Recently, I went on to my favorite airplane news site flightglobal.com to look up some stories on the recent Paris Air Show, held at the end of last June. I instead found some surprising yet unfortunately unsurprising news: the United States House Appropriations Committee approved for a $1.9 billion spending cut for NASA. Here's the article posted on Flight Global's site:
http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2011/07/06/359215/us-house-appropriations-cuts-nasa-budget.html
Although this will affect a number of areas at NASA, it will mainly affect these three areas:
1. NASA science - $431 million
2. Exploration - $152 million
3. Operations - $1.4 billion
You may be wondering how this affects NASA on the whole... which is exactly what I wondered as well. Being a plane nut, I also love and heavily admire space programs world wide, but unfortunately don't pay much attention to what's currently going on with them. Without delving to much into the problem, one specific program that will be affected is the James Webb Space Telescope program, the replacement for the aging Hubble Space Telescope.
On NASA's website, it says that this telescope "will find the first galaxies that formed in the early Universe, connecting the Big Bang to our own Milky Way Galaxy". Now, I'm not sure if the program will be completely cut, but DAMN, that's kind of important, right? This is a plausible and safe way to continue to search into the great beyond, like we did when we searched our own planet in search of new discoveries. We have the brain power, lets use it! However, there may be some support behind the termination of the project.
Originally, the JWST was scheduled to launch sometime in 2014, when the project was announced in 2007. Back then, the economy was a little better and the idea of replacing the Hubble with a much more powerful telescope was very appealing. However, it was announced last month that it would not be able to be launched until maybe 2017, most likely 2018... and it's price tag was raised to $6.8 billion, which raised concerns throughout the NASA community worried that other programs would financially suffer if they couldn't control their latest endeavor. Well, as projected, a draft was made and the cuts are real, laying to waste another great idea.
Is this going to kill NASA's drive to explore the our existence by understanding the cosmos more clearly? Absolutely not! It's their job, damn it. But, with the economy as it is and various political pressures all over, the exact path is undetermined. However, there is one exciting and historical moment that's going to hopefully happen tomorrow: the last shuttle launch.
Here's a recent picture of Atlantis, the last space shuttle to leave the planet Earth (epic!). First, I'm super bummed I can't make it... however, it could be delayed due to recent thunderstorms (should have launched them in California!). Whether or not I may blow good money to see the launch if it's delayed, it's both sad that the program is ending and is a proud moment, having served NASA for almost 30 years. In most major airlines, there's not a chance you see a plane in their fleet flying for nearly as long, and this hard-ass flying machine goes frequently and only to freakin' space!
In the end, I'm 100% positive that will continue to explore, and, who knows, maybe we'll all get a chance to fly into the unknown ourselves. So, I have no clear answer for you, but I do have a clip for you to watch. In case you're not familiar, this is the famous ending of Bill Hick's stand up routine that I find to be moving and provocative... and pertinent to the topic at hand :D
Yes, like outer space, this clip is a little out there and is easily seen as being unrealistic, but it doesn't hurt to wonder about the possibilities we possess and how to use them to further ourselves and our understand of why we're here and what to do with the time we have. Because, in the end, we'll continue to look up at the stars and wonder for years and years to come.
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