NASA Administrator Mike Griffin gave a talk giving an overview of NASA and astronomy today.
His theme was clear: NASA is doing well, but people — especially astronomers — have to understand that the budget is limited, and there is only so much to go around. To fund one thing, we have to cut another. This is a truth we must face.
He started off talking about Hubble, Chandra, Spitzer, and Swift. It was a little funny to hear about the astronomy NASA has done, since the audience was intimately familiar with it all, but it’s nice to hear anyway… especially since he also gave an overview of what’s to come in the next few years. Dark energy missions, observatories dedicated to look for planets around other stars, and more are on the horizon.
The Astrophysics budget in NASA is more than a billion per year, and has been for years. Griffin noted that amount is larger than the entire Japanese space budget. We astronomers are all too aware of how much money this is, of course, and how wonderful a position we have that our government funds it at this level. Astronomers have spent years working with the government on this, so it’s a fantastic synergy.
Griffin was pretty clear on how important this work is, and how it inspires us, and especially our children. But of course it comes with a literal price. NASA has a fixed budget, and has other priorities as well. An instrument (an alpha magnetic spectrometer or AMS, for those keeping score at home) was designed to go on the space station, and promises were made to our international partners to build, launch, and install it. It would cost $400 million to put the AMS on the ISS. To pay for this, money must come from elsewhere, and Astrophysics is a pretty fat target.
SIM, the Space Interferometry Mission, will look for planets — some potentially Earthlike — around other stars. SIM has passed all its technological hurdles, and has been deemed ready to be built. However, NASA cannot support at the same time both SIM and other big missions like the James Webb Space Telescope, the successor to Hubble. JWST eats up 60% of NASA’s astrophysics budget (holy Haleakala!) so we need to be careful on not just what gets funded, but when.
Griffin has made it clear he thinks we need to hold off on SIM while other missions are developed, but Congress has mandated work start on SIM. This doesn’t happen in a vacuum, Griffin said; he basically accused astronomers of advocating SIM to Congress, a mission that will now threaten other missions. He’s quite possibly right; astronomers get a lot, but we want a lot more, too. Still, I suspect that when astronomers advocate to Congress for a mission, it’s in the hopes that Congress will actually increase the budget enough to accommodate it. That would be a naive attitude. If they do this knowing full well it will impact other missions, well then, that’s politically naive to the point of self-mutilation. I’d be curious to hear more about this story, and find out what is actually going on.
Griffin continued his somewhat exasperated talk; saying that manned missions took a serious hit after Columbia, and saying in a somewhat sideways manner that perhaps many astronomers don’t care. He has a point again; many scientists are actively against manned flight, seeing it as a waste of money when robotic explorers can do so much. Mind you, this is true in some cases (like basic scientific exploration of Mars and the Moon, for example), but it is naive, of course. Manned spaceflight will always be inspirational, especially to young children, and I think it has its place. The problem is that manned flight costs so much more than unmanned, and it would be nice if Congress could figure out how to balance the two in NASA’s budget.
He pointed out the space station is a big part of NASA’s mission, and that must be recognized. To ignore it while discussing NASA is futile. Again, he’s right: many astronomers — myself included — think the ISS is a waste of money. However, we must face the truth that the ISS is a fact of life for NASA, and must be funded and completed. It will do no good to complain that he money is being thrown away… at least, it’s useless to complain now. It’s too late for that. However, there will be future missions, and I think we need to examine these missions very critically to make sure they don’t turn into more space station-like missions, white elephants eating up hundreds of billions of dollars for no focused value.
He ended by pointing out that we must all hang together or we will surely all hang separately. What he is trying to tell us is that NASA will do what it can for science, and for astrophysics, but it will only be able to do what it can. This is good advice, for both astronomers and NASA officials. We must all take a broader view.
However…
My own personal opinion: one of the things I like about Griffin is his forthrightness. He says what’s on his mind, and that’s refreshing. I agree with him on many points, and disagree on many others. It may hurt to hear the truth, but I try very hard not to let that stop me from hearing it. In many ways, then, I was happy to hear Griffin’s talk, although I must admit that his exasperation does seem a little peevish as opposed to being constructive. Having said that, I wouldn’t take his job on a bet (or even for a good fraction of NASA’s budget). He must have people advocating a dozen such divisions other than Astrophysics, and we are but one of the cacophony of voices he hears. Still, when speaking to a crowd of advocates, implying, or even outright saying, they are being childish on some topics won’t help… even if he’s right.
There’s politics in government, of course, but anytime you get a group with more than three people in it, there are politics there as well. I hope that the politics I saw here today don’t interfere with the greater good of both science and NASA.
January 8th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
My 2 eurocents: for me, hostility is not for “wasting” money on manned spaceflight, but because manned filghts take away money that belong to unmanned missions. This is feel as unfair. Adding insult to injury, manned mision are treated preferentially over unmanned. How? In manned space mission world, manyfold incerase in cost, overbudgeting and other nasties is almost normal, while unmanned mission would be trashed (rightly and justfully) long ago. For example, Dawn was almost killed for that reason. If same standard held for manned spaceflight, space shuttle and/or ISS would never exist as they are overblown projects being money-sucking black holes.
January 8th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
Personaly I wold like to see what NASA could do with the military budget for just one year.
January 8th, 2008 at 12:32 pm
Thanks for the reportage Phil!
January 8th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
As much as the JWST looks really cool, I can’t help but wonder if the whole things is too damn complicated to work. The folding mirror / sunshield deployment just looks prone to failure.
I know they’ll over-engineer the thing and provide some sort of redundancy, but still..
Eric
January 8th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
Personaly I wold like to see what NASA could do with the military budget for just one year.
Nothing likely, because all those armed, unpaid soldiers would probably revolt.
Where the US needs to cut back is money sunk into the War on Drugs. At least with the military budget, debatable though this may be, they’re getting rid of dictators and supposedly improving things.
The War on Drugs has really served only to fill up prisons and cost money with no real effect on much else.
So roll a fatty and pass the WoD money to NASA!
January 8th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
EvolvingSquid - Well said
January 8th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
Eric - Keep in mind the defense contractor has already built and deployed a JWST-type telescope for the military, and it’s been running for about 10 years. The contractor admitted this at one of the last AAS meetings while on stage, and it was a key message of their talk, “we’ve done this before.” Civilian tools are at least 10 years behind. And Griffen needs some PR training on how to talk to an audience. Though, Phil — keep in mind that those advocating for SIM (the most powerful ones at least) will not be affected if other missions (that they don’t work on) are cut. SIM is pretty specific and requires specific skills. That crowd separates themselves pretty well, if you know what I mean.
January 8th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
Oh, PUH-lease! Do you really think those salaries are even a significant part of the DoDW budget?
Well … ‘never suspect malice where incompetence might suffice’ as the saying goes. Still - I wouldn’t put it past them to give NASA just enough string to hang itself. This way when everything falls apart Congress gets to point the finger.
Now. Since we’re you’re going to the moon (not that I know why, save it be to mine 3He), how’d one go about building a telescope there? There’d be some advantages since it’d be on the ground and ‘easy’ to access. Would it be possible to get IKEA to design (and sponsor …) a ’some assembly needed’ telescope and then haul it up there?
January 8th, 2008 at 1:55 pm
Great … my <s> and <sup> went the way of the Dodo.
Sorry.
January 8th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
If I was president of the United States (and Congress, while I am busy fantasizing. Oh heck, why not just make myself king?) I would create incentives to greatly increase the number of scientists. I would greatly increase scholarships for students studying in the sciences and engineering, especially in physics, chemistry, biology, and engineering in all of those disciplines. I would furthermore greatly expand grant funding and create more large multi-discipline national laboratories to tackle major issues like energy harnessing methods and addressing the major threats to human health and life.
If I was king, scientists and engineers would dictate NASA budgetary and science policy. Maybe there should be another space agency that is a private non-profit agency that raises a few billion dollars a year from donations. Then they could be accountable to scientists alone, without meddling from politicians.
January 8th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
I understand what’s meant by “Manned space exploration is inspirational”. My problem with this is, that ALL space exploration is manned.
And what did people use for inspiration before the first astronaut ever flew? They were inspired by the vision of astronomers at their telescopes. Since nearly all astronomers must work each day on Earth, rather than off it, I ask what the problem is? Is it not enough to put the instruments alone above the blanket of air?
January 8th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
[…] instructed to spend more on SIM than they planned. A recent post by the Bad Astronomer describes a talk by NASA Administrator Griffin, in which he seems to warn obliquely that there isn’t enough money to do everything. And of […]
January 8th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
Oh, PUH-lease! Do you really think those salaries are even a significant part of the DoDW budget?
No, but it’s the most important part.
January 8th, 2008 at 7:03 pm
On wikipedia, the two wars (Afghanistan, Iraq), nuclear warhead maintainence, etc. are not part of the DoD budget, as are other items (see Wikipedia or go to fed. gov. website).
Personnel costs $110.8 billion, family housing an additional $4.1 billion out of a total def. budget of $439.3 billion (all 2007 budget figures).
Programs like the V22 Osprey VTOL fighter aircraft, which has been in development for over 20 years (and which VP Cheney tried to axe) and which has had massive cost overruns (making NASA program overruns look like spare change) has finally been completed and is being sent to air units overseas. Had this program been halted until the technology caught up to the concept, there would have been billions not spent - for this particular beast.
The Reagan-era Star Wars or Missile Defense System is another program which, zombie-like, continues to resurrect itself in one guise or another and which could conceivably “save” some money.
But the problem is that defense (and its budget) is a strategically placed item in the hearts and minds of congressfolk, lobbyists, a good part of the public, and would be very hard to chop any fat from, especially since most all military folk directly concerned think there isn’t any fat to trim. Getting a handle on the waste/fraud/abuse within the budget would surely glean a ton of extra money which could be used for the domestic budget. The problem is how to do it, since OBM and other watchdog programs within and without government have been unable to do so for decades. Plugging this hole in the dike will take much more effort than the occasional lip service given the latest congressperson or presidential hopeful.
January 8th, 2008 at 9:03 pm
With the AMS- why can’t we short-change that and put a not-quite-as-good one on the ISS for say 2.5e8 dollars? The 1.5e8 savings could fund a small mars or venus mission. If NASA is serious about controlling cost overruns, they should institute an automatic cancellization ceiling- say 20%- that applies to everything. ‘casue I reckon astronomers and planetary scientists could live in such a system way more easily than the manned people.
psyberdave says:
“I would greatly increase scholarships for students studying in the sciences and engineering, especially in physics, chemistry, biology, and engineering in all of those disciplines.”
We already train more scientists than exist jobs for them over the long term. If you increase the number of
January 9th, 2008 at 6:08 am
[…] Phil Plait of “Bad Astronomy” fame, who was in attendance at Griffin’s talk, complained about Griffin’s tone: “I must admit that his exasperation does seem a little peevish as opposed to being […]
January 9th, 2008 at 6:48 am
What about all the money wasted on killing innocent Iraqi women, children and men and almost-as-innocent American troops in a pointless counter-productive occupation of anothernation thatposed y’all no threat or all the trillions .. gazillions spent onfightingan unwiinnnable, utterlycounter-productive military war against an emotional state?
Or the money being thrown away just to prop up the theocratic military colonial outpost of Israel within the Muslim world?
Put _*that*_ money to proper use in funding NASA and you could do everything wellscientifically for astronomy taht’s proposed and then some …
… and even be far safer than you are now.
——
Newsflash folks :
1) Osama bin Laden is long dead.
2) The supposed threat of terrorism is vastly exaggerated and over-exploited. Your own govt and Christain fundamentalists areamuch greater menace to your way of life and freedoms than Iraq’s (now non)govt and Islamic zealots ever could be ..
&
3) Money spent on understanding - this includes science, technology and diplomacy - is a far wiser _investment_ than money spent killing and injuring people around the globe.
The best way to stop terror is through knowledge.
January 9th, 2008 at 7:42 am
Warning post contains admixture of truth, humour, opinion & probably typos …
——————
hey, if *I* were America’s Presi-King I’d :
1) End the so-called “war on Terror” and occupations of Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine at once.
(Yeah, I know, Israel’s nominally responsible for that last one -so how do I end that? Well all their US funding and arming would stop in instant and I’d immediately recognise Palestine on its pre-1967 borders. If Israel refused to let their Palestinean peoples and lands go then I’d tax every synagogue and Jewish organisation cripplingly until they did - & it’d soon be done and everyone better off!)
2) Add a clause to the US Constitution specifically restricting America - like post WWII Japan - to strictly defensive wars only - no invasions or occupations of other nations allowed, no “pre-emptive attacks”, no military bullying of other countries and only a small self-defence force permitted.
3) The money saved by that would be spent on science (eg. funding NASA), education, health, infrastructure, and real urgent action to prevent gobal warming and protect the environment.
4) I’d give 9 / 10ths of the US nuclear arsenal to the UN and strive to reform and empower that body into a real badly-needed international federal government and try and make the USA a good global citizen. (Don’t worry with over 1000,00000,000000 or so nukes you’ll still have enough in America to vaporise the world .. Oh, at least about three times over . If not more.
)
5) Change the US voting system to a preferential voting system as used in Australia -which is actually a lot more democratic. Simply put you could list your candidates in the order you prefer ‘em eg. Obama 1, Hillary -2, Kucinch-3, etc .. once theone with tehleast votes has been eliminated their votes get added to the second preference person, etc .. Hence voters could say, vote Nader 1, Gore 2, Shrubya last and you’d have had a respect-worthy president years ago… instead of the current pathetic evil clown you’ve got now.
6) Break the power of the big multinational corporations and make them accountable for the damage they do and limit their power and influence to mitigate the potential & actual harm and malign influence they exert. Steps to this incl. legal limits on market share insisting on breaking up monoplies or near-monopolies, put all stocks into various listings taking account of the real damage and effects of big corporations on tehenvironment and society & shifting all fines into %=ages of income ratehr than set amounts so that things are more equal (eg. the rich can’t ignore fines that cripple the poor as happens now.) plus make a set small %-age of each fine a commission to the enforcement and detector ensuring poeple have both an incentive to keep the richer folk honest and a means of encouring vigilance and oversight and honesty.
7) Announce an end to all religious exemptions on national laws eg. taxation ie.all relig. organisations would pay tax, religious practices such as sexual discrimination, genital mutilation of both genders, refusal to allow blood transfusions, etc .. would be illegal and no longer tolerated.
Speed up & reform the legal system : cut down legalese and insist all court cases be carried out in english that any reasonable person can understand, allow just one appeal per crime, add a “get a life!” test barring frivilous or absurd legal cases & a “take responsibility for your own stuff-ups” clause to eliminate other stupid ones (eg. when the scalded coffee lady sued & won and now requires coffee cups to warn “coffee may be hot!” D’uh!) Allow and encourage capital punishment to be carried out (& never mind whether its done humanely or not!) on serial killers, rapists, pedophiles and war criminals (eg. & incl. “Dubya”, Runsfeld & co) once their guilt is conclusively proved. Define crime properly to eliminate all ‘non-crime’ crimes such as drug possesion, prostitution, sodomy, euthanasia, etc… (There’s a better term than ‘non-crime crimes’ but I can’t recall it .. Essentially people should have freedom to control and run their own lives up to the point where they impinge on other people’s freedom to do the same.) In a nutshell - less laws & less silly cases but real punishments for those that do break ‘em.
9) Ban anyone so lacking in imagination or so bloated in ego as to name their kid with their own name (eg. George Bush I & II) from ever running for President or other high office. (Ban applying to the kid too, since there’s obviously faulty genes and enviro. at work - example : the Bush klan Q.E.D.)
10) Announce an immediate fully-funded space program to land a woman on Mars before this decade is out and to have at least one Lunar colony and space settlement constructed and permanently inhabited by then too. Plus keep Hubble goingand add other space telescopes too, esp. working for discovering exoplanets and SETI.
————————–
Hmnn.. Is it too late for me to nominate for your elections now and do you take e-mailed foreign entries by any chance?
January 9th, 2008 at 7:58 am
Sorry Mr Runsfeld whoever you are ..
The war criminal deserving of execution (just like the Japanese war-leaders post-WWII & for much the same reasons) that I was referring to is, of course, Rumsfeld not you!
Knew there’d be &%^%&*%! typos!
Not sure whats going on with 8 becominganemoticon either ..
does 8 ) end up like
the same way ; - ) ends up as 
?
Lets see now …
January 9th, 2008 at 7:59 am
Yep.
January 9th, 2008 at 9:16 am
Stevo writes:
[[If Israel refused to let their Palestinean peoples and lands go then I’d tax every synagogue and Jewish organisation cripplingly until they did - & it’d soon be done and everyone better off!) ]]
Better yet, have some guys in brown uniforms smash the windows of the synagogues. And maybe you could round the Jews up to separate them from the Aryans — concentrate them in one, or a few places, so to speak. “Concentration camps,” you might say.
BTW, it’s “Palestinian.”
January 9th, 2008 at 9:19 am
Stevo writes:
[[Announce an end to all religious exemptions on national laws eg. taxation ie.all relig. organisations would pay tax, religious practices such as sexual discrimination, genital mutilation of both genders, refusal to allow blood transfusions, etc .. would be illegal and no longer tolerated.]]
So if an adult Jehovah’s Witness refused a blood transfusion, you’d give him one anyway? For his own good? And I see you want to ban circumcision, which, I guess, would pretty much ban Judaism and Islam in this country. I can see your wanting to ban Judaism, given your raving anti-semitism, but I thought the muslims were your buddies. Live and learn, I guess.
January 9th, 2008 at 10:42 am
[…] where high-ranking members of some community come and talk to the astronomers. Directly after Mike Griffin’s talk, NASA held a Town Hall. Speaking were Alan Stern, NASA’s Associate Administrator for Science, […]
January 9th, 2008 at 11:52 am
O.K.
Maybe not their WHOLE budget, but their R&D budget.
Didn’t mean for this to turn into a rant against the government or Isreal or Islam or any of that. Just would like to see what the folks at NASA could do with that kind of funding, considering what they have been able to accomplish with what they have for a budget.
January 9th, 2008 at 11:54 am
EDIT
O.K.
Maybe not their WHOLE budget, but their perhaps their R&D budget.
January 9th, 2008 at 12:18 pm
[…] is always something going on, that not everyone gets to see everything - but Pamela, Fraser, and Phil did an excellent job reporting on the […]
January 9th, 2008 at 2:01 pm
StevoR, I always love watching people expose their prejudices when they say, “If I was King” and claim that they have the cure for all that’s bad in the world. Because they always follow it with a list of things they’ll change if they where in charge. The list always includes things they’d force me to do in order to live up to ‘their’ standards and somebody always accuses that person of being prejudice in some way because of something on the list.
That is exactly why Al Gore lost in 2000 to a man who has a hard time tying his freaking shoes. Nobody ever trusts a person who tells them that they know what’s best for everybody.