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I bet many of you check NASAwatch, but I found one entry today rather disheartening.
And NASA wonders why a lot of my colleagues in school are getting into the private sector instead?
Sorry if this is old news or spam.
"Never underestimate the power of a junior high science teacher."
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Just the last in a long line of science kills at NASA over the past few years. Incredibly short sighted.
You might be surprised to know that manned spaceflight advocates have been vocal in their approval for the cuts despite the fact that it amounts to all of 1% of NASA's budget. I don't really understand their reasoning.
Hopefully the change of government in 2008 will bring a renewal.
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Yes this seems to be an odd decision, the brief text on the NIAC site says not much more than:
NASA, faced with the constraints of achieving the Vision for Space Exploration, has made the difficult decision to terminate NIAC,
NIAC doesn't spend that much on funding studies and it seems to be a very lean organization. Perhaps it's results don't justify the reported $4 million it costs each year. The space elevator and lunar telescope were a couple its higher profile studies.
NASA does a lot of advanced technology research in its several centers, that will continue for sure.
noosfractal: NIAC funds "advanced concepts" for aeronautical and space technology, not science.
[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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NIAC funds "advanced concepts" for aeronautical and space technology, not science.
Perhaps you'll allow that the line between technology and science blurs a little at the "advanced concept" level?
http://www.niac.usra.edu/studies/studies.jsp
Redesigning Living Organisms to Survive on Mars
New Worlds Imager
X-ray Interferometry
High Density Storage of Antimatter
Antiproton-Driven, Magnetically Insulated Inertial Fusion
Tailored Force Fields
Feasiblity of Communications Using Quantum Correlations
The Plasma Magnet
Mini-Magnetospheric Plasma Propulsion
etc, etc, including a dozen other propulsion concepts
Each of these requires leading edge science (mostly physics) research to bring to fruition. The same is true of most of the studies listed on that page.
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Yes there is no clear line between science and technology as can be seen in NASA's science mission directorate which spends most of its $5.5 billion a year on instruments, spacecraft and launchers. However the purpose of those missions is to answer specific scientific questions whereas the purpose of NIAC is funding advanced technology studies and NASA has several centers that already do that.
[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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Hubble, Mars Rovers, Cassini, who can gainsay these? But, as you mention, the vast bulk of the funds are spent on engineering issues. Not to say this is a bad thing, it's part of NASA's core mission, I'm just lamenting the short sightedness that kills off any project that dares to think beyond the next election cycle or two.
I do hope someone picks up the NIAC work, but I doubt it will happen. It was quite unique.
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Very sad to see NIAC go...
Indeed, unique.
I think ESA has something similar, IIRC, but not of this scope at all.
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