Obama Pits Human Space Exploration Against Education

[Karmadillo]

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2007/11/obama-pits-huma.html

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama released a new $18 billion education plan yesterday that he proposes to pay for by delaying the NASA Constellation program (to return humans to the moon) five years.

"We're not going to have the engineers and the scientists to continue space exploration if we don't have kids who are able to read, write and compute," Obama said.

Space Exploration is becoming more of an issue in the 2008 presidential election. Hillary Clinton released her civil space policy on the 50th anniversary of Sputnik last month, promising to speed development of next generation crew exploration vehicles. Her release says:

Hillary is committed to a space exploration program that involves robust human spaceflight to complete the Space Station and later human missions, expanded robotic spaceflight probes of our solar system leading to future human exploration, and enhanced space science activities. She will speed development, testing, and deployment of next-generation launch and crew exploration vehicles to replace the aging Space Shuttle.

Obama's proposal to slip NASA's Constellation program to pay for education puts education and space in direct competition for tax dollars. Space Exploration historically has not competed with education for federal dollars because most educational programs are funded at the state level. The Department of Education and NASA are also traditionally in separate funding bills going through Congress and thus are not competing for the funds within a given appropriation bill.

Given that that Space Shuttle is retiring in 2010 and there is already a four year gap before the Ares I vehicle will be ready to launch crews to Space Station, a five year delay of the Constellation program would leave the United States government without its own human launch capability for nearly ten years.

more...

[Warpy]

1. Dummkopf!

I'll start taking him a little more seriously when he starts comparing the dearth of human services--including education--with the incredibly bloated Pentagon budget.

Only when he starts mentioning how the Pentagon has become a welfare office for fat cat arms manufacturers will I start taking his zero sum rhetoric at all seriously.

[jeff30997]

2. I totally agree.

Leave NASA alone and get money where it's really being thrown out the window dammit!

[DavidDvorkin]

4. Exactly

This is a really stupid and indefensible move by him.

[emilyg]

10. Agree.

[Warren Stupidity]

3. How about we scratch around 250B from the military budget first?

That would be the 'off budget' Iraq war costs for one year. Then we can start looking at the global network of imperial bases, and start scrapping those too. Then we could re-charter the military's mission to be defense of our borders and defense, in cooperation with the UN, of international trade routes. That would most likely bring us down to an on-budget $250B/year, still around 5x what anyone else is spending. Total savings: 500B/yr. Half of that should go into absolutely nothing, as in bringing spending in line with income. The other half should go into education mass transporation and healthcare infrastructure improvements: it should go into programs that directly benefit the people of this republic, a radical concept that if implemented would likely get the sitting president the full Dallas treatment.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

5. What percentage of Americans were born after our last moon-landing?

The deserve a chance to look up at the moon and know there are humans walking around on it. It's pretty cool.

[durrrty libby]

6. Obviously, he is not a deep thinker. That could have scary consequences

[SaveElmer]

7. Bad idea...

You aren't going to have kids going into the sciences and engineering unless their is something that inspires them to do so...the space program historically has been on the biggest drivers at getting kids to go into the sciences...

Very short sighted...

Pentagon spends in three weeks...what NASA gets for the entire year...go after them first would be my view...

[hedgehog]

11. Correction, you aren't going to have kids going in to the sciences and

engineering unless they see a viable career ahead of them. The best ways to encourage people to enter these careers is to make education affordable and ensure that they can get addi tonal training as needed without bankrupting their families. Ford, GM, Chrysler and their subsidiaries have been laying off a lot of engineers. My bet is that most of those people found themselves tagged as "auto engineers" and that if they have found new jobs, it's not in an engineering field. How many of their kids do you think are going to become engineers after seeing Mom or Dad go though hell after being layed off?



When I entered Engineering School, entering classes were very small due to all the lay-offs in aero-space.



Side note: I bet those engineers would be vary capable of designing a car to get good gas mileage and/or run on an alternate energy source if given the opportunity

[SaveElmer]

13. You have to have both...

I doubt there are alot of kids who line their walls with new and better internal combustion engines...kids do line their walls with pictures of the Space Shuttle, of the planets and the moon..

The space program inspires people more than most things...particularly kids...

Kids have to have dreams as well as well the abiity to achieve those dreams...

Taking chunks out of the space program is counterproductive to both in my opinion...

[hedgehog]

14. Going to the moon was a good idea until we found out that there's nothing there!

Forget the notion of terraforming Mars, it ain't going to happen. The manned space program is as out of date as Jules Verne, send a robot if you're serious about science!

As for lining walls with pictures of the Space Shuttle - the kids I know are working on renewable energy, restoring ecosystems, building the next generation of computers, figuring out how to get clean water to the poor. I think their inspiration is that old phrase " If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we (fill in the blank)

[SaveElmer]

16. Shortsighted as well...

The Moon has enormous potential on a number of fronts...in terms of astronomy...imagine an array of Keck sized telescopes on the dark side of the moon, would make Hubble photos look grainy by comparison...as a launch off point for further exploration of the solar system... the potential is limitless...

Robots are great and have expanded knowledge immeasurably...but they are not flexible, cannot take in new discoveries and adjust their mission accordingly...a whole new mission taking years has to be devised...by which time whatever phenomenon was discovered may well be gone...

Nope, man has to go along for the ride...

As for the things you mentioned...all wonderful, and I am sure they do inspire some kids...but the plain fact is, historically, it has been outer space that has really caught the imagination of future engineers and explorers...

[MGKrebs]

8. Some people think they are the same thing.

"Asked (by a student) how teaching compared to being an astronaut, Mrs Morgan, 55, replied: "Astronauts and teachers actually do the same thing. We explore, we discover and we share.

"And the great thing about being a teacher is you get to do that with students, and the great thing about being an astronaut is you get to do it in space, and those are absolutely wonderful jobs."

Barbara Morgan
Teacher/astronaut

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/08/16/nspace116.xml

[Phoonzang]

9. Ug...no...

As loathe as I am to even post in this section, I have to say something as this is an important topic to me. Why are politicians, unfortunately Democrats most often, always so eager to take chunks out of the space program (something that benefits both science and mankind as a whole)? I depresses me to constantly see Republicans being the ones who are pro-space exploration.

No one ever tries to take money from our bloated military budget. Let's see another B-2 bomber or Aircraft carrier that we don't need or human expansion into space? Imagine what we could do if the military budget was reduced just a third. More than enough for space, social programs, and improvement of our infrastructure here.

[SaveElmer]

12. Right on target...

Eveything you said is exactly on the mark. The space program was inspired by Democrats - Kennedy and Johnson - and now it seems we have ceded much of that to the Republicans....

It is distressing...

[Cameron27]

15. I agree with you.

Just the Hubble telescope alone was worth investing in NASA. There are more than enough bloated programs to slice funding from, let's leave NASA out of it.