>From: Skeptic Mag Hotline <skeptic-admin@lyris.net>
>Reply-To: Skeptic Mag Hotline <SkepticMag@aol.com>
>To: "Skeptics Society" <skeptics@lyris.net>
>Subject: SKEPTIC MAG HOTLINE
>Date: Tue, 07 Sep 1999 22:28:26 -0700
>
>THREATENED NASA BUDGET CUTS
>
>I am not normally a very political animal and have never asked this group
>to
>take action on anything, but proposed congressional budget cuts threaten to
>seriously damage the future of space exploration. I urge you to write your
>Senators and Representatives immediately as they could begin discussion on
>this on the house floor as early as tomorrow. Here is a statement released
>by
>JPL today, followed by a copy of my letter to my Senator Feinstein. Feel
>free
>to use any of this material for your own letter.
>
>Michael Shermer
>
>---------------
>The NASA budget submitted to the full House may result in an estimated loss
>of 10% to 40% of the space science community within the next few months,
>primarily the younger members of our profession.
>
>This would result in a devastating and permanent loss to our nation's space
>exploration infrastructure.
>
>This loss arises primarily from directed cuts to the Space Science budget
>in addition to the potential reduction or cancellation of research and
>analysis programs to satisfy Congressional earmarks (pork).
>
>In addition the CONTOUR mission to three comets has been cancelled and
>budget cuts will require the cancellation of the two recently selected
>Discovery programs - Deep Impact to a comet and Messenger to Mercury - as
>well as future Explorer missions.
>
>Planned missions to Pluto, Jupiter's moon Europa, and the Sun are also in
>danger of cancellation.
>
>The loss of so many current and future missions will result in the
>necessary reduction of mission-related personnel, with the consequence of
>degrading our nation's ability to mount such missions in the future.
>
>Congress is interpreting the present lack of protest as evidence that the
>current cuts are now acceptable to the space science community. The DPS
>Committee calls on our membership and all other Americans to call on their
>Representatives and Senators to restore the NASA budget. There is no time
>to lose! The House of Representatives will be voting on this matter
>sometime after September 8.
>
>You can identify your Representative and Senators at
>
> http://www.vote-smart.org/
>
>Contact information is also available at
>
> http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/
>
>Further information and points to be made to your Representative and
>Senators may be found at
>
> http://www.treefort.org/~sykes/DPS/budget00.html
> http://www.aas.org/policy/NASABUDGET.html
>--------------------
>
>September 7, 1999
>
>Dear Senator Feinstein:
>
>I am the publisher of a science magazine called Skeptic, the host of a
>public
>lecture series at the California institute of Technology, and the host of
>the
>NPR weekly radio show called "Science Talk" on Wednesdays from 6-7pm, in
>Los
>Angeles. My guest last week was Dr. Edward Stone, the Director of the Jet
>Propulsion Laboratory, run by NASA and Caltech. The topic of our discussion
>was the threatened budget cuts of between 10% to 40%, resulting in a
>devastating loss of some of the most important scientific and space
>exploration projects of the last 50 years. This loss arises primarily from
>directed cuts to the Space Science budget
>in addition to the potential reduction or cancellation of research and
>analysis programs to satisfy Congressional earmarks (pork). Consider what
>else is on the chopping block:
>
>The CONTOUR mission to three comets has been canceled and budget cuts will
>require the cancellation of the two recently selected Discovery programs -
>Deep Impact to a comet and Messenger to Mercury - as well as future
>Explorer
>missions. Planned missions to Pluto, Jupiter's moon Europa, and the Sun are
>also in danger of cancellation.
>
>The loss of so many current and future missions will result in the
>necessary reduction of mission-related personnel, with the consequence of
>degrading our nation's ability to mount such missions in the future.
>
>Congress is interpreting the present lack of protest as evidence that the
>current cuts are now acceptable to the space science community. As one of
>your constituents I urge you to vote against these cuts. In addition to the
>loss of thousands of jobs in our community, there is a deeper reason why
>these cuts are so potentially harmful to the entire nation, indeed, for all
>people.
>
>Humans are an exploratory species. For the last millennium we have explored
>every nook and cranny of the planet. For the past half century we have
>explored the moon directly and all the other planets and their moons of our
>solar system indirectly with robotic spacecraft designed and built by our
>own
>JPL. It is true that in the early days of space exploration the spacecraft
>were expensive and projects were relatively inefficient. But like all
>industries, JPL has learned from experience and now, just when they have
>figured out how to explore cheaply and efficiently, they are being told
>that
>their services are no longer wanted.
>
>Something similar happened in the last half millennium. Just before
>Europeans
>began their exploration of the rest of the planet, the Chinese were by far
>and away the greatest seafaring nation in history. But government officials
>decided that it was a waste of money to explore any further, so they cut
>their budgets, dismantled the fleet, and terminated their projects of
>research and exploration. The result was an economic and cultural disaster
>for their nation. But nature abhors a vacuum, so the Europeans went where
>the
>Chinese refused to go. The rest is history.
>
>America has been the leader of space science and exploration for 50 years.
>If
>these budget cuts are passed, our fleet will be dismantled, our projects of
>research and exploration terminated, with the ensuing result of an economic
>and cultural disaster. I am not exaggerating. This is very serious. On the
>eve of a new millennium--a millennium in which humans should colonize the
>solar system and begin interstellar space travel--do we want to go down in
>history as the nation who gave up exploring and turned inward, only to
>allow
>someone else to fill the void? More to the point, do you want this Congress
>to go down in history as the least visionary Congress of the 20th century?
>When Congress gave Kennedy its support to "go to the moon and back before
>the
>decade is out," we did it. Please restore Kennedy's vision with a vote
>against these proposed budget cuts.
>
>Michael Shermer, Ph.D.
>Publisher, Skeptic magazine
>Host, "Science Talk" on NPR's KPCC
>
>-----------------------------------
>Copyright 1999 by Michael Shermer and the Skeptics Society. Copies of this
>internet posting may be made and distributed in whole without further
>permission. Credit: This has been another edition of SkepticMag Hotline,
>the
>internet edition of Skeptic magazine and the cyberspace voice of the
>Skeptics
>Society. For further information about the magazine and society, contact
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>and we will respond in kind.
>
>For those of your not familiar with the Skeptics Society or have not seen
>Skeptic magazine, see our web page: www.skeptic.com
>
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