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NASA has a budget request for work on Exoplanet Exploration including TPF this year. There's a new mission called Kepler that will fly next year. Before TPF there's another mission called SIM that will probably start around 2010. With an increase in funding we can continue human exploration beyond LEO and speed up the search for exoplanets.
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Yeah, I know about SIM and Kepler. Ive been following the TPF since 96 when it was supposed to be launced by 2012-2015. heh. As of 2006 it was deferred indefinitely. Wiki says there was an effort to fund it in the House but no money materialized. Heres something from USAtoday on the tpf
he big hope for finding an Earthlike planet, NASA's Terrestrial Planet Finder (TPF) mission, has been scaled back in the proposed 2008 budget for NASA, a move that observers attribute to the agency's plans to explore the moon and Mars, which are bleeding money from its science missions. TPF's big goal is to deliver a speck of light and a chemical spectrum from an Earth-like planet to a computer screen sometime around 2020.
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/co … hade_x.htm
I didnt even know it had *any* funding at all at the moment. This new idea of the occulting sun shade version is pretty interesting sounding. Looks like there are three seperate ideas now:
TPF-I (interferometer)
TPF-C (coronograph)
TPF-O (occulting sun shade)
I'd only recently heard about the sunshade version, which they are hoping to get NASA interested in. Still, give them more money!!!!! Light from earth-sized worlds trumps moon rocks.
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It's in the 2009 Budget request:
Resources in the Exoplanet Exploration Program will be used to assess different techniques and mission concepts for detecting and characterizing extrasolar planets, including space-based astrometric, coronagraphic, and statistical concepts.
A new medium-class Exoplanet mission, managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, will begin formulation in 2010, for which a re-scoped version of Space Interferometry Mission (SIM) is being evaluated as a potential candidate. $271.8M is available within Other Missions and Data Analysis for this mission ($6.6M in FY09, $41.7M in FY10, $44.0M in FY 11, $72.0M in FY12 and $107.5M in FY13).
The Keck Interferometer has been delivered for community use, and NASA's partnership in the Keck Observatory is being renewed.
The Large Binocular Telescope Interferometer (LBTI) will be reviewed during FY 2009 to ensure satisfactory progress and support from the appropriate agency.
Kepler is scheduled to launch in February 2009.
The program maintains a technology line as Terrestrial Planet Finder (TPF) funds now reside in a new "Exoplanet Exploration Technology" line.
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Good. It's funding has still been very erratic though. I don't expect they can kill it at this point but a higher priority would be nice.
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Letter From Aerospace and Technology Company Leaders - 15 May 2008
As leaders of our nation's largest aerospace and technology companies, we employ hundreds of thousands of Americans and know first hand the formidable challenges in today's global marketplace. We write to thank you for your past support of NASA and to urge you to enact a top-line increase for NASA's FY 2009 budget. Without this increase, our nation faces the very real risk of losing our uniquely critical industrial base and human space access capability.
NASA plays a crucial role in advancing our nation's innovation agenda. NASA programs promote our scientific, economic and educational interests, and contribute to our national and homeland security requirements. In the past few years, we have witnessed the rise of strong national space programs in China, India, and Japan, and a resurgence in Russia. We face major challenges to our space leadership and our national security.
In 2010, as the Shuttle is retired and we make the transition to the next generation of human spaceflight systems, the United States will become temporarily reliant on foreign human space transportation capabilities, if domestic commercial orbital space transportation does not emerge. In order to minimize this potential gap of independent American access to space, it is critical that we maintain funding and program stability for Orion and Ares I, sufficient to ensure a rapid and safe transition for American human space exploration. Future U.S. leadership in space is at stake.
This nation has an obligation to future generations of young Americans who, we hope, will focus their studies on science, math and engineering. Creating good, high-paying jobs in the aerospace and technology sectors will ensure that America maintains the technical human capital necessary for our country to retain its global economic strength well into the 21st century.
We are deeply concerned that there is a growing disparity between the programs that NASA has been asked to accomplish and the resources the agency has been provided.
The FY 2009 budget request is not adequate to accomplish all of NASA's important missions. Therefore, we respectfully request that Congress appropriate $20B for NASA in FY2009, a $2.4B increase above the request, to minimize our nation’s gap in human spaceflight capability, ensure U.S. leadership in space, and contribute to our national and homeland security and international competitiveness.
Sincerely,
Followed by a long list of names of every large US space company.
[color=darkred]Let's go to Mars and far beyond - triple NASA's budget ![/color] [url=irc://freenode#space] #space channel !! [/url] [url=http://www.youtube.com/user/c1cl0ps] - videos !!![/url]
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Points from the 2008 NASA Authorization Act text
HUMAN SPACE FLIGHT GAP.—In addition to the sums authorized by subsection (a), there are authorized to be appropriated for the purposes described in subsection (a)(3) $1,000,000,000 for fiscal year 2009, to be used to accelerate the initial operational capability of the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle and the Ares I Crew Launch Vehicle and associated ground support systems, to remain available until expended.
and
(A) $150,000,000 shall be for an additional Space Shuttle flight to deliver the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer to the International Space Station
and
SEC. 601. UTILIZATION.
The Administrator shall take all necessary steps to ensure that the International Space Station remains a viable and productive facility capable of potential United States utilization through at least 2020 and shall take no steps that would preclude its continued operation and utilization by the United States after 2016.
[color=darkred]Let's go to Mars and far beyond - triple NASA's budget ![/color] [url=irc://freenode#space] #space channel !! [/url] [url=http://www.youtube.com/user/c1cl0ps] - videos !!![/url]
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