NASA Scientist Decries Agency's Plans

[n2doc]

Hubble Leader Worries About Repair Capability


By Joel Achenbach
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, May 23, 2009

NASA's triumphant mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope this week has cracked open a policy rift within the space agency, with a top NASA scientist saying that the United States is on the way to losing the capability to do what it has just done so dramatically.

David Leckrone, the senior project scientist for the Hubble, said NASA's new strategy for the post-space-shuttle era does not include servicing scientific instruments in space, and he fears that vast amounts of accumulated knowledge and technical expertise will quickly vanish.

"It just makes me want to cry to think that this is the end of it," Leckrone said at a news conference earlier this week. "There is no person out there, there is no leadership out there, there is no vision out there to pick up the baton that we're about to hand off and carry it forward."

His words, streamed around the planet via the NASA Web site, ruffled the agency and incited rebuttals from headquarters. But Leckrone, who plans to retire in October, is not backing down, and yesterday he reiterated his case.

"I feel like NASA's doing what it's done before -- it comes up with a great capability and, for political or budgetary reasons or whatever, it abandons it," Leckrone told The Washington Post. He added: "I've been besieged by NASA people thanking me for saying what they think needed to be said."

more:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/22/AR2009052203451.html

[Thrill]

1. Isn't Obama about to name Bolden as the head?

That sounds like a great choice. A person with a vision

[Faux pas]

2. NASA is a big waste of money. You could feed, clothe and shelter

a lot of poor folks with the money they spend dinking around in space. The money wasted on things that bring nothing in return is beyond ridiculous.

PS-Don't even get me started on the 'bail outs'.

[qazplm]

3. you are simply wrong

if you think we get nothing in return from space exploration. Advances in computers, medical technologies, lasers, and a whole host of other life saving and economically favorable tech has had at least part of its basis in space travel.

[Faux pas]

4. Doesn't do any good if no one can afford to use any of these

great technical advances. And I could bet you next month's health care premium that most of these things are used for war and not for good.

[joshcryer]

5. NASA contributes 100k jobs to the economy. And every state gets a piece of it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_Budget

[caraher]

6. So we should build more F-22s?

Same argument.

I think the truth lies in the middle somewhere... the military is BY FAR the biggest cash sinkhole; NASA shouldn't be mentioned in the same breath as the bank bailouts because total NASA funding is way down in the noise of the federal budget.

At the same time, the actual *science* return on human spaceflight is generally terrible. The article linked in the OP quoted some on the supposed benefits of Hubble being designed in tandem with the shuttle, but the truth is that the shuttle was a bastard hybrid of military demands, muddled plans and congressional penny-pinching. We could have built multiple Hubble-like instruments launched on disposable rockets, probably for less than the additional money spent on designing Hubble to be serviceable, and put them in more sensible orbits than the space junk-strewn location that made the repair mission both possible and risky.

The only science that occurs in low-Earth orbit that cannot be done more efficiently than with unmanned spaceflight is study of human physiology in freefall for long periods of time. In addition to that, there's a limited amount of technology development that also requires spaceflight with people onboard, basically developing the tools and techniques for working in freefall. Absent anyplace worthwhile to go in space, the value of that science and technology is very limited. The case for sending humans rather than robots back to the Moon, to Mars, is not scientific; it's "because it is there."

Sure, technologies get honed along the way, but none of the spinoff propaganda addresses the opportunity costs of sinking so much money into space instead of something else. It's true that the flag-waving aspect and "romance" of sending people into space means it is easier to fund than an array of Earthbound science and technology projects, but that strikes me as a poor reason for still more corporate welfare for the aerospace industry.

I would actually like to see space funding increase, but it needs to have a purpose. The most laudable one I can think of is development of a global insurance policy against catastrophic asteroid impact. That's a huge project that will required probably decades of focused development, and if we send people to Mars the technology developed in support of that will likely be immensely beneficial in learning how to steer asteroids. But that strikes ma as back-asswards; why not just remind ourselves that a deadly meteor strike is more a "when" than an "if" proposition? We should make developing a capability to prevent that the main goal, and if its development leads to human interplanetary travel as a bonus so be it.

[joshcryer]

13. Not the same argument and you know it.

F-22s are used to blow things up, space craft are not. We don't even used the manned program anymore to do classified / spy stuff.

[caraher]

15. This part is the same:

"NASA contributes 100k jobs to the economy. And every state gets a piece of it."

Substitute "The F-22 program" for "NASA" and tweak the numbers and you have exactly one of the top pro-Raptor arguments from the aerospace/defense industry.

I completely agree that a weapons system cannot be productive in the ways that a science program can be. But if your immediate focus is that program X employs N people in Y states the program you seek to promote doesn't look any different from building phantom missile defenses, next-generation fighter planes, etc.

[gtar100]

7. You can't put a price tag on inspiration and a sense of purpose

If the work of space exploration to you is "dinking around in space", then I'd say that knowledge and wonder about our universe is probably not your cup of tea. Yes, the money we spend on NASA could do wonders to end poverty but would it be used to do so if we stopped spending on NASA? Given our propensity to waste resources and not make the end of poverty a priority, I'd say no. And if there is one body of knowledge that so well juxtaposes the great possibilities of the future with the problems created by greed and short-term thinking, it is astronomy.

Shut down the pipeline of knowledge we are receiving from space exploration and one can only wonder what would fill the void left in its place. Speculation based on evidence obscured by our limited perception from the earth's surface? That's been going on for thousands upon thousands of years... if not more. We've traveled that road and I think most people are ready for more than just another creation myth. We can now explore and question without fear of being executed as heretics and if there's one thing that makes it abundantly clear the imperative to care for this planet and all beings who live upon it, it is to see it in context. Space exploration provides that context.

NASA, as imperfect and problematic as it is today, is one infrastructure we have in place today that builds a bridge from what we can do now to what we dream to become. If you had your way and got it torn down, what do you propose to be in its place? After all, exploration of knowledge is one of the great driving forces of human nature. The search for the answer to who and what we are in this vast universe is an impulse that drives us forward out of misery and despair. Given our current state of science and engineering, what do you propose we do?

[Posteritatis]

8. Unfortunately a lot of people aroudn here can

And they seem to think the only acceptable price is free. Or they're those shortsighted idiots who think we (A) can and (B) must make Earth a perfect Star Trek-esque utopia before we so much as launch a telescope, lest we pollute the pristine environment of space with lethal human rays or something.

[johnnie]

9. I'd be out of a job

And you obviously have no clue about what you are yappin' about.

[Odin2005]

10. Luddite BS.

Space is the future and space exploration is a necessity for the future survival of humanity.

[Swede]

11. I hate how they throw bags of money into space.

They should spend it here on earth,creating jobs and stuff.

[Wilms]

12. It could be worse.

Fortunately, NASA dumps paper currency into space. At 17,000 mph that's bad enough. But imagine if the money NASA dumps in space all the time was in coins! That would be a really big problem.

[Johonny]

14. Yeah but you can't warn them a hurricane is coming

Think of the number of people that would have died had no warning from our space satellites been there to monitor Katrina. Does the space program do important things. They sure do. The GPS system help's search and rescue. Sure NASA's manned space program was/is mostly a PR program of the cold war. But lots of scientific advancements came from these early manned missions. Many more continue to come from our unmanned space satellites. They monitor your weather to help keep people alive, they monitor pollution levels, ozone levels and even bad guys that might want to kill you. There's more to life than just eating, sleeping and wearing an Izod.