Planetary Society Hangout Thursday, Feb 21st at noon PST. The Sequester at NASA with Jon Morse

Thursday, Feb 21st, at noon PST/3pm EST/20:00 UT

Posted By Casey Dreier

2013/02/21 02:00 CST

Topics:

This week we will be talking about the effects of the impending Sequester, the across-the-board cuts to almost all federal programs, on NASA and the U.S. Space Program. The Sequester is scheduled to begin on March 1st, 2013, unless Congress acts to replace it with targeted cuts and/or revenue of equal value.

Joining me is a very special guest from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Dr. Jon Morse. Dr. Morse previously served as the Director of NASA's Astrophysics Division in Washington, D.C., and was a Senior Policy Analyst for the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). He currently serves as the Associate Vice President for Research for Physical Sciences & Engineering at RPI.

Dr. Morse will bring a wealth of experience on how last minute budget cuts can effect the direction and capability within NASA, how a division makes decisions to prioritize programs, and what it's like to work for NASA headquarters.

As always, we will be taking your questions on our Google+ event page, Twitter via the hashtag #planetarylive, or on the YouTube comments thread for the video. Please feel free to submit a question in advance if you cannot watch live.

Background Reading:

Since I don't know how best to represent the concept of sequestration with a picture, here's a portrait of William Herschel.

National Portrait Gallery, London

William Herschel (1738-1822)

Portrait by Lemuel Francis Abbott. Herschel discovered the planet Uranus in 1781.

Comments:

Pessimist: 02/21/2013 06:21 CST

Sorry to be a pessimist, but the US gov is bankrupt and about a third of federal spendings are on credit. So the most conservative prognosis possible is that also NASA will loose about 1/3 of its funding in order to help balance the budget. And maybe another 1/3 in order to start repaying the trillions of dollars that US gov is indebted. Obama has never made anyone uncertain about the fact that maximation of militarism is his highest priority. He spends more on militarism than the rest of the world combined, and has increased it dramatically. If he has the choice between building a new aircraft carrier, and keeping NASA, he would certainly abolish NASA altogehter immediately in order to get the new carrier. The US will be in economic depression for decades to come. Nothing at all has done in order to even begin solving the huge economic problems. But the GOOD NEWS is that foreign countries like China and Russia are picking up space exploration! Hopefully, former NASA staff may find new careers over there! And, there are some promising private enterprises in the space business, even in the US as its government quickly crashes into a "Soviet 1990" styled chaotic bankruptcy and hyper inflation where NASA employees suddenly will get any salary at all and no bills will be paid. Offices won't even have any electricity. That's what a bankrupt government looks like, and that's where NASA is going fast and hard.