Orlando Sentinel, nut much else: NASA’s shriveling work schedule
From NASA Watch
The Orlando Sentinel today has a story by Mark K. Matthews that few general interest media are following closely – the ongoing implosion of NASA’s space science plans. In short, this story and other reports say, the soaring budget for the James Webb Space Telescope – the Hubble’s repeatedly delayed successor, lingering costs of the shuttle, efforts to build a deep-space astronaut-carrier to asteroids or other places, and general slashing of federal budgets are leaving many casualties among long-planned science missions.
Too bad. NASA looms large in American consciousness. Major media ought to pay this more attention. People already highly interested in space science will be up kept up to date by following the right blogs and specialty outlets, but that leaves the greater public largely unaware of the space agency’s troubles with fiscal discipline, adequate budgets, and a culture that has not quite learned to tell Congress it can’t do what it’s told with the money it initially requests. The bogeyman here is not so much the numb skulls of assignment editors and reporters at major media, but the shortage of such people with the time or budget to cover space science. NASA was once a part of regular national conversation. Now there is little national conversation on anything except political gridlock, unemployment, show biz, and the weather.
One exception recently, aside from the Sentinel with its history of close NASA vigilance, and not from domestic media:
- BBC – Jonathan Amos (Aug 23) JWST faces its own hubble, bubble, financial trouble ;
This is not just about one or another NASA program, but the whole magilla – the robot probes off to distant planets, the space telescopes, the astronauts, the satellites that keep track of Earth from gravity fields to energy balances.
Recent, specialty outlet stories:
- ScienceNow – Ron Cowen: Webb Telescope Delayed, Costs Rise to $8 billion ;
- NatureNews – Eric Hand: NASA to share telescope cost ;
- NASA Watch – Keith Cowing: JWST and SLS: Dueling Giant Money Sponges ; The longtime NASA friend and bugbear asks, “So, will someone explain to me how NASA is going to build and launch both JWST (the Webb) and SLS (a new space launch system) and have money left over to do all of the other things that it is both chartered to do – and directed to do – by Congress?
- Bad Astronomy – Phil Plait: Hubble’s successor: doomed or saved? ;
There likely are some other examples of coverage on budget woes at NASA in general interest publications. This would be a good post to update, if so. Please use the suggest stories button up there (or send in a comment) and updates are likely to follow.
- Charlie Petit
