Athena is dead and with it "big" X-ray astronomy dies finally

Well, so much for hoping that there might be another big X-ray observatory launched next two decades (where big is billion+ euros or billion+ dollars). Athena, the de-scoped IXO, didn't get picked by ESA. See Dynamics of Cats for a discussion and link to the official report. When you don't have politicians to pork barrel you back into life it doesn't matter whether you're on budget, close to budget, or instead chronically mismanaged and way out of budget.

There will be medium-class X-ray missions that can keep some of the engineers and some of the scientists alive, akin to the way endangered animals are kept in zoos and reserves, but X-ray astronomy is dead as a major branch of astrophysics. It's a niche, and not one valued by other astronomers (apart from the Japanese, who will probably continue to chug along doing good new medium-size missions and new work), irrespective of the unique scientific perspective it (used to) provides.

NAS's Astro2010 Decacal Survey recommendations

The National Academies of Sciences has released its Astro2010 decadal survey report and recommendations. A PDF of the release presentation is also available on that site. The panel's recommendations influence what programs NASA, NSF and DOE pursue and fund in astronomy and astrophysics for the next decade, so this is a big deal.

So far I've only read the presentation, and looked at Steinn Sigurdsson's comments on his blog [1, 2], so what follows is by no means a complete and final assessment.

My personal take is that its a mix of the good and the bad.

Whats good (from my perspective at least):

• A strong endorsement and emphasis on revitalizing the Explorer class mission program. This had suffered badly under O'Keefe and Griffin.
• A strong recognition of the importance of feedback, and flows of matter and energy into and out of galaxies (the 8th, 9th, and 10th points on slide 9 of the PDF copy of presensation).

Whats bad:

• IXO ranks 4th, behind some wide field IR telescope focussed on Dark Energy (yawn, a couple of billion bucks to get one not-very-interesting number) and LISA. IXO will only get $180m in the next decade, so basically that pushes it back to ~2030? And probably kills its chances in the ESA mission rankings too. Given that Constellation-X (IXO's forerunner prior to the merger with ESA) came 2nd (after JWST) in the previous decadal and IXO thought it had a good chance of coming 1st this time the current ranking is a real blow.
• LISA is somehow ranked as lower risk (and cheaper) than IXO! Seriously?
• Funding for astrophysics doesn't look like it going to get better.
• Unless you're an optical/IR astronomer, or the three gravitational wave astronomers, you're in for a bad decade and a half. X-ray astronomy, UV astronomy, and radio seem to be in trouble.
• From my perspective there is a disconnect between the science priorities for the next decade and the missions endorsed. Feedback and the galaxy/IGM interconnection isn't going to be answered by JWST, WFIRST, LISA or any Explorer mission

Prompt Global Strike

The NYT has an interesting article about a new weapon system.

WASHINGTON — In coming years, President Obama will decide whether to deploy a new class of weapons capable of reaching any corner of the earth from the United States in under an hour and with such accuracy and force that they would greatly diminish America’s reliance on its nuclear arsenal.

Yet even now, concerns about the technology are so strong that the Obama administration has acceded to a demand by Russia that the United States decommission one nuclear missile for every one of these conventional weapons fielded by the Pentagon. That provision, the White House said, is buried deep inside the New Start treaty that Mr. Obama and President Dmitri A. Medvedev signed in Prague two weeks ago.

Initially I thought this was a pure kinetic energy weapon, but on closer reading its a very large "conventional warhead." The hypersonic glider is very cool though.

Astroblog: "Unscientific America" and the case of Pluto

Ian Musgrave has a great post ("Unscientific America" and the case of Pluto) that lays out the scientific reasons why Pluto was ultimately demoted from full planet status.

The fuss some people put up about Pluto's demotion was the basis for Mooney & Kirshenbaum's opening argument in their recent book "Unscientific America." M&K portray the antagonism toward this decision as an example of scientist's detachment and inability to communicate with the public, before going onto to blame general scientific illiteracy on aloof snobbish scientists.:

The furor over Pluto is just one particularly colorful example of the rift that exists today between the world of science and the rest of our society.

Musgrave does a great job of explaining the scientific events leading up to the IAU's "controversial" 2006 decision, and even some of the social events: I had forgotten completely about the mini-fuss in 2001 associated with the Hayden Planetarium not including Pluto as a planet. I certainly wasn't aware that Neil deGrasse Tyson received hate mail from 3rd graders for that!

There is one issue that Musgrave touches on but does not explore as deeply as I think it deserves:

Astronomers did forsee an outcry from the public, and they did care (especially as several of their own number had a strong attachment to Pluto s [sic] a planet). [emphasis mine]

M&K's thesis rests most easily on the assumption that the Pluto controversy was a simple case of clueless scientists versus an offended public.

But this simple picture ignores the internal conflict within the astronomical community that the media played upon (aided by those who disagreed with the results of the IAU vote). I remember getting emails from astronomer colleagues asking for signatures on petitions protesting the outcome of the IAU vote. That internal discord was certainly picked up by, or fed to, the media given their love for reporting controversy.

Not only do different scientists have strong personal opinions regarding their favourite objects, but there were strong political/financial reasons that would lead some to oppose Pluto's demotion. For example, its not hard to guess why many of the people associated with New Horizons (the fast Pluto fly-by mission) might not like Pluto being demoted (A mission to the only planet we haven't yet visited becomes rather less pressing when Pluto is now only one of many Minor Planets). In if NASA budgets weren't strained the justification for a mission and its funding matter a lot. I can certainly empathize with the scientists who oppose the IAU decision, even if I don't agree with them.

Given that Pluto "controversy" was fed or hyped to some significant extent by a genuine minority of disaffected astronomers it is a bad example of the (supposed) difficulties scientist's have with communicating with the public, and hence a bad foundation for M+K to start their book.

Certainly a better example of controversies where public attitude fail to reflect scientific consensus would be climate change, or stem cells. But there it is also obvious that whatever the limitations of scientist's own public outreach are, the majority of the opposition to the scientific consensus is deliberately fed by groups or organizations with their own socio-political agendas.

And that, I suspect, does not conform to the narrative M+K wish to present.

Stephen Hawking schools Investors Business Daily

Investors Business Daily, perhaps better known for exceptionally dishonest climate change denialism editorials, now presents conservatism's most cogent arguments against health care reform:

People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn't have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless.

Once the rest of the world had stopped laughing at Investors Business Daily it was left to Hawking to quietly state the obvious (as reported by Hugh Muir in the Guardian).

"I wouldn't be here today if it were not for the NHS," he told us. "I have received a large amount of high-quality treatment without which I would not have survived."

After being so rightly ridiculed for their stupidity IBD removed the offending passage from their editorial without having the intellectual ability to realise (or honesty to admit) that it invalidated the whole premise of their misinformed screed (redacted editorial here). Clearly they have never heard of the "No true Scotsman" fallacy either.

2010 NASA science and astrophysics budget requests

Go read Steinn Sigurðsson's post on the Obama administrations budget requests (nb: request, not yet enacted) for NASA's Science Directorate.

Short version: progressively larger cuts for astrophysics in 2010, 2011, 2012 compared to the enacted 2009 budget. Time to start writing letters to your elected representatives...

Naughty

A former top NASA official has been indicted on charges of steering $9.6 million in agency funds to a consulting client.

The indictment accuses Stadd of steering money from an earth science appropriation to Mississippi State University, which was paying him as a consultant. Stadd is also accused of lying to NASA ethics officials investigating the matter.

He faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted on all three charges.

NASA officials on Friday declined to comment on the indictment.

Stadd, who joined NASA as chief of staff in 2001 and left the agency in 2003, was President George W. Bush's NASA transition chief in 2000. Stadd "was centrally involved in the organization and management of NASA," said John Logsdon, a Smithsonian Institution space scholar.

From AP news via TPM.

James Watson is a clueless idiot

Some one made the mistake of letting Watson out in public again (*), and true to form the old reactionary started spouting nonsense (quotes taken from the SciAm article):

He noted that a lack of money in the sciences meant that people had to be nice to each other, because they need to grovel for the limited research dollars. And, according to Watson, there's nothing worse than forcing young, ambitious scientists to be nice. "Christian values don't make any sense," he said, explaining that young people should be selfish and aim for success.

I presume Watson is advocating scientists would be better served engaging in character assassination and stealing other peoples results before publication and passing them off as their own. After all, that's exactly what Watson's fame is based on [1, 2, 3].

What is doubly absurd about Watson's statements is the idea that scientists are too nice to each other at the moment. That in the competition for increasingly scarce funding, scarce tenure-track jobs, scarce everything, that we've all became nicer to each other!

The reality is, of course, that a wide range of behaviour exists in the large and diverse science community. A small fraction of the population will always seek to game or exploit the system. I doubt any scientist would have trouble recounting at least one story of distinctly unethical behaviour that affected someone they know caused by some other scientists, be it real or perceived.

Back in crazy land Watson was not finished making a fool of himself:

Indeed, Watson's prescription for maintaining U.S. dominance in science includes postponing tenure for young scientists and allowing only one in five PhDs to stay in academics – and forcing the remaining grads to spread out and take up other occupations.

Because tenure is too easy to get! I laughed so much it hurt. I seriously doubt that as many as one in five US PhDs in the sciences ever get tenure. Forcing them to take up other occupations is unlikely to result in those people continuing to do scientific research, although they may indeed take their skills to technology based companies. Forcing people to change careers against their will is also hardly a method likely to result in high quality output of any kind.

Of course it wouldn't be Watson if he didn't make an unfair and dishonest attack on someone who wasn't there to defend themselves.

But Watson said he believes there is a larger hole in the U.S. educational system that is sapping our lead in science. "Part of the problem is too many of our teachers are dumb," he said, balking that "Teachers' unions are corrupt." He said that the relatively low pay educators receive has prompted smart people to flee teaching for other careers— although he made a point of noting that he does not support giving them raises. Teachers like the "bright woman that taught me Latin are nowhere near our schools [now]," he crowed.

So it is not the absurd and ham-strung funding system for US public schools, nor the lack of a national curriculum, nor the fundamentalist and partisan political attacks on science and science education, that are the cause of the US's less than stellar world educational rankings? Nope, according to Watson it is "dumb" teachers and evil Unions. For heaven's sake don't pay the teachers more! After reciting these bits of classic modern Republican party policy Watson then has the unmitigated cheek to criticize John McCain as "nuts" and "dumb". Wow! What a piece of work this man is.

(*) Whose bright idea was it to invite Watson onto a panel given what happened the last time Watson spoke?

Orbiting Carbon Observatory launch fails

NASA's Orbiting Climate Observatory, launched this morning (Tues Feb 24th 2009) on a Taurus XL (which doesn't seem to have a stunning record of success), failed to achieve orbit and crashed in Antarctica (BBC article).

The aim of the OCO was to improve our understanding of atmospheric carbon (specifically CO2) sources and sinks , rather important for bettering our scientific understanding of Global Climate Change (GCC) and for formulating effective politcal policies to combat it. Thankfully the recently launched Japanese IBUKI (aka GOSAT) satellite should be able to perform similar measurements.

Of course, if you're a conservative talking head like George Will or John Tierney you don't need no stinking science to know what is going on or to inform policy. Its all a communist conspiracy by evil lefty scientists to undermine Western capitalism!

[Update: In case its not blatantly obvious to you what is so dishonest about Tierney's column then a post at Climate Progress spells it out for you.]

The Future of Nuclear Power

SciAm has an interesting web special feature containing a large number of articles regarding nuclear power: Nuclear power as a means to reduce CO emission; new reactor designs; Uranium supplies; the issues and problems associated reprocessing nuclear fuel.

All very interesting from a physics point of view, although with the mix of pros and cons presented in the different articles its hard to get a sense of whether we'll actually end up with a new set of (advanced?) reactors being built.

SciAm article on cost overruns at NASA

SciAm online has a short article by George Musser on cost overruns in NASA science projects and their various causes. All pretty standard stuff. It does end with the following sad-but-true aside:

Some finances, though, are beyond NASA’s control. Five years ago President George W. Bush ordered NASA to replace the shuttle but failed to pay the transition costs, forcing NASA to make internal cuts, such as eliminating technology development and delaying projects that were ready to go, which ultimately raised costs. If those who foot the bill expect NASA to make the best use of their money, then it would help if they, too, set expectations in line with resources.

Charles Bolden Jr as the next head of NASA?

There is speculation that Charles Bolden Jr, a retired Marine Corps Major General and ex-astronaut (pilot of the Discovery flight in 1990 that launched the Hubble Space Telescope) may be selected by the Obama adminstration as the next head of NASA.

[Hat tip to Jim Herald]

NYT on Constellation's and NASA's future...

The NYT has caught up with the rest of the crowd in producing articles questioning Constellation and NASA's future. In summary it discusses cost, weight and vibration problems with Ares I, some complaints about "a my-way-or-the-highway attitude that stifles dissent and innovation" that supposedely exists at higher levels in the program, and briefly rehashes some of the claimed conflict between the Obama transition team and NASA head honcho Michael Griffin.

Perhaps the most surprising (and scary) aspect of the article to me was that it claims that the Obama transition team also questioned the 5 year gap in US manned space flight capability that will exist between when the Shuttle is retired Old Yeller-style and Ares I would supposedly start flying astronauts. Supposedly the transition team asked question about how much it would cost to narrow this 5 year gap and/or the cost of retaining one or two shuttles in flying order (see pages 1 and 3 of the NYT article).

To me this is more worrying than the claims that the Ares I program is in trouble. Previous coverage of this issue gave the impression that Obama's team was pragmatic and fiscally responsible and wanted to avoid cost overruns and potential white elephant programs. This article gives exactly the opposite impression... scary!

Yet narrowing that 5 year gap by speeding up Constellation development will cost a lot of money. Keeping any shuttles going will cost even more. Where is that money going to come from?

The shuttles have only ever been useful for one thing: Hubble servicing missions. The space station is a 20 billion dollar waste that does nothing. Together the ISS and the Shuttles have squandered vast amounts of money without producing a sustainable manned space program, or indeed may have prevented there from being a sustainable manned space program. Lets ditch the shuttle and the ISS ASAP. So what if there is a 5 or even 10 year gap in launching astronauts into space, if at the end of it you end up with a sustainable space program?

There is also a reasonably interesting slide show of images of a J-2X engine, an Ares upper-stage mock-up and an Orion capsule mock-up (although later slides are mainly artists impressions or unrelated SpaceX stuff) and a multi-slide interactive (flash) graphic of the Constellation program that nicely illustrates the proposed Ares I and Ares V rockets.

More on Obama's picks for science posts.

John Holdren as chief science advisor. Jane Lubchenco (a Professor of Marine Biology) to direct NOAA, Harold Varmus (Nobel Prize-winner, former head of NIH) and Eric Lander (Human Genome Project) to jointly chair the Presidential Council of Advisers on Science and Technology.

From SciAm.

Bob Park, somewhat preemptively, describes this as "the most influence science has had in the White House since the Eisenhower administration."

Obama's Science Advisor?

Strong indications are that President-elect Barack Obama has picked physicist John Holdren to be the president's science adviser.

From Science. I've never heard of this guy before, but it sounds like a good choice. Although he does rather look like an older version of Barry "Bazza!" McKernan, of Frying Donut infamy.

Yet more...

The Washington Post has perhaps the most interesting article of the bunch about tensions between NASA's administrator Michael Griffin and Obama's NASA transition team ("Uncertainty Clouds Transition at NASA", by Joel Achenbach. 12/15./2008.).

Basically it sounds like Obama's team (at least one of whom has high-level NASA experience) are skeptical of some of the information they're being given on the Constellation program (basically the manned-space program replacing the Shuttle, and intended as the vehicle for a return to the Moon. Note that Constellation is nothing to do with the proposed X-ray Observatory formerly known as Constellation-X).

Rumors of delays and costs overruns in the Constellation program are nothing new. Those of you who read Alan Stern's November 23 editorial in the NYT decrying routine acceptance of cost increases as a cancer overtaking NASA may remember that Constellation was one of the programs he chose to specifically mention by name.

My personal opinion is that hard scrutiny, especially of the components of Bush's Moon/Mars plan, will not hurt NASA in the long run. There are many reasons why programs rarely come in on cost, few of which involve deliberate malfeasance, but that does not mean it should be accepted without question.

We certainly need a long term plan for space, more powerful launch vehicles, a replacement for the Shuttle (if we are to continue with manned space flight), and most importantly a rational, justifiable, sustainable, cost-effective plan for the long term development of space (including, if needs be, manned space flight). Simply continuing Bush's plan is unlikely to be the best way of doing that.

Dustup denied...

NASA Administrator Michael Griffin has denied as false the anonymous claims made in the Orlando Sentinel article (which I mentioned previously here) of conflict between him and members of Obama's transition, in particular regarding the Constellation manned space flight program aimed at getting America back to the Moon.

Lets hope this is true... If there are real problems with Constellation then the associated financial problems would unavoidably spill over in some degree to hurt NASA's science mission and space astrophysics.

Rumors of serious conflict...

Unsourced rumors, to be precise.

And multiple unnamed sources might well all originate from one source, so the "multiple" adds no weight if the pedigree of the information is so low.

If O'Keefe was still NASA director I wouldn't doubt it for a second, but Griffin seemed to be somewhat more pragmatic, especially given the strong political pressure he must have been under for the last few years.

But... well, read the Orlando Sentinel article ("NASA has become a transition problem for Obama") yourself.

Alan Stern's NYT editorial on cost inflation at NASA

Alan Stern, former associate administrator in charge of the NASA Science Mission Directorate from 2007 to 2008, has an editorial in the NYT on NASA's self-imposed problem of routine cost inflation.

And the Mars Science Laboratory is only the latest symptom of a NASA culture that has lost control of spending. The cost of the James Webb Space Telescope, successor to the storied Hubble, has increased from initial estimates near $1 billion to almost $5 billion. NASA’s next two weather satellites, built for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, have now inflated to over $3.5 billion each! The list goes on: N.P.P., S.D.O., LISA Pathfinder, Constellation and more. You don’t have to know what the abbreviations and acronyms mean to get it: Our space program is running inefficiently, and without sufficient regard to cost performance. In NASA’s science directorate alone, an internal accounting in 2007 found over $5 billion in increases since 2003.

As a scientist in charge of space sensors and entire space missions before I was at NASA, I myself was involved in projects that overran. But that’s no excuse for remaining silent about this growing problem, or failing to champion reform. And when I articulated this problem as the NASA executive in charge of its science program and consistently curtailed cost increases, I found myself eventually admonished and then neutered by still higher ups, precipitating my resignation earlier this year.

Endemic project cost increases at NASA begin when scientists and engineers (and sometimes Congress) burden missions with features beyond what is affordable in the stated budget. The problem continues with managers and contractors who accept or encourage such assignments, expecting to eventually be bailed out. It is worsened by managers who disguise the size of cost increases that missions incur. Finally, it culminates with scientists who won’t cut their costs and members of Congress who accept steep increases to protect local jobs.

Well worth a read in its entirety.

Future of UK physics still under threat

The funding woes of physics and astronomy in the UK, in particular those fields covered by the Science and Technologies Facilities Council, still appear to be unresolved, at least in the eyes of UK physicists themselves.

Read Pallab Ghosh's article "Future of physics 'under threat'" at the BBC (the article was published online on 11/03/08).