![]() ![]() To view more op-eds from Texas Perspectives, click here.Space research, like much else in capitalist societies, is driven by funding. and Fern Yanagisawa Regents Professor of Astronomy at The University of Texas at Austin.Ī version of this op-ed appeared in the Houston Chronicle, Dallas Morning News, McAllen Monitor, The Rivard Report, Psychology Today and Texas Monthly. Do not let the solo blooming flower distract from the vision of the wasteland. Let’s do it all, but we must do it from a solid, fact-informed base. As a bonus, we gain a deeper understanding of our place in the universe. Everyone should be concerned that we get this right or lose our competitive advantage. The appropriate balance of funding for scientific research versus other priorities is a legitimate topic for discussion in a democracy. That is not how we made America scientifically great.īasic scientific research in astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology, computer science, Earth science and many other disciplines is the seed from which the innovation engine of the U.S. Forbidden to collect data contemplate that notion for a moment. It has long been practiced in the controversial area of gun control, with Congress having formally forbidden the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from collecting data on weapon use that might illuminate discussion of the topic. Hence we have discussion of limiting studies of the Earth by NASA and savaging budgets of the Environmental Protection Agency. In these days of alternative facts and fake news, one of the tactics is to curtail the obtaining of data that is critical to guide fact-based science. The hot button is climate change science. More insidious is the plan for wider re-arrangement of priorities. Harold Varmus, a past director of the NIH, pointed out in an editorial that, because 80 percent of the agency’s funding is for multiyear grants that are locked up in advance, a 20 percent cut would mean that there was no money for new proposals. If the timescale for faculty grant success is longer than the characteristic “lifetime” of a graduate student, which is five to six years, the process of regeneration withers and science suffers. It is hugely difficult to maintain a research program when funding is, at best, sporadic. Grant success rates have plummeted from about 1 in 3 proposals to 1 in 7. For the NSF, which funds many of my astronomy colleagues, budgets have not recovered from the disaster of the 2008 great recession and the subsequent sequester. Gone are the days when funding was sought to double the support of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF). and suppression of the free exercise of science. There are two reasons: insufficient funds to support world-leading scientific innovation in the U.S. In terms of the broader picture of science funding, the picture is bleak. Here is where the story of the wasteland begins. If discretionary funding is slashed, as current developments suggest, NASA may yet be in a drastic budget crunch and aspirations yet again postponed. The blueprint budget for 2018 was originally going to trim NASA to $19.1 billion. NASA’s work demands long-range steady budgets, but that is not how the U.S. But priorities shifted and here we are, decades later, with NASA still stuck and struggling to get out of low-Earth orbit. Back then we thought by now, we would have permanent colonies on the moon and be well on our way to Mars. ![]() At that time, it was inconceivable that the space program would not continue. I was a graduate student watching on a decrepit TV when Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon. This tiny flash of color brings gladness to the heart, but the story is in the wasteland. It’s like a flower blooming in the wasteland.Īt $19.5 billion, the budget is not too bad as it is roughly in keeping with past budgets. President Donald Trump recently signed the NASA Transition Authorization Act, which provides $19.5 billion in funding and adds human exploration of Mars as an agency objective.
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