The use of Nasa resources for science - other than space exploration

SpaceNut · 2005-01-10 12:22:27

I have always wonder how and why Nasa gets wrapped up in so many things that have little or nothing to do with space travel, exploration or for that matter space archelogy.

Here is a use of this highly costly resource here on earth.
NASA Uses High-Tech X-Ray Equipment to Examine Dinosaur Skull

But where is the pay back for the use of there personel and equipment? ???

SpaceNut · 2005-01-12 07:35:20

Astronomers concerned for future of U.S. space science

Some would say that the writing is on the wall for American space science future. That it could be written off by NASA's new mandate to send humans back to the moon and on to Mars.

Linsky, one of 2,500 astronomers attending this week's national meeting of the American Astronomical Society in San Diego, echoed the worry of many of his colleagues.
"If NASA has to live with a very expensive program, then the concern is the science part will suffer, (unmanned science) missions will get canceled and things won't happen,"

This is very much the case as Nasa moves forward with the return to flight of the shuttle and the continuation of construction of the ISS as others have noted on this board.

The investment is huge with regards to the space vision of exploration that President Bush has directed NASA to do.

From 2005 to 2020, NASA estimates it will spend $271 billion. Of that total, at least $169 billion is projected to be used to fulfill the president's vision.

Living within the means of the current budget will mean as Nasa shuffles its funds to various programs possible cuts of funds, delays and out right cancellation of some as indicated in a Shifts in funding patterns could have the potential to create imbalances that could be detrimental to the field of science investigation. More discusion of this can also be found on the spacepolitics web site as well titled Tweaking the NASA budget.

C M Edwards · 2005-01-12 14:56:30

But where is the pay back for the use of there personel and equipment? ???

The article does say nothing about reimbursement. However, even if there was none, donating time on proprietary equipment is not unusual even for profit making ventures, much less non-profits and government agencies. The article does say:

"Marshall is one of the few places in the world with the technology needed for such a complex scan," said Dr. Chris Beard, curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh.

I doubt it's ever been used on anything not manmade. Maybe they wanted to test their system's capabilities and show it off just as much as the folks at the Carnegie Museum did.

After having tried so desperately to become an academic institution for three decades, it doesn't surprise me to see NASA doing what other academic institutions do.

SpaceNut · 2005-03-25 11:28:10

Space Watch: NASA impeded by science lobby

Many scientists have complained about the Bush administration's gutting of research funding, but a careful analysis of NASA's fiscal year 2005 budget shows almost half-a-billion dollars earmarked for additional pet science projects.
Ironic, but the successful lobbying effort by scientists to secure those projects actually sabotaged other, potentially more valuable, research.

Well hidden in the funding for 2006 are earmark projects funding which these are examples.

--NASA is now financing the construction of a "musculoskeletal simulator for injuries" at a medical research clinic in Cleveland.
--The agency is funding an advanced biotechnology incubator project for the Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, N.Y.
--It is helping Hollins University in Virginia, a woman's college, to upgrade its science infrastructure.
--It is paying for improvements to the Cooper Library at the University of South Carolina in Columbia.
--It is financing a minority outreach program at Texas A&M.
--It is building a new science center at St. Bonaventure University in New York.
--It is subsidizing environmental research in the forest preserve at the Little River Canyon Field School in Alabama.

How much of this is earmark money.

That $16.2 billion included, however, 168 to 170 congressional earmarks totaling from $426 million to $436 million. The totals vary depending on whether you ask NASA or Congress and how you define what those earmarks are. Whatever the definition, the projects required NASA to cut other programs to stay within budget.
No doubt many of those earmarks were inserted in order to gain the support of specific members of Congress.

We have all heard of the reduction to the budget and cancellation of probe that are only now just trying to answer some very far off questions.

I am sure that there are lots of other items but these are just a few none space items that are in the budget for the coming year.

SpaceNut · 2005-04-15 10:52:34

It would appear that even though Nasa is strapped for cash and that they are killing many programs before they are no longer workable that it is still the free nasa lunch service for others to make use of.

[url=http://www.al.com/news/huntsvilletimes/index.ssf?/base/news/1113556645119760.xml] NASA helped FBI find Rudolph
Hubble repair technology cleared up fuzzy videotapes[/url]

Maybe that bad mirror on the Hubble Space Telescope turned out for the best. Techniques developed to sharpen fuzzy Hubble star photos and NASA ingenuity helped track down a bomber.
Special agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation had a lot of blurry videotapes they wanted analyzed shortly after the July 27, 1996, Atlanta Centennial Olympic Park bombing.

SpaceNut · 2005-10-03 10:55:16

Here is another example of Nasa and its resources.

Serving Earth

A thousand years ago, Mayan civilization collapsed. Today, a Space Age "situation room" in Panama is helping Central Americans avoid mistakes that doomed the Maya.
Now, NASA scientists are helping Central America keep watch on its biological treasures and stop environmental depredations through SERVIR, an acronym standing for the Spanish words meaning Mesoamerican Regional Visualization and Monitoring System.
SERVIR is not a satellite. Instead, it's a "situation room" or "nerve center," which opened in Panama in February 2005.

But how far should we expect Nasa's budget to go. Is there a fine line to which some things are Nasa's to preform and those things that define the vision? Should these things be directed from another agency?

John Creighton · 2005-10-03 11:07:10

Here is another example of Nasa and its resources.
Serving Earth
A thousand years ago, Mayan civilization collapsed. Today, a Space Age "situation room" in Panama is helping Central Americans avoid mistakes that doomed the Maya.
Now, NASA scientists are helping Central America keep watch on its biological treasures and stop environmental depredations through SERVIR, an acronym standing for the Spanish words meaning Mesoamerican Regional Visualization and Monitoring System.
SERVIR is not a satellite. Instead, it's a "situation room" or "nerve center," which opened in Panama in February 2005.
But how far should we expect Nasa's budget to go. Is there a fine line to which some things are Nasa's to preform and those things that define the vision? Should these things be directed from another agency?

I think NASA should contribute to other areas of research when NASA has something to Offer. For instance NASA contributes to astronomy because NASA builds aerospace hardware and instrumentation. Doing science with resources developed to advance aerospace and space exploration helps add to the value of the engineering development. However other agencies should not become dependent's on NASA. They should view these contributions as favours or gifts. NASA must asses whether these favours fit in with the limited budget NASA has for science and NASA must address what science has the best cost benefit analysis. If NASA then decides to cut something like say the Hubble space telescope because they feel it is not a good investment for the limed dollars other agencies should either put up the money or shut up.

publiusr · 2005-10-07 09:53:54

Propulsion has been robbed in the name of science. It's about time that vehicles came first.

John Creighton · 2005-10-07 22:36:23

Propulsion has been robbed in the name of science. It's about time that vehicles came first.

Well, alot of science probes experimented with electric propultion. So I don't know if such a blanket statment is true.

Commodore · 2005-10-08 10:23:22

Earth studies should be handed off to NOAA and the USGS.

Aeronautics research should be handed off to DARPA. We can invite the Canadians to contribute so we don't have to change the acronym.

Adminstrative cost should be seperate from the research, procurment, and operations costs.

We need as much of that $17billion going to space as possible.

John Creighton · 2005-10-08 20:47:14

Earth studies should be handed off to NOAA and the USGS.
Aeronautics research should be handed off to DARPA.

I think that NASA should be able to do some aeronautics research if it fits into the aims of NASA. For instance both NASA and the US airforce both worked on the scram jet. Had NASA not invested time and money into the scram jet it may have been much longer before such a vehicle was developed. Similarly the X-37 would have never came about if NASA and the US air force both didn’t combine resources to work on it. As NASA is now focusing on capsules and not reusable launch vehicles NASA has less interest in aeronautics and it is reasonable for NASA to invest less in it if not completely stop funding aeronautics. However, in the future NASA may want to start investing in aeronautics research again. Consequently NASA may not want to close all centers that research aeronautics.

Commodore · 2005-10-08 21:10:43

The extent that NASA will need aeronautics in the future is limited. At some point we will need a passenger space plane, but that is at least a quarter of a century off. Plus, if we hand off such research to the Air Force, they will develope a hypersonic transcontinental bomber on their own that much quicker, with a hell of a lot more money than NASA will ever see, which is pretty darn close to want were after. In the mean time the CEV can be enlarged to at least twice the seats with little trouble.

Plus the life span of said space plane will be limited once we have a space elevator.

Now Martian aeronautics is another story.

publiusr · 2005-10-13 10:40:37

Propulsion has been robbed in the name of science. It's about time that vehicles came first.
Well, alot of science probes experimented with electric propultion. So I don't know if such a blanket statment is true.

But they are launched atop missile designs older than the scientists payloads. Except for Soviet tech EELVs like Atlas V. They did not neglect rocketry. We did.

SpaceNut · 2006-06-11 22:05:30

Pork threatens NASA plans; Congress pet projects take $3 billion from budget

Instead, NASA will pay for:
Construction or renovation of dozens of museums, planetariums and science labs for colleges.
Computers, classrooms and lab space for colleges and schools across the U.S.
A Web site and laboratory for the Gulf of Maine Aquarium.
A sprawling headquarters building for a nonprofit research group in West Virginia created by U.S. Rep. Alan Mollohan. The Democrat is now subject of a broader congressional ethics probe.

These are not Nasa responsibilities.....

SpaceNut · 2006-06-12 19:29:12

other things NASA helps bring clean water to Iraqi villagers

Water purification technology developed at Marshall Space Flight Center for the International Space Station has given some villagers in northern Iraq something they missed dearly when Saddam Hussein was in power: clean drinking water - and for less than 3 cents a gallon.
NASA engineers have developed water purifier technology that turns astronauts' sweat, respiration and even urine into drinking water.

ok so long as it stays in good hands and not an enemy...

Rxke · 2006-06-13 09:06:34

less than 3 cents a gallon

:shock: They imply that is ... cheap water? 3c/gallon is EXTREMELY expensive, IMO.

publiusr · 2006-06-16 14:02:43

Pork threatens NASA plans; Congress pet projects take $3 billion from budget
Instead, NASA will pay for:
Construction or renovation of dozens of museums, planetariums and science labs for colleges.
Computers, classrooms and lab space for colleges and schools across the U.S.
A Web site and laboratory for the Gulf of Maine Aquarium.
A sprawling headquarters building for a nonprofit research group in West Virginia created by U.S. Rep. Alan Mollohan. The Democrat is now subject of a broader congressional ethics probe.
These are not Nasa responsibilities.....

Agreed.

Austin Stanley · 2006-06-17 01:14:00

The US's system is far from perfect, and these are just the prices we have to pay to get political support for our space program. Frankly as pork goes it's not that bad, at least the majority of it is going to support some fairly usefull and basic reasearch. I'm sure much worse stuff is lurking in the main (non-earmarked) budget which probably full of useless, overpriced, contracts for stuff that will never see practicle development.

If you want my opinion on where to slash budgets the US military and medicare are the #1 and #2 places to start. Compared to these NASAs budget is minute and it's pork realativly harmless.

greengirl · 2006-06-18 02:42:10

less than 3 cents a gallon
:shock: They imply that is ... cheap water? 3c/gallon is EXTREMELY expensive, IMO.

It IS a desert, so it's not hard to imagine that being scarce it would be more expensive, especially in a place where plumbing etc is not really 'first world'.

Austin Stanley · 2006-06-18 08:32:53

less than 3 cents a gallon
:shock: They imply that is ... cheap water? 3c/gallon is EXTREMELY expensive, IMO.
It IS a desert, so it's not hard to imagine that being scarce it would be more expensive, especially in a place where plumbing etc is not really 'first world'.

Water pricing can be very confusing. I have a bit of experinece with this in the industry in fact. In general though large users of water can expect to pay more per gallon than home users. This is true even when the industral users are only getting "raw" or untreated water (or barely treated) while home users are getting "portable" or drinkable water.

For comparison sake, raw water for large industrial users in the US pay somewhere in the range of .10c/gallon a day per month. This is about ~.3c/gal. Portable water for a connected residental user costs an order of magnitude less or ~.03c/gal or less. This has less to do with the actual cost of water then it has to do with the way municipal water companies have decided to make ends meet. Though to be fair, industral users (who often need big fat pipes and some times dump scarey stuff in the sewers) do incure signifigant equipment costs on providers.

Of course if you are lucky enough to have a well then your water is virtualy free (only costs the minute amount of electricity it takes to bring it up). So pricing is highly variable. But 3c/gal is about the cost of the cheapest of the cheap bottled water. And way WAY more expensive then current costs. I also know that some desalisation plants operate economicaly in the US even at these very low rates, though they generaly operate only on brackish water not actual sea water.

Mars_B4_Moon · 2024-05-04 12:51:00

an old topic worth a bump maybe
what is the official order, the goal, it is usually to follow what the Government, the President and Administration sets, it acts as an independent agency of the government, follows the Administrator who is appointed by the US president of following the advice and consent of others in the Democratic process, there have been a lot of changes since 2001 Hugh Dryden was the shortest serving administrator, Daniel Goldin the longest.

in news

Animals reacted weirdly to the eclipse and NASA wants your help studying them
https://news.sky.com/story/animals-reac … m-13111344

When NASA Sent Fish Into Orbit To Study Space Sickness
https://www.iflscience.com/when-nasa-se … ness-74014
According to Scientific American, the mummichogs started out pitching forwards, causing them to swim in tight loops.

A big job by NASA is Media presence being in Public view which I think is good, far better than other nations with limited PR or with 'Secret' in their programs and the American citizen values freedom and likes to see where exactly the tax money is spent. NASA's current mission is once again the Moon the Lunar Gateway, or simply Gateway, manage the de-orbit of the ISS build a new space station which Artemis program participants plan to assemble and put it in a difficult strange orbit near the Moon. I lot of the current vision came from Bush junior, the VSE was a plan after the loss of Shuttle for space exploration announced by 43rd President George W. Bush, with wars being fought on different fronts a looming recession George Bush junior himself started to cut parts of his own 'vision' then came Obama and Trump and then modified plans or added and cut bits and change the vision putting their own stamp on it, I don't know if they call it a 'Vision' anymore other than to label it the current 'Space Policy' of the current Joe Biden Kamala Harris administration. Parts of the Space Policy are still the same as the Vision of George Bush junior, aimed at landing men on the Moon, building a village on the Moon and the use the Lunar village as a stepping stone in subsequent colonization of Mars.

NASA has become its own PR agency at its time of birth the Russian Soviets were getting ahead with the "Sputnik crisis", people urged immediate action, while President Eisenhower looked at National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) had been experimenting with rocket planes, maybe get those German rocket scientists, the Navy were doing stuff and there was an Army Ballistic Missile Agency's large booster program, Russians were putting dogs and man in space. Space Agency when they no longer achieve goals are sometimes broken up, I don't see it happening NASA but it has happened others, the Russians and Japanese, a group broken and merged with the Institute of Science and the National Laboratory of Japan the rest of people taken into one Independent Administrative Institution, one might argue Russians went even more backwards instead of forward with their so-called reforms and effort to re-nationalize the space industry of Russia, leading to Roscosmos in its current form. One might argue NASA already succeed in its mission in making spacecraft and beating the Soviets to the Moon, it can be argued perhaps a science mission could be taken over by other groups the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, a science foundation, JPL, the Private Sector like Elon Musk's Space-X.

I would argue some of their PR is very good for the USA, 'Astronomy Picture of the Day' I think is a great website, it is very simple but a collection of photographic wonders and not an overly nationalistic Americans First site but at the same can be uplifting to everyone. You can see the best of US exploration and tech and they even give others credit if for example a European or Japanese probe or Canadian telescope takes a good science photo they will also give others credit.

NASA has beaten the Soviets, they moved on to explore the solar system with robots, they built new eyes on the universe Flagship-class space telescopes, NASA wins landing men, Russia used Robots but then NASA builds better Rovers for planetary surface exploration, it sends Voyager 1 and 2 past the edge of the Solar system, explores Mercury, studied the mountains of Venus, explores Jupiter, Saturn, flies past Pluto. The USSR defeated, the USA wins the war of ideas and the Russians are beat! old missions are still giving good data sometimes they still need an old experienced crew to do fixes, NASA engineers discovering why Voyager 1 is sending a stream of gibberish for example.
but new players arrive, China is there, the Chinese don't seem to be racing yet some competition might still be on, no public announcements but a slower race of sorts. We know for example China has a desire to get a sample from Mars before NASA.

Nasa warns China may try to take over the Moon
https://metro.co.uk/2024/04/19/nasa-war … -20678702/

NASA seeks faster, cheaper options to return Mars samples to Earth
https://www.astronomy.com/space-explora … -to-earth/

I think NASA will still remain ahead in many areas, ask for example would any other group have the experience to put a flying Nuclear Rotorcraft Dragonfly exploring Saturn's Moon Titan, it seems it takes that special combination NASA experience working with others for example the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory

NASA as an agency has many interesting plans and ideas for the years like Space Nuclear Propulsion

How exactly would nuclear thermal or nuclear electric propulsion enable short duration human missions to Mars?
https://space.stackexchange.com/questio … e-short-du

Last edited by Mars_B4_Moon (2024-05-04 13:47:43)

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#1 2005-01-10 12:22:27

Re: The use of Nasa resources for science - other than space exploration

#2 2005-01-12 07:35:20

Re: The use of Nasa resources for science - other than space exploration

#3 2005-01-12 14:56:30

Re: The use of Nasa resources for science - other than space exploration

#4 2005-03-25 11:28:10

Re: The use of Nasa resources for science - other than space exploration

#5 2005-04-15 10:52:34

Re: The use of Nasa resources for science - other than space exploration

#6 2005-10-03 10:55:16

Re: The use of Nasa resources for science - other than space exploration

#7 2005-10-03 11:07:10

Re: The use of Nasa resources for science - other than space exploration

#8 2005-10-07 09:53:54

Re: The use of Nasa resources for science - other than space exploration

#9 2005-10-07 22:36:23

Re: The use of Nasa resources for science - other than space exploration

#10 2005-10-08 10:23:22

Re: The use of Nasa resources for science - other than space exploration

#11 2005-10-08 20:47:14

Re: The use of Nasa resources for science - other than space exploration

#12 2005-10-08 21:10:43

Re: The use of Nasa resources for science - other than space exploration

#13 2005-10-13 10:40:37

Re: The use of Nasa resources for science - other than space exploration

#14 2006-06-11 22:05:30

Re: The use of Nasa resources for science - other than space exploration

#15 2006-06-12 19:29:12

Re: The use of Nasa resources for science - other than space exploration

#16 2006-06-13 09:06:34

Re: The use of Nasa resources for science - other than space exploration

#17 2006-06-16 14:02:43

Re: The use of Nasa resources for science - other than space exploration

#18 2006-06-17 01:14:00

Re: The use of Nasa resources for science - other than space exploration

#19 2006-06-18 02:42:10

Re: The use of Nasa resources for science - other than space exploration

#20 2006-06-18 08:32:53

Re: The use of Nasa resources for science - other than space exploration

#21 2024-05-04 12:51:00

Re: The use of Nasa resources for science - other than space exploration

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