something you never knew about nasa

[In the Aeroplane Over the Sea Neutral Milk Hotel]

Oh yeah, your old comments are gone. Well, not really, they're just on the old book club blog which has switched URLs to...something, I don't remember what. oldbookclub.blogspot.com maybe. That might have been the other thing I wanted to tell you in my last post, but I guess that's not really an advantage to upgrading. It's actually kind of a bummer. If I knew how to transfer those comments, I would. But I don't. I'm supposed to be doing homework right now and am just procrastinating it, can you tell?

I'm almost done with Ender's Game. I read over a hundred pages last night before I went to bed and then dreamed about the book the whole night. I'm serious, this shit is right up there with Harry Potter in all of its creamy goodness. I don't want to get ahead of myself because I still have no idea how it's going to end, but this book is fan-fucking-tastic so far. I'll get back to you on whether I still think that in a few days.

Dr. Glenn announced that Alan Stern just stepped down as the Associate Administrator and head of the Science Directorate at NASA a few days ago. That's a pretty big deal in the astronomy world. NASA's science sector represents about half of the US's total budget allotted to science research. That means that astronomy alone gets ~$5.5 billion each year, and all other science disciplines have to share another ~$5 billion (except for biomedical research, I think. They get their own money). So when the guy that's in charge of all of that money says "eff you" and takes off, that means that something's pretty wrong.

I've had the pleasure of hearing him speak live several times, and have also seen videos of him in front of congress debating the current budget proposal. In fact, Mark and I went to see him give a speech at CU's APS Colloquium about two weeks ago on planetary classifications and why Pluto should still be one (and he makes a compelling argument. Before that speech, I was totally down with ousting that little booger of a planet, but now I'm all for reinstating it and about 2000 other known objects as planets.). He seems like a very smart, dedicated man, and I can't image he took the idea of leaving his post lightly. Dr. Glenn said that a big part of his decision was because NASA was hemorrhaging money out of the Science Directorate and into Space Operations to help us get to the moon sooner. The problem with that is that the reason we want to get back into human spaceflight is so that we can, hopefully, get to Mars someday. And guess where the funding for Mars research is coming from. Science. Glenn was explaining that normally there's a firewall between Science and the rest of Aeronautics and such at NASA, and each keep their budgets separate. If one is underfunded, then they need to solve the problem on their own. But recently, that wall has come down and Science is taking the brunt of the beatings. Poor Science. I guess Stern got sick of congress jerking his around.

Another problem Science has been having in the last several decades is that budget overruns on specific projects have been running rampant. When a mission gets approved for funding from NASA, they submit a projected budget of what the thing will cost from beginning to end. Unfortunately, they never ever ever stick to these budgets and missions always end up costing millions, if not billions, more than anticipated. All of this money has to come from somewhere, and it stops smaller and newer missions from being developed AT ALL. So the reason Stern was hired in the first place was to stop this from continuing. He's done an excellent job in the last year (which is all the longer he's had the job) at keeping project teams within their allotted budgets and really cracking the whip when one ignores his warnings. This has allowed for the development of many more missions that otherwise would have been left on the cutting room floor.

So here's to Stern, and to hoping that his successor keeps NASA moving in the right direction.

Oh, and if you're read this, Dr. Stern, I'm looking for a job this May. Call me.