Grim news... Trump's 2026 budget would slash NASA funding by 24% and its workforce by nearly one third

[WKTaylor]

https://www.space.com/space-explora...percent-and-its-workforce-by-nearly-one-third

A number of high-profile missions would get the axe, including the New Horizons Pluto probe and Juno Jupiter orbiter.
... ...

The worst could be worse... I guess... we will instantly become a third world space exploration country.
Science = enemy of GOPMAGA

 

[IRstuff]

The worst could be worse... I guess... we will instantly become a third world space exploration country.
Science = enemy of GOPMAGA

Leaving SpaceX well positioned

 

[btrueblood]

New Horizons - this is a probe that is already past Pluto (having returned some spectacular pictures of same) and planning to intercept several more Kuiper belt objects before being mothballed...something like the Voyager probes. I'm thinking NASA can lobby for more funding once they point out we can get some cool pictures of stuff nobody has seen before...maybe. Probably.

Juno orbiter - in place around Jupiter and powered by solar cells, mission life can probably extend another 10 years with careful management...why would we abandon it? Sigh...

 

[WKTaylor]

BTB ref Your #3...

Perhaps these live space-science gems will need the equivalent of a 'go-fund-me' page to survive this 'bloody hack-job'...

 

[1503-44]

Elon and his 4 coders will take up the slack.
Just tell us what planet you want to go to.
We can simulate anything.
AI makes very good pictures of anything nobody has ever seen before and hopefully never will again.

3rd world? Such high hopes you have.

 

[IRstuff]

We can simulate anything.

We're already in a simulation

 

[GregLocock]

I am in a simulation. You lot are just NPCs.

 

[TugboatEng]

What exactly should NASA's scope of research be? They are currently invested in a lot of climate change nonsense. Perhaps they need to get back to useful subjects like terraforming.

 

[WKTaylor]

What exactly should NASA's scope of research be? They are currently invested in a lot of climate change nonsense. Perhaps they need to get back to useful subjects like terraforming.

With... what appears to be callous nearsightedness, once again.... You've grossly/deliberately understated what NASA has done, does, will do for the USA and the planet...

...OUR... humanity's... 'Pale Blue Dot'... can you spot it!?!?!?

Photo of Earth taken by Voyager 1 on February 14, 1990
-----
Look again at that dot.

That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.
Carl Sagan, astronomer
-----

 

[TugboatEng]

NACA was originally founded to advance aircraft design. Later, it became NASA to include spacecraft design. What does climate change have to do with their core mission? If you want to burn money researching climate change, start an organization dedicated to that type of research and stop using legitimate organisations as masks.

 

[WKTaylor]

Earth planetary science is NOT critical to long life survival...??

And is NOT critical for understanding natural forces... atmospheric, land, oceanic, thermal... etc on the the sun and other solar system planets...???

My opinions on this subject are expressed by these verbal 'equations'...

'Teamwork... A few harmless snowflakes, working together, can unleash an avalanche of destruction.'

'Irresponsibility... No single raindrop believes it is to blame for the flood.'

 

[TugboatEng]

We have other services that specialize in those subjects such as NOAA and USGS.

 

[WKTaylor]

We have other services that specialize in those subjects such as NOAA and USGS.

Hmmm... Your view of the world is a tough nut to crack.

Early oceanic explorers took copious notes and records of the Oceans, seas and waterways... for the 'big/refined picture'. modern man does the same from space observations correlated by ground and water observations.

I wonder where the lion-share of NOAA and USGS data now comes from...?
Ground/water base-station observations: OK, Yes!
Earth/space/solar observation Satellites: Oh-hell-yes.
Correlation with planetary observations, etc: Oh-hell-yes.

 

[IRstuff]

Sounds like someone wants another government agency with huge expertise overall with NASA and the concommitant costs and impact to budget deficit

 

[WKTaylor]

Sounds like someone wants another government agency with huge expertise overall with NASA and the concommitant costs and impact to budget deficit

Whaaaa?????????????????????