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    How Will NASA Fare Under a Trump or Clinton Presidency?

    By hollywhitman on Mon, 08/08/2016 - 3:26pm |

    The presidential race has narrowed to two major candidates: Trump and Clinton. We all know this by now — but did you know that neither candidate has said much about science?

    There’s already plenty to be concerned about, but a growing topic in the scientific world is the future of space travel. Will NASA receive more funding or more cuts? Unfortunately, the candidates have remained virtually silent about this.

    We've scraped together the bits and pieces of our candidate's views:

    The Donald: Forget About It!

    Trump's views on NASA funding are all over the map. While he displays an appreciation for the space program in interviews and on social media, his speeches say otherwise.

    In an interview with Aerospace America, Trump said: “NASA has been one of the most important agencies in the United States government for most of my lifetime. It should remain so.”

    In a Reddit AMA during the Democratic National Convention, he expressed further admiration for the organization: “Honestly, I think NASA is wonderful! America has always led the world in space exploration.”

    More recently, Trump seems like he does not support significant funding for the organization, if at all.

    Florida's Daytona Beach was one of the areas hit hardest after the space shuttle's retirement in 2011. Aerospace jobs plummeted, but now they're finally back on the rise. And that’s a good thing, because aerospace supports a wide variety of supplemental industries as well, including spacefaring air pumps, and drives innovation in other consumer technologies, such as solar power.

    Trump did not cater to the people affected by the job losses there. At a town hall in Daytona, Trump dissed NASA in his speech: “Someone just asked me backstage, ‘Mr. Trump, will you get involved in the space program?’ Look what’s happened with your employment. Look what’s happened with our whole history of space and leadership. Look what’s going on, folks. We’re like a Third World nation.”

    That wasn't the first time Trump had harsh words regarding NASA. Back in November 2015, a 10-year-old boy in New Hampshire wanted to know Trump's stance on NASA funding.

    “You know, in the old days, it was great,” Trump replied. “Right now, we have bigger problems. You understand that? We’ve got to fix our potholes. You know, we don’t exactly have a lot of money.”

    For Trump, the Earth and all its economics must be secure before we can look to the stars.

    Hillary: Really, Really!

    Addressing a New Hampshire town hall last year, Hillary passionately said: “I really, really do support the space program.”

    Her views about the organization remain positive, even after her famous rejection story: in her teenage years, she wrote a letter to NASA asking what it would take for her to become an astronaut. NASA appreciated her interest, but told her no girls were allowed. We can all rejoice in knowing that policy has changed.

    During her 2008 presidential campaign, Clinton called for reversing NASA funding cuts. Clinton also backs the current hot topic of commercial space exploration, but advised that NASA should be the only ones who can discover and research the great beyond.

    Let's not forget she's also interested in aliens: she has pledged to “get to the bottom” of UFOs and extraterrestrial contact with the United States.

    What Does This Say About the Bigger Picture?

    Let's face it: this election, like many others before it, is not like the space-focused Kennedy campaign in the ‘60s. Space exploration and scientific breakthroughs have not been widely discussed by virtually any of the candidates.

    As this study by Boston University puts it, "Scientific discovery holds the key to solving many of the problems that face this country." Their study focused on asking people why science should matter to the presidential candidates.

    Answers ranged from finding a cure to cancer and inspiring innovation to giving America a competitive edge.

    What it all boils down to is that science is a basic building block of a stable society as a whole.

    The time is approaching when presidential candidates will have to look past the current issues and focus on scientific funding. It's not just important for scientists — it's important for us all.

    Comments

    It's partly about NASA avoiding self-inflicted suicide as well. For 10 years they had a manager who basically drove them into a ditch and killed much of their hard science efforts, politicizing everything. While they're on a different scale, we get more of our next-gen excitement out Elon Musk's launches than NASA's Space Station, for example. The Space Station of course is hampered with the politics of being an internationally cooperative effort which say puts us at Russia's mercy as the only launch vehicle when we decommissioned the shuttle. The Aeronautics side of NASA is trying to do some interesting things with drones in US airspace, which might bear fruit.

    A few years ago a few NASA tech heads helped launch the open source cloud effort with their Openstack project (at that time "Nova" compute), though their attempts to take it public/private were mixed (1 bought out at firesale rates by CIsco, the other just shuttered the doors, but that large companies like HP and RedHat have now adopted the tech itself is a success).

    Will NASA come up with a truly compelling mission and game plan to present to the new incumbent, or will they rely on Washington types to shape their future for them? Amtrak has always held promise, and Congress has always held Amtrak hostage to political football.

    There's a lot of scientific motion in NASA's traditional space physics forté (such as the newly detected gravity waves, the bizarre new Solar System layout with its 9th/10th/12th planet depending on how we count), tests to be made with CERN's faster-than-speed-of-light claims, et al). There are cases where 0 G may be useful in a variety of medical / biological / nanotech / genetics / next-gen agro experiments, though many of these have been overhyped over the years. There's the engineering effort by which we sustain laboratories in space and improve our reach to other planets, focusing technologies on practical transportation, communication & survivability improvements. And there are the probes and satellite telescopes themselves, which both provide valuable new information as our scientific savvy grows, and need to be steadily redesigned in light of our stepped up pace in understanding and approach (big & small data analytics, battery tech, autonomous vehicles, wireless transmission, IoT/M2M, water recycling, solar efficiency, drones, small bore rotary & propulsion, artificial intelligence/machine learning and so on).

    Or perhaps we need less of a "mission", that kind of Big Science that's always sucked up all the oxygen, when there are 1000 tasks to order and prioritize for a massive movement forward in generalized and practical science.

    In any case, NASA needs a message to sustain both public interest and funding. What's the plan, Stan? Dave, let's do that Dave....


    by PeraclesPlease on Wed, 08/10/2016 - 1:32am

    Peracles this is well thought out.

    We need purpose.

    We need aim.

    And NASA needs money.

    Advertising is one of NASA's fortes.

    We get to see the robots on Mars and the drones revolving around Jupiter and Saturn and ....

    All we have to do is go to Youtube and see it all or at least get new links.

    Oh and competition from the likes of Japan and China do not hurt us.

    the end


    by Richard Day on Wed, 08/10/2016 - 1:41pm

    NASA needs money like Mars needs women. 

    For advertising? Seriously? Let Larry Page or Mark Zuckerberg colonize space then - it's just a click away, "search" for intelligent life: leave only cookies, take only selfies... that's one small imprint for man, one giant setup for mankind...

    Maybe the bottom of the ocean's still safe.


    by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 08/11/2016 - 7:41am