NASA

NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) is a civilian United States government agency whose "core mission...has been to investigate, explore space and the Earth environment, and to help us make this place a better place". The agency has been behind what some regard as the best achievements of humanity including landing a person on the moon, visiting the planets and minor planets, participating in the space race with the Soviet Union and placing enormous telescopes in space to capture the depths of the Universe. Throughout their mission they have shared a lot of their technical innovations, provide outstanding images for use in public domain and have maintained a humanist approach to space travel and the future. NASA has inspired similar programs in other countries which show growing competition in the EU and China.

The poetry of reality
Science
We must know.
We will know.
A view from the
shoulders of giants.
v - t - e

If you're a dyslexic and/or drunk hacker,[1] the NSA is what you're looking for.

When NASA first began their hiring practices often excluded minorities and women however they've certainly made great strides since especially in technical innovations and high end leaders. However the count of female astronauts and minority astronauts is still quite low. There has always been controversy over the cost of their expensive projects however it is argued that the benefits to the American (and world-) economy has more than paid back for those expenses. NASA has received notable criticism for some missions where percived mission accomplishment came before safety. NASA has also seen notable failures at a human cost.

Despite these problems NASA on the whole is one of the most successful government agencies in history in advancing human knowledge, expanding the horizons of humanity and technological innovation.

What NASA is not

Contrary to popular misconceptions:

  • NASA doesn't do astronomy, unless the observatory is on a plane (SOFIA[2]) or in space (Hubble, Spitzer, etc.); even then, most of the people that actually use these instruments are professional astronomers who don't work for NASA (Hubble, for example, is used through the Space Telescope Science Institute[3]).
    • Speaking of space telescopes, it seems that only geeks know that Hubble is not the only one. (Wikipedia has a nice listFile:Wikipedia's W.svg.)
  • NASA doesn't have a monopoly on space flight within the United States:
    • the Air Force has its own space projects (e.g. the X-37B) and launchpads; NASA's shuttles have launched some spy satellites, but it turned out that launching them with disposable rockets is cheaper.
    • commercial satellites are not launched by NASA, but by private contractors (such as SpaceX, Lockheed Martin, Boeing (who have joined together as the United Launch Alliance) and Orbital Sciences Corporation Orbital ATK Northrup Grumman Innovation Systems); the same people provide launch services to NASA and other government agencies (such as launching meteosats for NOAA and spysats for the NRO).
    • there are also non-American commercial launch providers, such as Arianespace.[4]
  • Sending people into space is not the primary purpose, nor the primary activity of NASA. (Voyager 1 says, "Hi.")
  • Contrary to the popular (in some circles) slogan "NASA lies!", the most significant things NASA has been untruthful about are:
    • how much money a particular project will cost, and
    • how much time it will take to develop it.

Well, the last point is mostly snark, but based on a kernel of truth: NASA's projects often end up over budget and/or behind schedule (recent examples are the Constellation program[5] and the James Webb Space Telescope[6]), but so do defense programs and even relatively mundane civil engineering projects.

NASA takes its directions from the President and its money from Congress. This sometimes leads to some interesting deals and compromises (and messed-up projects, including the current state of the human spaceflight program). A good illustration is the fact that NASA's budget for fiscal year 2013 was approved in... August 2013, one month before the end of FY 2013.[7] If you are wondering how the goat NASA functioned in the meantime, the answer is "continuing resolutions." As of 2015, the chair of the Senate’s Subcommittee on Space, Science and Competitiveness is noted global warming denier Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), who has complained about NASA focusing too much on climate.[8]

Some currently run projects

InSight

Successfully landing anything on another planet and successfully conducting experiments is insanely difficult with far more failures than successes. NASA landing several Mars rovers on the planet have caught the imagination of many and the idea of being able to drive that rover around from Earth is awe inspiring for many. However the most recent project is less about steering an electric car on another planet and far more about experiments which will help us understand the formation and inner workings of Mars. The probe includes gizmos that are recording temperature, wind speed and seismological data. One of the instruments, the HP3, was intended to dig up to five meters below the surface using a self-hammering "mole." However, the soil at the landing site turned out to be more prone to clumping than expected, so NASA ended the mole's mission in early 2021.[9] NASA may have a secret secondary mission to find Martian gold buried by space pirates to help fund their galactic surveillance program.

James Webb Telescope

Unfortunately Hubble is on its last legs (a dozen years or so left). Its official successor is the James Webb telescope which will orbit around the sun some distance past the Earth which will protect the telescope from light pollution of the Sun, Earth and moon and from the heat and radiation that emanate from the Sun and which reflect off the Earth as well. Its launch date is in 2021 though NASA has a quite chequered history of launch delays and has already delayed the launch twice so don't buy your flights yet to Guyana to watch it. The telescope, free of light pollution and heat/radiation will be able to make better observations of distant objects including reading red-shifts and will measure the physical composition of our planets and exoplanets. The scope will also observe forming stars, the formation of galaxies and the first cosmic objects which formed after the big bang. Despite there being no evidence at all for this, the telescope will likely keep tabs on everyone on Earth with its x-ray vision scope which can peep through walls, cars, caves and clothing. [10]

IceSat 2

Satellite technology has helped photograph the world in incredible detail and has also helped discover ancient cities below the Earth's surface. IceSat 1 took deeper measurements of Earth topography and was considered a success. Its successor IceSat 2 was launched in September 2018. The new satellite will have a polar orbit and its three principal missions are to measure the decline of the polar ice sheet, measure bodies of water as well as vegetation and cities, and conduct a broad survey of Earth typography. The satellite is unlike most others in that it only has one instrument which carries out its mission using highly sophisticated laser technology. It is a marvel that a satellite flinging around the Earth at incredible speed is able to send a laser beam five hundred kilometres above Earth's surface and still provide accurate information of Earth's topography. NASA claims the satellite will provide very useful information, especially as yet more evidence of climate change, though it could be that these lasers light-up the space-ship-runways when the next aliens arrive on Earth to do something nefarious to mankind. [11]

Mars 2020

The Mars 2020 mission is NASA's current flagship mission. The mission's main attraction is the Perseverance rover, a nuclear-powered rover the size of a small car that is designed to hunt for signs of past life which landed on February 18, 2021. The rover landed in Mars' Jezero Crater, which is believed to have been an ancient lakebed and river delta. [12] Riding underneath the belly of the rover is the solar-powered Ingenuity helicopter, which will attempt the first powered, atmospheric flight on another planet. [13] The Mars 2020 mission is the first part of the Mars Sample Return mission, and will cache samples in 43 hyper-sterile tubes to be left on the surface. Starting around 2026, a NASA-developed lander and Mars Ascent Vehicle will land with an ESA- (European Space Agency) developed rover to collect the samples in the tubes. The tubes will then be transferred to the Mars Ascent Vehicle, which will fly them to the ESA-developed Earth Return Orbiter, which will use solar-electric propulsion to return the samples to Earth. [14] The TRUE purpose of the rover and the helicopter is likely to monitor and hide the existence of the hyper-intelligent alien species which resides on Mars. Some members of this species are currently being held in Area 51. [citation NOT needed]

Space exploration spending

A lot of people think (or at least have expressed the opinion)[15] that a lot of money is spent on space exploration and could be better spent elsewhere. In the case of NASA, this is undermined by the fact that a) nowadays, NASA's budget is less than 1% of the federal budget, and b) the average American has no idea how small NASA's budget actually is. According to a 2007 survey:

“”...we asked respondents what percentage of the national budget is allocated to NASA and to the Department of Defense, the Department of Education, the Department of Agriculture, and the Department of Health and Human Services, among other agencies. NASA’s allocation, on average, was estimated to be approximately 24% of the national budget (the NASA allocation in 2007 was approximately 0.58% of the budget).[16]

On the other hand, NASA's most recent project, the SLS, or Space Launch System, has repeatedly been criticized,[17][18] and blasted,[19][20] and criticized some more,[21][22] for being too expensive. Critics say that SpaceX can launch for significantly less. Though that may or may not be true, Elon Musk took a not-so-subtle jab at it, saying that it "won't change humanity's future".[23]

And no, NASA did not spend millions of taxpayer dollars developing space pens.[24]

NASA haters

According to former NASA Administrator Maj. Gen. Charles Frank Bolden, Jr., (USMC-Ret.)[25] NASA's Vision: "We reach for new heights and reveal the unknown for the benefit of humankind."[26] the acronym is often decoded as "Never a Straight Answer" by people who wouldn't recognise a straight answer if it hit them in the head, or as "Need Another Seven Astronauts" by people who lack decency. Often the two groups overlap.

Trivia
  • Months before Apollo 11, NASA had seriously considered placing a UN and not an American flag on the moon.[27] (Imagine the shift in political narratives.) Of course, the flag on the moon has been bleached white by intense solar radiation, so presumably that means they've surrendered the moon anyway.[28] Hey, "These colors don't run!"
gollark: No. We do not produce fast food.
gollark: Hello and hi, bees.
gollark: >pickup
gollark: Suuuuuure you are.
gollark: I could say the same to you.

See also
For those of you in the mood, RationalWiki has a fun article about NASA.

Blamed on NASA

References
  1. Angry Brazilian whacks NASA to put a stop to… er, the NSA
  2. Not stationed in Bulgaria.
  3. John Hopkins University
  4. Named for the Ariane rockets - the main European developed rocket family
  5. Augustine Committee Releases Final Report, American Institute of Physics (That Augustine, if you were wondering.)
  6. Space science: The telescope that ate astronomy, Nature (There's a nice graph of the "cost curve.")
  7. Finally, an FY13 NASA Planetary Budget, Just 11 Months Late, Planetary Society
  8. http://mashable.com/2015/03/12/ted-cruz-nasa-earth-science-attack/#AKa.nf18xGqx
  9. https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/nasa-insight-s-mole-ends-its-journey-on-mars
  10. https://jwst.nasa.gov/orbit.html
  11. https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/about-icesat-2
  12. https://www.nasa.gov/perseverance/overview
  13. https://mars.nasa.gov/technology/helicopter/
  14. https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/mars-sample-return-msr
  15. One can't be always sure that some kind of thought process is going on. But Fox News may give us some answers.
  16. Sustaining exploration: communications, relevance, and value, The Space Review
  20. http://www.examiner.com/article/nasa-critic-claims-that-the-heavy-lift-space-launch-system-is-doomed]
  21. [http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/nation-world/space/article/Sunday-conversation-NASA-veteran-Chris-Kraft-4778332.php
  23. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwFEulcns8I
  24. I don't want to live on this planet anymore.
  25. http://mashable.com/2015/03/12/ted-cruz-nasa-earth-science-attack/#AKa.nf18xGqx
  26. https://www.nasa.gov/about
  27. Where No Flag Has Gone Before: Political and Technical Aspects of Placing a Flag on the Moon, NASA JSC
  28. Who "Really" Owns the Moon?
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