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April 17, 2012 By Sarah Rich
Bake sales and car washes are staples of cheerleading squads and marching bands. Can these fundraising pastimes also save NASA’s planetary exploration program from budget cuts?
Probably not.
But a group of nine universities and organizations are each planning a car wash and bake sale in a larger effort to bring attention to the financial condition of the space agency’s planetary exploration program. The events will take place June 9, and the participants are hoping to raise a little money for NASA along the way.
The fundraisers likely won’t come close to bridging the gap left by President Barack Obama’s fiscal year 2013 budget request, which cuts NASA’s planetary exploration program by approximately $300 million, a 20 percent decrease to the program’s overall budget for one year. NASA’s Planetary Science Division budget would decrease in fiscal 2013 to $1.2 billion from a current $1.5 billion, according to the American Astronomical Society.
“These cuts will force NASA to cancel its plans for its most ambitious exploration missions, cancel collaborations with the European Space Agency (ESA) on the 2016 Mars Trace Gas Orbiter and the 2018 ExoMars rover, slash the Mars Exploration Program, cancel the Lunar Quest Program, delay the very successful Discovery and New Frontiers competitive programs, and force cuts in mission operations and data analysis for several current missions, reducing the science return on an investment already made by the taxpayers,” according to the Division for Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society.
Alan Stern, the former associate administrator who ran NASA’s science program, is leading the fundraiser to create public awareness. Stern also serves as the associate vice president for research and development at the Southwest Research Institute’s Space Science and Engineering Division, an organization participating in the fundraiser.
Faculty, students and employees from the participating groups ultimately will decide how much to charge customers at their car washes and bake sales, Stern said. The bigger goal is for the universities and organizations to send the money they raise to their state’s congressmen to show that NASA’s planetary exploration program needs to be restored.
“The cut was several hundred million dollars; car washes aren’t going to pay for that,” Stern said about the event planned for June 9. “And so our goal is to attract attention to the problem.”
Laura Seward, a doctoral student at the University of Central Florida (UCF) (one of the nine participating organizations), said the university depends on NASA’s planetary exploration program. NASA’s ongoing work directly and indirectly sustains planetary science research conducted at UFC. Budget cuts at NASA could reduce the number of university students hired to do NASA’s research.
“The planetary science budget cuts that were proposed for the fiscal year ’13 budget that were just put out a month or so ago would really devastate all of planetary science,” Seward said. “The entire community is behind gathering around and trying to rally for the return of all or at least some of the budget that planetary science has had in the past at NASA.”
Seward said doctoral students like herself from UCF would have less of a chance of getting hired by NASA after graduating.
UCF isn’t alone in its concern. At the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), students and researchers will experience similar problems if NASA’s budget is slashed, said Michaela Shopland, a science outreach coordinator at the university who is helping UCLA participate in the fundraiser. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is located near UCLA and is closely affiliated with the school.
“NASA planetary science has a big impact on us here at UCLA,” Shopland said. “We’re close to JPL so we have strong ties with them. Many of the people who graduate here and do planetary science Ph.D.s will end up working at JPL, and there’s a lot of back and forth between the researchers there and the researchers here. But just within UCLA, we have a number of people who are involved directly with NASA missions.”
You may use or reference this story with attribution and a link to
http://www.govtech.com/budget-finance/NASA-Budget-Cuts-Targeted-by-Universities.html
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We can't afford to pay for health services that seniors have paid for all their lives, but we can spend hundreds of millions dumping trash on Mars. Cancel the whole thing. When we straighten out most of the serious problems here on planet earth, then we can go screw up Mars. All of these discretionary spending programs should rely more on donations, like PBS. If someone wants it, let them pay for it. We need to be on Mars about as much as we need to be in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Philippines, or Germany. More hogs at the public trough, just like the defense bunch.
The fundraisers likely won’t come close to bridging the gap... Ya think? In other news, Afghanistan wants the US to give them $2B a year...and Obama will probably do it.
I wonder what Mitt Romney thinks should be done about NASA?
Over 800 billion dollars was spent by the federal government for questionable stimulus projects (such as Solyndra - $500 million bankruptcy)over the past couple of years. NASA's entire budget is about 2% of this stimulus amount. Yet Obama has killed the US manned space program and is in the process of doing the same for planetary science. The only hope for the US space program is a change of leadership.
Tough choices are made with all budgets, but $1.2 BILLION is STILL a lot of taxpayer money being spent and you are still in business. Suggest focusing on the $1.2 B and how to make the best of it like we do with all our personal and work related budgets.
NASA is like the GSA. Both are bloated bureaucracies, and we are only seeing a small portion of their wastefulness. Both should have been privatized years ago.
Having a robust and technologically advanced space program is essential for the US. Being the world leader in space has resulted in vast benefits to the US in terms of international prestige, scientific prowess, economic development, and national security. Cutting funding to space exploration is incredibly stupid and will place the US on the road to being a second tier nation behind China, India and others.
I believe there would be national security implications with privatizing NASA.
Congress needs to at least restore funding of ongoing missions. The money for starting them has already been spent! That is like spending the money to buy mining equipment, then not buying the energy to power it! It is foolish!
Maybe if we blast our seniors into planetary orbit, we won't have to pay the social security they've earned, or their Medicare...maybe that's a way to justify spending on things that don't matter.