E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSS
NASA via Twitter
NASA says the tweets will continue despite a "pause" in educational and public outreach initiatives.
NASA is putting the brakes on its educational and public outreach efforts, due to the continuing standoff over the federal budget and the resulting sequestration of the agency's funds.
The cutbacks in NASA's activities, including social-media initiatives, were outlined on Friday in a pair of memos from NASA Headquarters in Washington. The independent SpaceRef website published both memos, including one that ordered a suspension and another that provided additional instructions for NASA's Communication Coordinating Council.
Automatic spending cuts are taking effect, at NASA and many other federal agencies, as the result of the failure by the White House and Congress to agree on a budget deal. Last month, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden told lawmakers that sequestration would reduce NASA's overall budget from the $17.8 billion that Congress approved last year to $16.9 billion.
The space agency already has cut back on travel and training expenses. As a result, some of the space agency's scientists and executives had to pass up this week's Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Texas. The new directives extend the cutbacks to online, multimedia and social-media initiatives as well as publications.
Operational websites and social-media accounts were excluded from the suspension, however — which means existing Twitter accounts, including @NASA and @MarsCuriosity, can stay in business. NASA has rapidly expanded its online presence in the past couple of years, winning recognition from the Emmys, the Shorty Awards and the Webby Awards. Just this month, the Mars Curiosity mission's social-media team won the South by Southwest Interactive Award for best social-media campaign.
Waivers were also granted for mission announcements, media events and products, breaking-news activities and responses to media inquiries. In an emailed response to NBC News' inquiry, NASA spokesman Bob Jacobs said additional guidance would be issued next week, addressing areas that would be exempt from the suspension.
"It's important to point out that it's a suspension, not a cancellation," Jacobs wrote. "The agency's budget for the fiscal year is more that $1 billion below the original request. We are taking prudent steps to ensure the resources expended on outreach activities are done so wisely.
"Mission activities and much of the existing news and information dissemination is not likely to be impacted, including our successful social media efforts," he said. "However, it is important in this constrained fiscal environment to pause and assess how the money is being spent on a wide variety of outreach activities, many of which are funded by independent projects and programs. We are not canceling anything yet. We are being financially responsible by pausing long enough to review activities before they go forward."
Update for 9 p.m. ET March 23: Folks have started a petition on the White House's "We the People" website, calling for a repeal of the sequestration cuts for education and public outreach. Although the sentiment is admirable, NASA's hands (and the White House's hands) may be tied by the rules that govern sequestration. It's important to note that all of the space agency's activities have to be cut back by the same percentage. It's just that in the case of education and public outreach, the memos that address the process for starting the cuts have now been made public.
That being said, signing a White House petition is a great way to make your opinion known, and so is writing or calling your representatives in Congress.
More about sequestration's effects:
- FAA to close 149 air traffic control towers
- How science funding will be affected
- Budget battles: What you need to know
Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.
This story was originally published on Fri Mar 22, 2013 10:00 PM EDT
Leave a Comment:
Boooo! Education should be a 'hands off' item when it comes to politics of economy! It should be immune from budget cuts - it is a matter of national security!
Neil deGrasse Tyson: What NASA Means to America's Future (discussing funding):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQhNZENMG1o
I love Neil deGrasse Tyson!
Really? Didn't Benghazzi happen before these miniscule budget cuts, and how did that national security work for Ambassador Stephens and others WITH the budget intact?
william-2726745
NO! Of course you wouldn't hear that on bull@!$%# mountain (fox news).
"Benghazi attack followed deep cuts in State Department security budget"
"Since 2010, Congress cut $296 million from the State Department's spending request for embassy security and construction"
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/sep/27/benghazi-attack-followed-deep-cuts-in-state-depart/#ixzz2OPnMlHD8
flnobody, it is "nobodys" like you that keep the politicians honest! However, Benghazi has plenty of blame to go around, including a POTUS that was willing to allow 4 brave Americans to die for the sake of a campaign meme "I killed Bin Laden, so therefore Al Qaeda is dead..." Al Qaeda obviously was showing us otherwise.
Budget cuts for NASA, selected by our Commander in Chief? "The Republicans made me do it!"
There are times when it's hard to avoid PROFANITY!! Total BULL----!!!
Michael (Astronomy.FM) always good to see you keeping us straight here. My apologies for being less than civil in my post above, but politicians are never good for my blood pressure...
With the city-killer and planet-killer space rocks zipping past us all the time, if we slash NASA, maybe we will go the way of the dinosaurs, and deservedly so. We have the means to save ourselves, but we're too stupid to take action.
Please keep our eyes toward the sky, Michael!
http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/26/17105332-after-studying-russian-meteor-blast-experts-get-set-for-the-next-asteroid?lite
DaveyJonesDetroit
Seems that it was congress. Obama did sign it. But he didn't write it. So I would say you are full of BS. But nice spin.
Congress sent a fiscal 2013 spending bill to President Barack Obama on Thursday that will leave NASA with about $1.2 billion less this year than it received last year
http://www.app.com/article/20130321/NJNEWS17/303210108/Sequester-spending-bill-chop-NASA-funding
A 2013 spending bill that would fund NASA’s commercial crew program below the level President Barack Obama requested drew a veto threat Monday (May 7) as the U.S. House of Representatives was preparing to begin debate on the proposal
http://www.space.com/15595-nasa-budget-cuts-president-obama-veto.html
NASA’s Bolden argued that Obama administration has increased the budget for searching for NEOs
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/03/19/nasa-slams-spending-cuts-that-put-earth-at-risk-of-undetected-killer-asteroids/
PS
Just to inform you. Al Qaeda didn't attack Benghazi. Yea, he should have said "Mission Accomplished".
Thanks for the shoutout, Davey.
Mine is one of the jobs that NASA has cut due to sequestration; I am far from unbiased. It was a great job, and I'll miss it. I'm now another unemployed Detroiter.
Just in case anyone gives a crap - I started at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab a few days before Spirit landed on Mars. It took 18 years from when I earned my doctorate until I landed my dream job at NASA. In that 19 years I did roofing and home building and college teaching to pay the bills, because my grants for my research wasn't enough to live on. Working at JPL was my life-long goal. Now, at age 51, my dream just went "poof". I don't have a frickin' clue what I'm going to do next.
At best during my NASA gig I lived from two-year grant until the next two-year grant. I could never plan for my future because I never knew if I would be employed for more than the next two years, at most. Even that very modest level of financial security was stripped away this month; even though I have 13 months remaining on my current grant, I was just notified that the grant has been canceled.
I live in a very modest house with my wife and two school-age daughters, and I drive a 19-year old car. Thank god my wife has an OK job, so we won't starve, but this sucks every way to Tuesday. (And if my wife is laid off from her (private sector) job, which is a distinct possibility? Disaster.)
I don't mind the Nation deciding what is and isn't important to spend our hard-earned money on. I DO mind that I lost my job not due to a considered and thoughtful budget decision, but that I am now unemployed because of the GOD AWFUL excuse for leadership that we now see in Congress.
I say - sequester Congress' pay until they get their @!$%# together.
Thanks for the video of Neil deGrasse Tyson, Michael. And sorry to hear about the loss of your job. I'm hopeful Congress gets it's collective head out of its collective arse and decides to do something positive. (And that goes for both sides of the aisle). Hopeful, but not overly optimistic, unfortunately. It's very easy on their end to look at it as just a numbers game, without thinking much of their impact on the programs themselves or the people that work them.
I can't tell you how sorry I am to hear that, Michael. I wish you the best of luck.
This has got to be some sort of sick joke.
No, but our nearly 17 trillion dollars in debt is.
That explains why we want to get deeper in debt ... let's cut jobs, put more people out of work and make the deficit even deeper. If we actually increased spending, fixed the country's infrastructure, funded NASA more, among other things, then there would be more people employed, who would pay more taxes and our debt would start going down. But then a certain political party would have nothing to complain about.
I'd gladly give up the 2.4-52 BILLION in oil subsidies each year to save a few bucks for NASA, can we do that?
.
I do understand our system is set up to work out of an annual "general fund"...yep, 'tis the law...but it has become painfully obvious over the last two decades that certain programs, for lack of a better word, are political badges of honor, perfect tug of war objects, hot button issues that can irrationally set off the public to call "their" politician, etc, etc, etc. And yes, the underlying problem with my supposition to follow is, WHO gets to PICK what program for "untouchable". Let's face it, about the only thing that is not affected by all the above issues and more are the so called dark programs, often dark becasue of some inferred security issue but perhaps just as much because of all the political party games mentioned above, and then some.
We need a way to set up and fund space programs in such a way that their mission is not abbrogated FOR ANY REASON. Perhaps the only way to do that is to set up independant funding sources that are "payed" forward, that is the money is put into a bank account when the mission starts and when the bank account is drawn down, mission over, no borrowing, canceling, raiding, or attaching said accounts. period. Of course right now, if we take a small percentage of the money we do have to set into a payforward account, lets see say .35percent times ZERO should be, hmmm, lets see, carry the one, add the....wait...times 0...oh, yea, that' the real problem right there, two presidents in a row with no fiscal sense coupled with a group of fifty two theives all hearding a group of 400 and some pickpockets...yea, no wonder....I guess it's not really zero, it's minus two trillion....uh, the special "no touch" scenario now would have to pay the general fund....you know they'd tort it that way if they could.
Still, I think that may be the only answer, set it up mission wise, put the funds in a bank account ONLY for that mission, end the mission when the funds are all. All else being equal, at least any given mission, with proper oversight and management (yet a WHOLE 'nother issue) Should (as in some reasonable probability), should I say, be able to run it's course and totally ignore the political landscape.
as for this issue, in the news since it's a hotbutton issue. nasa does a great job intereacting with the youth, and this is good. But it begs the question I tried to raise earlier in the week, are they in the business of areospace or are the friggen teachers? don't give me that both crap, we got a lot of overpaid people in the teachers union dragging this country down by striking for more pay just before yearly testing sessions start, we should do what they do, the day before school starts we hold it up and bid off their jobs to the lowest bidder, starting with the overpaid administrators and ending with the poor old lunch lady, who probably works harder than all of em....but I digress. in the middle of all this is one possible solution, like it or not.
Sure, there are dark programs, but they are not the real money drain - it's the perfectly open programs of medicaid / medicare / social security / entitlement programs, as well as our HUGE interest payments on the national debt, that are the biggest money suck. We "can't touch those", so other programs have to undergo a substantially larger cut.
(I'm not saying that those programs SHOULD be cut, but that they are indeed established as "untouchable" budgetarily.)
You know where you check "I want $3 of my taxes to go to fund the Presidential campaign?" Wish we could do that for NASA and generic research. "I want $10 of my taxes to go to NASA." Or something like that.
Or I want $10 to go to food and care for those at home and not to killing others overseas?
Actually, I will give you that "both crap".
I was required, as a condition for my grants, to do four public science outreach events a year. (I average 45 such events a year - all volunteer - because I think that it is IMPORTANT. I enjoyed the outreach just as much as my research.
Education and outreach is written into NASA's charter, as authored by Congress. It is as much a part of our mission as landing a rover on Mars.
Education? Like what, telling people we landed on the moon?
Funny, it was Obama who gave NASA their new directives to spend your tax money to become educators to the rest of the world.......wasn't it? Job well done.
Funny, it's Congress that issues directives on how to spend our tax money, but kudos on a misplaced rant well done.
More Democrat B.S.
Whenever "cuts" occur, it is always the most noticeable programs the public sees that get cut first.
We never hear of actual waste getting cut, like foreign aid to Europe or Egypt. It is always stuff that we see close up. Not that NASA educational programs aren't waste. After all, that is why we have science teachers.
Science teachers are going to know squat about NASA if NASA isn't allowed to communicate anything. Many, if not most science teachers know squat about space to begin with.
In 2011, approximately 0.8% of NASA's budget was spent on education. (I had a link here to the NASA budget document but this won't allow links.) Education was already taking a big hit for the requested 2013 budget, being about 0.56% of NASA's reduced budget. This is NOT a big money drain at NASA, but is a critical part across the board.
I don't know how or if this will be affected by the sequestration cut, but a big part of NASA education is the Space Grant Program, run in every state and providing funds and resources for student research projects. For example, Space Grant funds a lot of student internships at the NASA Centers. If you cut Space Grant, then there goes the resource for training students to work at NASA or in the space field.
Another thing this suggests would be cut or severely limited is the multimedia production at each of the Centers. Videos, animations, science visualizations... Cutting these, you have nothing to show the students, the investors, the government officials, nothing to show anybody on how the missions work, what they're learning, or why they're important. And I don't know how or if NASA TV would be affected.
And then, do we really want a government agency NOT communicating? Do we really want science not communicating? All the work at NASA isn't supposed to be secret.
Cutting outreach and education is like taking out a tiny bead in a bucket of NASA's budget (which in turn is only a tiny bead in the bucket of the federal budget). At least take out something the size of a marble or bigger, which doesn't affect everything at NASA and isn't critical to everything NASA does.
Next week I'm teaching a week-long seminar for student teachers.
I'm teaching teachers.
I've met a few really great science teachers, a goodly number of good sci teachers, and far too many who want to be better sci teachers but have a long way to go. Even the good teachers are solid in a subject or two, biology, perhaps, but need help better understanding physics and astronomy (or whatever). That's where I come in. In the parlance of the trade I'm a SME - a Subject Matter Expert.
This course has been scheduled for over a year; I taught this seminar every year for the past decade. I'm told that I'm a rather popular speaker, and they keep inviting me back.
As I've posted above, my job was cut by the sequestration; this gig was one of my regular duties.
My choices are: I can either teach the course for free, providing my own transportation, paying for the course materials, etc., or I can cancel the course (on extremely short notice), sending out a crop of teachers out there without the benefit of my "wisdom".
Of course I'm doing the gig, because it's the right thing to do.
(It sure would be nice if Congress had a clue about about "doing the right thing"; of course none of them have to worry about their next fat paycheck.)
The debt has one cause, the aristocratic view of superiority and exemption to responsibility, aye even subjugation of Christianity itself. They would rather mint Ceasar's denarii and subjugate humanity to a slaves wage. The top quintile income wealth is over 60% of the national income summation. And yet we tax poverty levels to hoard even that last 1% of coin. And tax least at the highest income levels.
The Federal Government could zero out the deficit with a fair tax system of zero business impediments.
-
Honorable Senator/Representative/POTUS,
Stop Sequestration.
This is a mandate for a Federal income tax system that funds present Federal budget to include Health (Obama-Care, Medicade and Medicare) and Social security. One Margin level will yield the $3.8T revenue: %0-$20k 0% tax rate, $20k upwards 35% flat rate, income bundled and taxed in summation form, couples freely share, no business tax and no exemptions. The rate is less than 2011 single standard at under $200K. The Federal Reserve sets the rates, mandated to maintaining monetary value and supply.
Thank you for your immediate attention,
Your constituent [Zip Code]
-
I would be living in my car. Such a broad range on the flat tax would make in horribly regressive.
The margin tax is not flat, only the fundamental is flat, total effective tax rate is progressive.
(0-20k, 0%) (25k, 7%) (50k, 17.5%) (100k, 28%) (200k, 31.5%) (500k, 33.6%)
equation rate=(((income-20k)x0.35)/income); tax=(income-20k)x0.35)
If you are a couple, joint sum income tax is tax=(income-40k)x0.35).
All other federal taxes (payroll 100K 9%) are replaced by this single tax.
Even if Nasa's budget got cut in half, education should never be part of it. Education in science is badly failing in the US because every time a dollar needs cut, thats where they run to. Cut other things, like payroll and travel expenses, or maybe keeping old satellites going that have outlived their usefulness. You cant learn more from a machine that has only so many instruments on it by paying millions to keep a ground crew watching it forever, and theres more than one out there thats borderline useful at best. Teach the children or have no science community in another decade.
Well, sequestration was Obama's idea, so he is the one you should send you cards, letters, and emails to.
Rex, in case you haven't noticed, the whole of our legislative branch has been utterly feckless for years now. But you keep pointing that finger...
And you think sequestration is actually hated by Republicans? They are the ones who wander around claiming how much they love it. Obama is the one who keeps saying he wants to fix the problems it causes.
So...you cut their increase and they can no longer do what they were already doing with the budget they have?
Americans are idiots.
I knew about the last week. My astronomy club lost it's NASA speaker for April 5th due to this.
So this will mean cuts to Obama's directive to reach out to the Mooslim world as described by the NASA director? In addition NASA's budget had already been cut well before sequestration.
I am fricking sick and tired of of the whole "NASA reaching out to the Islamic world" thing as if that is somehow a bad thing.
(And you didn't help your point by intentionally misspelling "Muslim")
NASA's DIRECTOR IS REQUIRED BY CONGRESSIONAL MANDATE TO DO JUST THAT:
NASA's Charter, as established as the "National Aeronautics and Space Act", as the VERY FIRST ITEM enumerated in that law:
There's a whole lot more in the act on the matter.
I'd much rather engage the 1 billion Muslims around the world with science and a vision of the future than go tit-for-tat with bombings. I'd much rather the United States be known for things like NASA than for the Iraq War.
You would think that with the MSM publishing story after story about the "effects" of sequestration, that people would be up in arms - but they're not. They realize that this about the only way that libs would ever allow any cuts - even when the cuts are simply reductions in increases. Yes, people will be impacted, but we are closing in on 17 trillion dollars in debt, and the Senate lib's budget (the first in 4 years) is a ridiculous document that doesn't even remotely address this important issue. Live long and prosper, sequestration!
And the sequestration will make the deficit problem worse.
I'm happy to see the top dog's kid taking 12 of her friends and two jets to Mexico for Spring Break 2013 and that story was scrubbed from the Internet.
Try to find it. The 2010 trip is out there but this one cost what the average American makes in a lifetime.
The King wears no clothes. Let 'em eat cake.
Both parties are corrupt
Why don't you find it for us? You are the one with the aluminum hat on. ®¿®
IMHO NASA needs to scale back on putting humans in space and focus on the robotic exploration of space.
This comes at a time that robots are crossing the threshold of being as capable as humans in terms of intelligence and mechanical ability.
Manned exploration of space is a political endeavor, not a technical one. Rich countries like to have the luxury of inspiring national pride with spectacular rocket launches and with humans orbiting the earth. Meanwhile the communications satellites are doing the real work all day every day.
I am pretty sure that I am going to come out on the winning side of this argument because it is ludicrous to plan fantastically expensive space programs when the US is struggling to pay its bills.
And, constructing Sky Tram to drastically lower cost and eliminate environmental impact and increase reliability to LEO.
The House of Representatives has the authority of taxation and obligations, can look no where else to shed it’s purpose. Voting for T'Rxuplicans has consequences.
"IMHO NASA needs to scale back on putting humans in space and focus on the robotic exploration of space."
Other than ISS, there are no 'humans in space' for NASA to scale back...
And not all unmanned projects come cheap either (*cough*JWST*cough*)
This is the agency whose head indicated his primary responsibility was outreach to Muslims. I could have sworn it was a space agency. Hopefully, that's off the table. A good outcome of the sequester.
Point answered in comment 12.1, above.
Change the headline: "Obama screws US Science!" "Lack of leadership destroying the US"
>:( I hate our government. Makes me want to weep, and then die.
So much scum , you can't see the bottom
My God! This is getting horrible. Before you know it, sequestration will be causing cats to live with dogs.
I had no idea that this 1% of the budget paid for 98% of everything that the government does. It's truly amazing I tell you! Amazing!
No Easter egg hunt on Obama's lawn? How many Easter eggs can you get for the $498,000 that the village imbecile Biden just spent for one night in a Paris Hotel last week? This is a serious question if someone would like to take it on.
NO You can't take away my NASA Channel. Shoot I will buy the Reruns videos!!!!
No more money to make the Muslims feel good about themselves? I thought that was NASA's #1 priority order from the president.
Point answered in comment 12.1, above.
Does this mean changing NASA's #1 priority as ordered by the president; to make Muslims feel better about themselves and their contributions to science and the modern age?