Cometary Tales Astronomy & Astrophysics,Blog Groundhog Day at NASA-Ames: Episode 3, Billions vs Billions

Groundhog Day at NASA-Ames: Episode 3, Billions vs Billions

(NASA Social 2/2/15 State of NASA)

The final stage of our State-Of-NASA day starts with Lunch. If you turn up in the morning with a bit of cash, you can sign up for a box lunch, and I knew from before that it’s a good one. But luckily today, I left my cash at home so my lunch is the granola bar that’s been hiding in my computer bag since I’m not sure when. But, yes, luckily, since we’ve gotten back to the visitor’s center just in time for the start of the budget presentation, livestreamed via the big screen at the Exploration Center. There’s no time to eat more than a granola bar if I want both hands free to type & tweet.

Now, I know that Ames employees were also gathered elsewhere watching the livestream. I’m wondering if it might have been more efficient and more socially fun to have the Social Media crew join that larger group for these livestreams. Maybe next time…

A Disclosure Moment

Sure, I’m a space fan, so it wouldn’t be out of line to assume I’m in favor of funding NASA.  But of course, on top of that, my husband does work for NASA, so there can be an actual family effect from budget decisions.  Though I’m really writing about a) the general budget picture and b) what it’s like at a NASA Social, I’ll avoid the budget topics that directly affect our family.  No, wait, the budget issue that’s most likely to have a real, measurable effect on us isn’t some line item, it’s the regular sequestration of funds by our truculent Congresspersons.  (As in, my husband hasn’t had an actual raise in more than 5 years.)  And then there are those wonderful times when Congress shuts down the government and he and all his colleagues don’t get paid at all and proceed to complain (bitterly) that they have been told to stay home and not work.  There’s nothing worse to a scientist than being told not to work. In any case, here I’m not aiming for a critical review, but more of a “what’s in the budget” overview.

The Proposed 2016 NASA Budget

You can delve into every element of the budget here. http://www.nasa.gov/news/budget/#.VOG06i4bKj8

Let’s see if I can squeeze it into a few paragraphs. And keep in mind this is the requested budget, part of President Obama’s 2016 budget. Congress has to approve it. These numbers sound big to us, spending $18.5 billion on NASA. Just keep in mind that this is 0.04% of the total 2016 Obama budget. And if compared to the defense portion of the military budget, it’s 3% of that.  Here’s the Big Picture:

The Big Picture (Can You Find NASA?)

The Big Picture (Can You Find NASA?)  Source: http://www.whitehouse.gov/interactive-budget

 

Did you find NASA?  OK, once you peer into that 0.04% of the total, here’s what you get:

Category I. Science. $ 5.29 billion (about the same as 2015)

 

New Horizons Nears Pluto

New Horizons Nears Pluto

For this, we get: Landsat and all its kin providing Earth images, taking over all of NOAA’s earth-observing satellites except for the weather satellites, all of the current & upcoming Mars missions, Cassini, the Pluto mission (New Horizons), a mission to Jupiter, detection of near-Earth asteroids, all the space telescopes, the search for exoplanets, the James Webb telescope project and dozens of solar physics projects. Whew.

Category II. Aeronautics. $0.57 billion (down)

For this we get air traffic management tools, tech for unmanned autonomous vehicles, and new technology development for air vehicles.NASA UAV Traffic Control

Category III. Space Technology. $0.73 billion (up)

This covers new technology development in and for space applications, such as alternative fuels, solar electric propulsion,

Orion at Splashdown

Orion at Splashdown

the life-support system development for Orion, and development of laser communications systems.

Category IV. Exploration. $4.51 billion (up)

This is a big category, because it’s for big stuff, mainly the Orion system, for which the first test flight went so well. Next up is the Exploration Mission, an unmanned trip to the Moon and back. And of course it’s all about The Journey To Mars. The Core MessageAnd a major subcategory is support for the development of commercial spaceflight. Like SpaceX and Boeing.

Category V. Space Operations. $4.00 billion (up)

That’s taking care of what we have up in space: mostly the International Space Station,

NASA's View of the ISS

NASA’s View of the ISS

but also the facilities for support of those space missions, from the satellite fleet that provides tracking to the launch support on the ground.

Category VI. Education. $0.89 billion (down 20%)

Wow. No clear explanation for this, but education funding has been shaved by about 25%. There’re education-related funds under other categories, but this is the core education funding for NASA’s contribution to the Federal plan to support STEM education. That includes Space Grant and programs to get more minority students interested STEM and going on to earn degrees in science and engineering. This is in addition to some education funding budgeted elsewhere, totaling $26.

Category VII. Safety, Security & Mission Services + Construction + Environmental Compliance + the office of the Inspector General. $ 3.25 billion (about the same)

That keeps all the NASA centers operating and takes care of any needed construction work (including environmental clean-up jobs).

We also get a few key bits to ponder:

On average, between 2015 and 2020, we’ve got about 17 launches per year planned, of which about 13 have a science focus.

NASA is taking on a lot of former NOAA stuff, like ozone monitoring, ocean altimetry, and non-defense Earth-observing satellites, leaving just the weather satellites in NOAA’s budget.

But–wait for it–the proposed budget assumes that the venerable Opportunity rover retires this year. Wait. Whaaaat? Oppy has not even hinted at a desire to quit her roving ways. If the “science value” makes sense, then they’ll try to provide funding anyhow.

The Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (la bella osservatoria in volo, SOFIA) is fully funded in this budget request (last year, it wasn’t funded, but they got Congress to fund it later on, which kept the airborne observatory flying through fiscal 2015. No need for such machinations in 2016.

The State of Ames

Aaand, for a grand finale we get our very own presentation by Director of Ames S. Pete Worden and Ames CFO Paul Agnew. I’m actually awfully impressed, that this small group gets the attention of these top administrators, when I’m sure they’ve been through a similar session with the “real” media.

Here’s the short version: Director Worden is delighted that the President supports a larger budget for NASA as a whole and happy that Ames is well taken care of in this budget, scoring its own $31 million overall budget increase with no cut in the education budget here. The special favorite is that solid funding for SOFIA, which is what bumps up Ames’ science budget. There’s funding for the CubeSats we saw today and for K-2 (the second-generation Kepler program) to keep ferreting out exoplanets around dwarf stars. And the upcoming new planet-finder TESS is in the works. Ames is on the forefront in reentry systems and several other areas critical to the Orion mission, so those are in well as is the Intelligent Robotics Group. The guys across the street from the Roverscape, the advanced computing group, also have a stable budget for next year.

SOFIA Celebrates Another Year

SOFIA Celebrates Another Year

And they are very pleased that Ames’ own SOFIA is saved for another budget year.

I asked how Ames managed to keep its education budget stable when the agency-wide budget has such big cuts. I got a fuzzy answer, broadly indicating that a center’s education budget is affected by what that center asked for at the agency level, and that Ames has established a steady set of relationships and grants.

Review

OK, just to review.

The requested budget for NASA is $18.5 billion, an increase of about $500 million.

But put this in context. The defense request is $605 billion.

So, NASA is asking for about 3.1% of what the military is asking for, just for current defense purposes, not including taking care of our veterans.

And that’s out of a total budget of $4 trillion.

So the President is asking if it’s OK if he spends 0.04% of our taxes on exploring our solar system, establishing a human presence in space, and using space-based research to find out all kinds of cool stuff that will help people on Earth.

So now we just have to wait and see what happens in Congress.

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Secrets & AdventuresSecrets & Adventures

No, it's not a compass.
No, it’s not a compass.

Sometimes, you need a compass.  Sometimes, you need a more specialized instruction set.

This section of Cometary Tales follows the path of adventure, in search of the secrets and mysteries out there in the natural world.

I’ll begin by co-opting the blog page for an in-depth retelling of how I took two cameras down the Colorado River on an inflatable raft and managed not to drop either of them in the river.

Not to say my loyal retainers didn’t suffer.  The TS-4 served its duty of riding lens-first into rapids, secure only in the assurance that between a wrist strap, a neck lanyard, and a sweet orange floaty it was not likely to end up in Lake Mead.   The non-rugged ZS-7 struggled mightily with the ubiquitous sand, but soldiered on, recovering temporarily from a sand-jam to deliver a final sequence of aerial shots when the TS-4 exhausted its last milliamp-hour on the way out of the canyon.

To follow along on this journey, track Secrets of the Grand Canyon.

(Updated January 2021.)

Friday at BayCon 2013Friday at BayCon 2013

As exemplified by Thursday evening’s brief exposure to the timesense-warping effects of Triskaidekaphobicon, clearly the theory of attending BayCon is direct and clear, albeit a little boring, while the practice thereof is circuitous and exciting.  Here we will continue our study of these contrasts by once more comparing plans and realities with a half-day experience on Opening Day:

Time Frame What the Plan was What really happened
Friday afternoon Arrive early, go to opening ceremonies, then “Irreproducible Results” panel, then to a reading by Lois McMaster Bujold. Just couldn’t get out the door.  Forgot reading glasses, then key, then left door slightly ajar while trying to find my sunglasses (for driving), then became convinced (older/medical-issues) cat had sneaked out, so searched out front and called out back and looked under furniture.  Finally discovered cat hunkered down behind a chair.Arrived halfway through Irreproducible Results panel, but got a front-row seat & enjoyed panel, from nuts and bolts revelations such as that the staff of JIR are unpaid to the audience teaching JIR’s editor the song “There’s a Hole in My Bucket” and locating for him several online sources for flexible rubber with which to make graph paper.

I took a quick look at the Art Show, where they were nice enough to take care of my bag for me.  Theresa Mather‘s dragons were there.  Which one is it that I bought for Tirion?  I wondered, Should I bid on one of these dragon-butterfly prints?  I decided to come back later and sign up as a bidder.

All of the cat-oriented artwork reminded me that I was worried about my cat (not to bore anyone with a pet’s medical issues, but no-one was home to check on Manta that day), but didn’t want to miss the reading.  So stayed put for that.

Bujold read a piece she doesn’t really plan to publish at present, a work-in-progress that may or may not become part of something, but it’s a “Miles” story, so she knew it would please her fans.  The humor bits got big laughs.  And she was good about doing a little Q&A while waiting for late-comers to arrive. Turns out that one intellectual goal for “Curse of Chalion” was to work out a society in which religion had a basis in physical reality.

By then, it was after five, but decided to drive home to check on the cat –through Memorial-day weekend traffic.  The freeway was a parking lot from San Thomas Expressway to, probably, LA.  So, enjoyed elaborately costumed Fanime fans thronging streets of downtown San Jose on the unfreeway route home.  Made pretty good time, actually.  Oh, yes, and the cat was fine.  Time for a quick freezer-cleanup dinner and half an episode of “Castle” before evening sessions.

Friday evening Find out what a “boffer weapon” is and make one in the new DIY Room.  Then go upstairs and learn some Regency dancing.  Maybe get in to panel on talking to people. Boffer-making was not in the DIY room.  I had to go alllll the way to the “Ballroom” and creep past the big room where they were having the “meet the guests” reception.  Way too scary in there.   In the farthest room, kids were whapping each other with foam objects.  Aha, that’s boffing.

But no one was making weapons.Wandered about. Became “brave” and strolled nonchalantly through the reception.  Darn, there had been food.  Extroverts were  happily chatting each other up.

Wandered back to boffers room to watch the swordplay.  Maybe the “make your weapon” thing is over?  I wondered.  The program said they started at 6 and it was already nearly 8.  Suddenly, someone called out, “Who wants to make a weapon?”  Apparently, I had arrived at exactly the right time.

Two hours later, I was working on the trickiest duct-taping tasks on three swords at once, after two teen sisters frantically realized they must dash off to what they described as “Mom’s Concert” and begged for coverage while they were away.   Another hour later, and they were back in time for adding the blade tape and the final decorations.  Clever girls.

So finally 11:30 rolled around and I had myself a lovely PVC and pipe-insulation and duct-tape sword.  But not prepared to wield it yet–too exhausted.  Parked my sword in the car and wandered about a bit.  Regency dancing was already up to a lesson on the Congress of Vienna waltz, which I can’t do with my broken shoulder yet, and which they use as the final dance.

Oh, well.  Time to go home.  Big plans for tomorrow.

 

There are anime fans at BayCon, too.

There are anime fans at BayCon, too.

On Aisle 42, Universe Components: Notes for Project LeadersOn Aisle 42, Universe Components: Notes for Project Leaders

I have a pair of projects to present this time–together, they are a sugar-based approach to understanding the building blocks of our universe.  The goal is to build up a sense of the scale and dynamic relationships among the smallest particles identified to date, and how they combine to form the stuff we call “matter”.  By the end of these activities, everyone participating should have a clearer picture of the following:

1. All of the matter in our universe is composed of just a few extremely basic and very tiny building blocks.  They’re called quarks and leptons.

2.These building blocks, in the right combinations, make the next-level construction materials.  The most common ones are electrons, protons, and neutrons.  But there are others, too.

3. Once you have electrons, protons, and neutrons, you can build elements.  Each element has particular physical and chemical properties–which arise from its unique physical composition of protons, electrons, and neutrons.

To make this activity fun (besides incorporating sweet treats), it helps to build into the presentation an element of discovery.  First, we come to terms with the fact that the familiar atom is not the smallest particle.  Second, we wrap our minds around the knowledge that even the tiny particles inside the atomic nucleus are made of even tinier ones.  Third, at the conclusion, it’s truly mind-expanding to try to envision each of these in true relative scale.

The atom is still a meaningful idea, so long as we adjust its definition to suit modern understanding.  The concept of the atom dates back over 2500 years, to Leucippus of Miletus and his more-famous student, Democritus.  They reasoned out that if you keep cutting a material, you’ll eventually reach a particle that cannot be divided further.  In Greek, the word “a” means “not” and “tomos” means cut, so when you call something an “atom,” you’re saying you can’t subdivide it.  However, even now that we know that the structures we call “atoms” can be broken open, we still use the term. For instance, we’ll talk about “an atom of iron” or “the carbon atom”.  But instead of defining the atom as “indivisible”, we now describe it as the smallest unit of a material that still retains those unique physical and chemical properties defined by its combination of electrons, protons, and neutrons.

In this project, we will build atoms from electrons, protons, and neutrons.  Energized by our constructions, we will discard our preconceptions about the structure of the universe and descend to the sub-sub atomic scale, where we will capture quarks and leptons, then build ourselves some protons and neutrons and electrons.  And then we will eat the lot:  atoms, quarks, protons and all. It’s elemental.

We’ll proceed in two parts:  “The Atomic Marshmallow Project” introduces the idea of atoms and their components, and “One Side Will Make You Smaller” takes us down into the realm of quarks.  As in our other science projects, we’ll include information to share with the participants as you go along. For those who would like to delve into more detail, you’ll find links to good sources with plenty of depth.

Everything You Need to Build A Universe

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