NASA spent over a billion dollars last year on climate change studies…which would you rather have? Pronouncements about death trains, expert testimony for climate vandals, failed predictions, failed models, and a questionable GISTEMP dataset, or a continued manned spaceflight program?
From my perspective, NASA GISS is a duplication of climate services already covered by NOAA/NCDC, and all we seem to get from it is climate activism arrests of the chief scientist, a coffee table book by his assistant, and a snarky condescending blog called RealClimate that one private citizen and some volunteers are currently beating the pants off of in public outreach. Further, the government spent over $8.7 billion across 16 Agencies and Departments throughout the federal government on these efforts in FY 2010 alone. Inside NASA, we have duplication of climate services not only at GISS in NYC, Goddard Spaceflight in Greenbelt, MD, but also at JPL Pasadena. There’s been all sorts of domestic military base closures in the recent years to save money, and NASA Goddard and GISS re-purposed itself after the Apollo program ended and their mission did too. It’s time to close this duplication of services dinosaur, it will be missed far less than a TV comedy series by the American public. If you feel the same way, tell your representatives. – Anthony
WASHINGTON – As House leaders examine ways to cut spending and address the ever growing budget deficits that have plagued Washington for years, U.S. Representatives Bill Posey (R-FL), Sandy Adams (R-FL) and Rob Bishop (R-UT) were joined by several other of their colleagues in calling for a reprioritization of NASA so human space flight remains the primary focus of the nation’s space agency as budget cuts are considered.
In their recent letter to House Appropriations Committee Chairman Harold Rogers (R-KY) and Commerce, Justice, and Science Subcommittee Chairman Frank Wolf (R-VA), Posey, Adams and Bishop state that while “moving forward under a constrained budget, it will be critical for the Appropriations Committee to produce legislation that is precise in its budget cuts. For years, Presidents and Congress have charged NASA with completing tasks that fall outside the scope of NASA’s primary mission.
“Our space program attracts and inspires the world’s greatest minds and gives our young people inspiration to excel in math and science. Human spaceflight, however, is not simply a matter of national prestige. Our nation’s ability to access space is a critical national security asset and plays an important role in our future economic competitiveness. Space is the ultimate high ground and nations such as China, Russia, and India are anxious to seize the mantle of space supremacy should we decide to cede it.”
“Limited resources force us to make important decisions with regard to the objectives of all federal departments and agencies, including NASA,” said Representative Bill Posey (R-FL). “NASA’s primary purpose is human space exploration and directing NASA funds to study global warming undermines our ability to maintain our competitive edge in human space flight.”
“As NASA’s human spaceflight program hangs in the balance, it is imperative that we ask ourselves: What is the future of NASA? With the current administration unable or unwilling to outline a plan or stick to their original promises, it is time to refocus NASA’s mission towards space exploration,” said Representative Sandy Adams (R-FL). “That is why I am encouraging Chairmen Rogers and Wolf to reduce funding for climate change research, which undercuts one of NASA’s primary and most important objectives of human spaceflight.”
“It is counterintuitive to direct millions of dollars to NASA for duplicative climate change programs and at the same time cancel its manned space flight program- the purpose for which the agency was originally created. Far too many forget that at one time in our nation’s history we were losing the space race. With the creation of NASA, we emerged as leaders and have remained so ever since. If NASA’s manned space program disappears, our nation will once again experience a ‘Sputnik Moment.’ Our country will again watch from the sidelines as countries like Russia, China and India charge ahead as leaders in space exploration and missile defense,” said Representative Rob Bishop (R-UT).
In Fiscal Year 2010, NASA spent over 7.5% –over a billion dollars– of its budget on studying global warming/climate change. The bulk of the funds NASA received in the stimulus went toward climate change studies. Excessive growth of climate change research has not been limited to NASA. Overall, the government spent over $8.7 billion across 16 Agencies and Departments throughout the federal government on these efforts in FY 2010 alone. Global warming funding presents an opportunity to reduce spending without unduly impacting NASA’s core human spaceflight mission.
A copy of the letter can be viewed HERE.
h/t to WUWT reader Mr. Lynn
On the topic of Jim Hansen, the eco-missionary masquerading as a NASA ‘scientist,’ these promo-blurbs for his new book pretty much say it all, without intending to:
“Dr. James Hansen is Paul Revere to the foreboding tyranny of climate chaos—a modern-day hero who has braved criticism and censure and put his career and fortune at stake to issue the call to arms against the apocalyptic forces of ignorance and greed.”
— Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
“When the history of the climate crisis is written, Hansen will be seen as the scientist with the most powerful and consistent voice calling for intelligent action to preserve our planet’s environment.”
— Al Gore, Time Magazine
“Jim Hansen is the planet’s great hero. He offered us the warning we needed twenty years ago, and has worked with enormous courage ever since to try and make sure we heeded it. We’ll know before long if that effort bears fruit—if it does, literally no one deserves more credit than Dr. Hansen.”
— Bill McKibben, coordinator 350.org and author of The End of Nature
“If you want to know the scientific consensus on global warming, read the reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. But if you want to know what the consensus will be ten years from now, read Jim Hansen’s work.”
— Dr. Chuck Kutscher, National Renewable Energy Laboratory and American Solar Energy Society (ASES), editor of ASES report “Tackling Climate Change in the U.S.
We will go to the outermost planets, even if we have to redefine what a planet is!
In response to Sun Spot:
The USAF funded much of the space shuttle research and development when congress was trying to kill by underfunding. The USAF saw the shuttle as a potential launch vehicle for communications satellites, but abandoned the program after the Challenger accident. Many of the technologies developed for the shuttle worked their way into other USAF launch vehicle programs, and were spun off into the commercial launch vehicles in the US. So it wasn’t the “war machine” siphoning off funding. In fact many of the rocket motor, avionics and sensor advances NASA uses came out of research for the original so-called “Star Wars” program during the Reagan build up. In fact even the NOAA weather satellites owe much of their sensor development to USAF weather satellites that came before. As much as it galls many to admit, military requirements drove many of the technologies NASA uses, but in true sabers to plowshares symbolism were converted for civilian use. The real killer of NASA’s funding has been the rise of cradle-to-grave socialism in the US. Expenditures on the “War on Poverty” dwarfs military spending many times over and have even less to show for it. There are more poor today then when the programs started, though the US does have the richest poor people of any country I have visited (of about 30) when it comes to material wealth and comfort.
Off my soapbox…twice in one day, I better watch it or I may get to liking it up there…
He has taken a symbol of American pride and patriotism and used it for his own outlandish goals. Their should be an investigation into how much data he falsified so he could use the once good name of NASA to further his alarmist adgenda.
Steps should be taken to assure nothing of this scale will ever happen again.
I agree with Anthony Watts. Let the ‘climate’ programs go as they are redundant and wasteful, and not what we want from our space agency. But not too unceremoniously.
For a parting gift, the newly unemployed from NASA should be given carbon credits. Lots of carbon credits. Also in recognition of the value of their services as they leave, they should at least be presented with Official White House Union Waivers, to excuse them from Obamacare (which they could speedily sell to others for large sums, before it is declared unconstitutional and repealed).
Just in case NASA did have to close its doors (except to keep the spacecraft already on missions working), manned space flight enthusiasts could always…
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Tickets cost $200,000 and deposits start from $20,000. If you are interested in discussing your reservation with us directly please fill in the booking form below or contact one of our Accredited Space Agents around the world. They have been specially selected and trained by us to handle all aspects of your spaceflight reservation. If you just want to receive regular updates from us then please click here.
Virgin Galactic Mission Control
http://www.virgingalactic.com/
Spaceport American, New Mexico:
http://www.virgingalactic.com/overview/spaceport/
Someone needs to tell NASA what President JFK actually said. “Many years ago, the great British explorer George Mallory was asked, ‘Why do you want to climb Mt Everest?’ He said, ‘Because it is there.’ Well space is there. And we are going to climb it!”
Climb it. Not climate.
I’m surprised anyone would even need funding for climate change research anymore, you know, with the science being “settled” and all.
(4) The establishment of long-range studies of the potential benefits to be gained from, the opportunities for, and the problems involved in the utilization of aeronautical and space activities for peaceful and scientific purposes.
Utilization of space activities for the purpose of Earth observations from an orbiting satellite for scientific purposes sure seems to fit into the above pretty well. That’s probably why they came up with the ideas for the Landsat and Nimbus programs, both of which have been marginally useful for science.
“The weather and climate investigations could easily be turned over to NOAA and the NSF.”
The NSF budget FY2010 was 7.08 billion. Plenty of “AGW” dollars included here already. After the 2008 elections, everyone thought a proposal related to climate change would fly through.
Forgive me if I’ve said this here before: Much funding for science is to keep the scientist working on something. My father was an aerospace engineer. He spent far more time in his career on weaponry. He didn’t like it much but he had to do that work in order to be there for the aerospace work.
I asked two scientists, at my workplace, what they thought fellow scientists believed about global climate change. I posed the question in this way so they didn’t need to reveal their personal views. One bypassed that and discussed reasonable causes for skepticism. (We were friends and he had no problem telling me what he thought.) The other squirmed and finally admitted that climate change or not, we needed to have renewable sources of energy and reduce our dependence on foreign oil. He said this was what he believed to be the view of most of his colleagues. I think eventually, the focus and funding will shift from climate change research to energy research.
“We are never getting off this rock, evolution hasn’t equipped us to, and we won’t evolve for whims and fantasies.”
It’s a good job young Ogg didn’t turn to young Ugg and make a similar comment right after they had crawled out of the primeval swamp for the first time. Where would we be now?
You guys who think we don’t have the tech to do spaceflight properly ever hear about Project Orion? Not the recent NASA idiocy, the Freeman Dyson/Ted Taylor one. Read George Dyson’s book about it. What fun it must have been to be working at General Atomics on Orion in the late 1950s in the sun and space of southern California !
Every dollar spent by NASA is $1.25 not spent by private research and development. Science as a public good is a myth and bad economics. I say we scrap NASA – sell it for parts, and cut taxes.
FYI, this youtube video by Dr. Terence Kealey is well worth watching:
The Myth of Science as a Public Good
If NASA GISS disappears and Dr. James Hansen loses his job, who is going to keep their thumbs on the temperature scale and keep homogenizing the ever-decreasing station data so the next year will always be the warmest on record?
This was inevitable once a “consensus” was announced. The free romp on taxpayer money is coming to a close. There is no need to keep spending money if the science is solved; what’s the point of continually proving the proven? To this end I keep expecting a change in the “consensus” to occur where they start embracing some of the AGW critics so that they can use them to string it out longer. Let’s face it, for the funding fountain to stay turned on, they NEED the critics. Embracing the critics would bring more funding for both, and in the end, better science. But it’s probably too late. As a taxpayer, I’m holding out hope that it’s too late anyways…
I was at NASA last year at the Kennedy Space Center. It’s a disappointing shell of it’s former self. They were excited about the Orion project, which the Obama administration later cancelled. It’s a disgrace that ideologists have turned our once proud space program into the science propaganda wing of their delusional fantacies.