Posted by Davin Flateau on 16 Mar 2006 at 11:50 am.
Filed under General.
The 36th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference is currently being held in Houston, and is slated to wrap up on Friday. It’s a gathering of scientists, students, NASA, and educators sharing the latest discoveries about solar system. Topics about Jupiter’s moons, asteroids, comets, our moon, Saturnian moons, current missions, future missions, Mars, more Mars, even more Mars all get jammed into crowded hotel meeting rooms.
There are some great stories coming out of the conference, including plans this fall to crash the European SMART-1 lunar orbiter into the moon. I’m willing to bet that most people didn’t know that there was a probe orbiting the moon. Well, don’t get too attached to it now.
Unrelated to SMART 1 (which is a European Space Agency probe), another hot topic at the meeting is the massive budget cuts in scientific research that NASA has announced. You know it’s going to bad when the government uses the word “challenges” over and over again. I’ve heard from folks down there that planetary scientists let NASA “have it” in a presentation by Mary Cleave over the proposed budget cuts. In response, she released this letter.
The budget cuts have caused the cancellation of DAWN, which was slated to orbit not one but two asteroids. SOFIA, an airborne infrared observatory is now under review, and may be cancelled. I’m also sad to hear about the cancellation of any probe to Jupiter’s moon Europa to search for life in its probable vast ocean.
Some members of congress are starting to act to restore the money for science.
I don’t know if it’s related but I hope that NASA isn’t responsible for this dire message on this year’s conference web page:
* * * There will be NO chili cookoff this year. * * *
The horror!
You can get more information about this and other cool stuff coming out of the conference through Emily Lakdawalla’s blog over at the Planetary Society.
Stars Over Kansas » DAWN of a New Day? on 17 Mar 2006 at 12:32 pm: 1
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