NASA and Science Missions

The National Research Council issued a new report saying bluntly that NASA does not have the budget to carry out both its human spaceflight programs and its space science mission. The chair of the committee which produced the report said, "There is a mismatch between what NASA has been assigned to do and the resources with which it has been provided." The crisis in space science has moved a well-respected private group, The Planetary Society, to begin a "Save Our Science" petition drive. Director Louis Friedman emphasized they were not pitting science against the Vision for Space Exploration. "We think that the Vision is being undermined," he said. "You cannot have a "vision" for space exploration without science." The program's website is http://planetary.org/programs/projects/sos/.

COMMENT: This is where the age-old fallacy that the NASA budget is too high comes in. NASA takes 0.7% of the Federal budget, but surveys show many Americans think it's 20% or more. That sets up a false choice between "space explorations and our needs on Earth." Human needs we are not meeting with 99.3% of the budget are not going to be solved by raiding the 0.7%. Some NASA advocates in Congress have proposed the right figure for NASA is about 1% of the budget, which is entirely reasonable for an agency that explores our universe while bringing us invaluable knowledge of our home planet.