourage the evolution of others. I don’t think the Earth’s upper mantle really even noticed, and the core almost certainly didn’t.