Not only did NASA lose a laptop with the control codes of ISS, the agency’s inspector general also reported that hackers had seized control of the computers at JPL in November.
Seven Republicans demand increased NASA supervision of the new commercial launch companies.
This is what I call shooting yourself in the foot. One reason the tea party movement started is because Republicans during the Bush years had sometimes become as unreliable as Democrats when it came to some basic political issues. If we want private enterprise and the free market to rule, then the last thing a bunch of Republicans should be doing is demanding greater supervision by government agencies.
At a Congressional hearing on Wednesday, NASA’s inspector general outlined more than five thousand security lapses at the agency in 2010 and 2011, including the theft of a laptop with the control codes for ISS.
There will be a lot of screaming and howling in the coming days about the proposed 2013 NASA budget [pdf], released today by the Obama administration. Though I have many bones to pick about this budget proposal, a longer view of the budget suggests it is merely a reflection of the transitions going on both in NASA and the federal government.
First, some bullet points:
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Want to buy a former NASA radio dish? All you need is $4.2 million.
For its second attempt to launch the Orbiting Carbon Observatory, NASA has finally decided to dump Orbital Sciences’ Taurus XL rocket, the same rocket that failed on two previous launch attempts.
The decision to change launch rockets will delay launch by at least a year. Still, this is better than losing a third research satellite.
Clark Lindsey has posted a quick summary of the proposed NASA budget to be released by the Obama Administration on Monday.
I will have more to say about this next week, when the full budget is released.
Ed Weiler quit NASA in September because of the cuts to the Mars planetary program that the Obama administration will announce on Monday.
Weiler was NASA’s chief science administrator for most of the past thirty years.
As I have already noted, the programs that NASA shouldn’t cut are its planetary and astronomy programs. Far better to dump the Space Launch System, which eats up a lot more cash and will end up producing nothing. By doing so you would not only reduce NASA’s actual budget — thereby saving the federal government money — you could simultaneously increase the budgets of the planetary and astronomy programs.
According to scientists, Obama’s proposed budget — to be announced on Monday — will severely cut NASA’s planetary program.
We will find out if this is true on Monday. However, I suspect it is, as all the rumors have pointed that way for months.
Meanwhile, Congress is forcing NASA to spend $3 billion on the Space Launch System (SLS), a rocket that will never get finished. As I have written previously, this is a very bad use of the taxpayer’s money. Better to get rid of SLS, put half the savings into the science program (which would almost certainly increase its overall budget) and pocket the rest as budget savings.
All NASA funding for ESA’s unmanned ExoMars mission appears to have been cut by the Obama administration.
A public announcement by Nasa of its withdrawal from the ExoMars programme, as it is known in Europe, will probably come once President Obama’s 2013 Federal Budget Request is submitted. This request, expected in the coming days, will give the US space agency a much clearer view of how much money it has to implement its various projects. “The Americans have indicated that the possibility of them participating is now low – very low. It’s highly unlikely,” said Alvaro Gimenez, Esa’s director of science.
Though this story doesn’t confirm the earlier rumors that the Obama administration was going to eliminate the entire NASA planetary program, it sure lends those rumors further weight. However, the new budget should be released any day now, when we will finally find out.
More than 6,000 people submitted their applications to NASA last week to become astronauts, the most since 1978.
Once again, this is strong evidence that Americans want to explore space, and that there is a market out there for private enterprise to cash in on. NASA doesn’t even have a way to put any of these astronauts into space, and yet, people come out in droves to apply.
