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(meteorobs) Fwd: America's Space Program
Forgive the broad cross-posting: for those of you not on David
Dunham's direct maillist, I thought this might be of interest!
Lew Gramer
------- Forwarded Message
Date: Mon, 06 Sep 1999 02:41:50 -0400
To: webmaster@lunar-occultations.com
From: Joan and David Dunham <dunham@erols.com>
Subject: America's Space Program & a Capitol grazing occultation
Don't let them end American Space Exploration -
Ask your Representative to vote against the budget
plan with deep NASA and NSF cuts, and invite them
to watch a grazing occultation visible from the
Capitol on Saturday evening, September 18th
In late July, the House Appropriations Committee wrote a budget
that will effectively end future Solar System exploration, as well
as seriously jeapordize other space exploration and astronomy
efforts by both NASA and the National Science Foundation (NSF). The
wording of the budget specifically cancels several missions that are
part of NASA's carefully conceived plans, terminating, for example,
all future Discovery and Explorer missions that are not already in
fabrication. Facing the chopping block, either directly or
indirectly from cuts in technology development on which they depend,
are CONTOUR (mission to 3 comets), Pluto Express, Deep Impact,
Messenger (mission to Mercury), FIRST/Planck, Solar Probe, and
others. There are also large cuts in the budget that funds
individual astronomers at colleges and universities. A longer
description of the impact of the House budget plan can be found at
the American Astronomical Society's (AAS's) Web site at
http://www.aas.org/policy/. It gives information and links to let
you know how you can contact your Congressperson.
The full House will consider the funding bill, HR 2684,
starting on September 8. You, and your astronomy friends, are
encouraged to write a short message to your Representative, letting
him or her know that the cuts are unacceptable, and that funding
for NASA and NSF should be kept at the President's requested level.
The cuts are especially demoralizing for NASA, which has been held
up as an example for ways to streamline costs to other agencies
(NASA's funding in current-year dollars has decreased steadily in
recent years). The new cuts are a slap in the face following NASA's
successful efforts at "faster, better, cheaper" missions; they
target what NASA does best and what has the most visibility to the
general public. Solar System and space exploration are the crowning
achievement of our technological age; to curtail them now sends
absolutely the wrong message to students at a time when the USA is
trying to raise its educational standards to compete better in the
modern global economy. In addition to the NASA mission cuts, there
are cuts in other areas, including space and astronomy educational
efforts.
The AAS says that letters or faxes are the best way to
communicate; e-mail carries very little weight, in spite of its
convenience. Phone calls are also effective, but letters or faxes
are considered better. The AAS's "Call to Action" message is given
after my message; it gives several points that can be made. Don't
try to mention everything; 2 or 3 paragraphs (not more than 1 page),
or even just a few sentences, are enough. A short message is much
better than none! In addition to Congress (most urgent), copies of
your message should also be sent to your Senators, since they are
also writing a budget (they are a little behind the House in their
process). It will need to be reconciled with the House budget in a
joint conference committee in late September, then it will go to the
President, who could veto it, resulting in a further delay in the
process. But the sooner that the planned House cuts can be removed,
or at least reduced, the better.
You might also mention an unusual astronomical event that might
give your Congresspersons and Senators some appreciation for the
night sky, and phenomena that take place there. Maybe this could
have a positive influence on their judgement of budget matters that
affect what we learn about the universe around us. It will be a
grazing eclipse (properly called "grazing occultation"), of the 6th
magnitude star Z.C. 2697 in Sagittarius by the 60% sunlit (near
first quarter) Moon that will occur between 7:47 and 7:53 pm EDT
Saturday evening, September 18th. It won't be visible with
binoculars, but will be visible with almost any small telescope,
with the star disappearing and reappearing repeatedly among
mountains and craters in the lunar north polar area as it appears to
pass along a line tangent to the Moon's disk. Actually it is the
Moon that is moving in its orbit about the Earth. Note that NASA's
recently completed Discovery mission, Lunar Prospector, determined
that water ice is likely in some of the craters that will be
involved in the graze. The unusual aspect of this graze is its path
of visibility, which passes from west to east directly over downtown
Washington, DC. The Capitol, the White House, the National Air and
Space Museum, and the entire Mall are all within the graze zone. An
event like this occurs at a given location only once every ten
years, on the average. David Dunham, president, and other local
members of the International Occultation Timing Association (IOTA),
can set up small telescopes at or near the Capitol to show those who
work there this event, if the weather forecast gives a reasonable
chance for seeing it. We can videotape the graze and show it live on
monitors connected to our camera. Anyone interested in this can
contact Dr. Dunham by e-mail at dunham@erols.com, or by phone
(within the DC toll-free area) at 301-474-4722 (home) or 240-228-
5609 (day). A map showing the graze zone across the DC area is at
http://iota.jhuapldot edu; sometime the afternoon of Sept. 7th, a view
of the Moon and the graze will also be placed there. It gives a
link to IOTA's main site at http://www.lunar-occultations.com/iota
where more information about occultations and grazes can be found.
David Dunham, President, IOTA, 1999 Sept. 6
___________________________________________________________________
Date: Thu, 2 Sep 1999 18:09:00 -0400
From: AAS Email Exploder Account [aasmail@supernova.aas.org]
Sent: Thursday, September 02, 1999 4:45 PM
To: aasmembers@aas.org
Subject: AAS Call to Action - September 1999
***************** AAS CALL TO ACTION *****************
September 2, 1999
Marcia Rieke, Chair of the Committee on Astronomy and
Public Policy
Robert Gehrz, President
Anneila Sargent, President-Elect
BACKGROUND
Congress returns from their August Recess on September
8, and the Space Science Community MUST make their
voice heard in Washington to maintain funding in FY
2000 comparable to FY 1999. Members of Congress
clearly heard from the science community, and the Space
Science Community in particular, after the VA-HUD-IA
Appropriations Subcommittee released their report in
late July, which contained deep cuts to the President's
proposed science budgets, especially to NASA.
The science community has, unfortunately, been quiet
since the House Full Appropriations Committee restored
some, but not all of the Space Science funding. The
NSF budget still has significant reductions and the
NASA budget is still much below the budget for FY 1999.
This silence is being interpreted as community
satisfaction by some on Capitol Hill.
Nothing could be further from the truth. The remaining
reductions pose a serious threat to astronomical
research, but only a concerted effort on the part of
the science community, and members of the AAS in
particular can help the situation at this point.
CALL TO ACTION
NASA's budget is still not secure. The House
Appropriations Committee restored roughly 400 million
dollars to NASA's budget, but the Office of Space
Science is still facing a 265 million dollar reduction
from the President's request. This amount is about 8%
less than the budget for FY 1999 (before correction for
inflation, which would increase the true percentage
cut) and represents a "going-out-of-business" budget
for OSS. All future Discovery and future Explorer
missions would have to be canceled. 35 million would
have to be trimmed from the R&A budget, the money that
funds individual researchers at Colleges and
Universities. The CONTOUR mission would be canceled
and the future technology development budget would lose
60 million dollars. This cut in particular would cause
the cancellation of several missions including: Pluto
Express, FIRST/Planck, GLAST, STEREO, Solar Probe and
Solar-B.
NSF's budget as outlined by the House Appropriations
Committee is still about 2% below FY 1999, after
adjustment for inflation and 7% below the President's
request. Numerous programs and activities are
threatened.
A full description of the impact of the House
Appropriations Committee's funding scheme is available
at the continuously updated AAS FY2000 Budget Action
web site: http://www.aas.org/policy/NASAACTION.html.
The House will consider the funding bill, HR 2684 on
September 8 and the Senate Appropriations Committee
will consider the VA-HUD-IA appropriations bill soon
after. The time to make your voice heard on the Hill
is NOW! Letters or Faxes are the best way to
communicate, email carries very little weight, despite
its convenience. Phone calls are also an effective way
to communicate your opinion, but the CAPP recommends
that you write a letter.
Write to your Representative, the House Leadership, and
especially to members of the Senate Appropriations
Committee and your Senator letting them know that
funding for NASA and NSF should be kept at the
President's requested level. Include an example of how
the budget cuts may affect you or your colleagues
personally. Consider having your friends and family
write as well. If every US member of the AAS had five
friends write to Congress, more than 30,000 letters
would arrive on the Hill. This would be a powerful
message indeed.
Details on how to write to members of Congress,
including their addresses are available through the AAS
Public Policy webpage. ( http://www.aas.org/policy/ )
Some points to consider including in your
communication:
NASA
1) The overall Space Science budget request for FY
2000 is only 3.6% higher than FY 1999 ($2,196.6M
vs.$2,119.2M), little more than inflation.
High-priority programs expecting to grow (within those
totals) include Mars exploration and the astronomical
search for Origins and other planetary systems.
2) The proposed cut would be the largest reduction
ever made to Space Science.
3) The subcommittee mark is, in essence, a
"going-out-of-business" budget for Space Science,
killing over half of future OSS missions, and more.
3) Space Science has demonstrated excellent cost and
schedule performance for the last 5 years. Most of the
OSS missions are being launched on time, and on (or
under) budget. NO recent Space Science missions have
experienced overruns of more than a few percent.
4) Point 3 shows that NASA is "FISCALLY RESPONSIBLE."
5) Space Science has a broad, innovative, and
effective Education and Public Outreach program that is
reaching the public, including (especially) children,
with the excitement of science. It was no fluke that
the Mars Pathfinder website received 45 million hits
per day in July 1997. Our missions and findings
receive constant national media exposure. The recent
release of the first Chandra results are yet another
example of the productivity of space science.
NSF POINTS
1) This reduction in research and education efforts is
inconsistent with the numerous studies, which have
documented the strong links between publicly-supported
research and wealth creation and benefits to society.
2) The Committee's failure to provide funding to
implement the core recommendations of the President's
Information Technology Advisory Commission is
especially troublesome as it goes against the advice
of leaders throughout industry who see basic research
in information technology as a key to growth in every
sector.
3) Earlier this year, before the Joint Economic
Committee, Dr. Eric Schmidt of Novell, Inc said: "It
is thanks to federal funding for research in the
post-war years that we have the Internet. One of the
best investments Congress can make is to assure strong
support for Federal research...except for small
increases in the past three years, overall federal
support for research has been flat or declining for a
decade. We must make substantial, consistent increases
in federal funding for basic science, engineering, and
technology research."
4) The overall impacts of the 7% reduction from the
President's FY 2000 request would be:
a) Erosion of NSF's investment in the nation's
science and engineering research and education
infrastructure and slowing of development of the
S&E knowledge base and of the intellectual and
technical personnel base.
b) A negative impact on industry and mission
agencies that rely upon the research results
and trained personnel coming from academic
research and education activities supported by
NSF.
c) A reduced investment in the nation's
universities and colleges.
d) Elimination of major portions of the proposed
information technology initiative including
the deferment of large scale advanced
supercomputing hardware needed to support
fundamental research across all disciplines of
science and engineering.
e) Reductions in collaborative efforts with
federal, academic, and private partners.
f) About 6,000 K-12 teachers would not receive
training or enhancement activities in science
and math education. Approximately 385,000
K-12 students would not benefit from the
standards-based instruction that would have
been provided by these teachers.
g) NSF would not be able to increase award size
or duration as planned and the already low
success rates for proposals would decrease
even further. (NSF awards currently average
less than $100K and are one-third the size of
NIH awards and almost half the duration.)
h) NSF would not be able to increase the
percentage of competitive grants going to new
researchers just starting their careers
to its goal of 30%, without sharply reduced
funding rates for experienced researchers.
------- End of Forwarded Message
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