Space Quote: NASA Funding May Not Be What You Think It Is

Posted on by onespaceman2000

“While NASA’s programs are very popular and highly visible, we really don’t spend much on our space agency. In 2022, the U.S. treasury took in revenues of $4.9 trillion and then charged up another $1.4 trillion so it could spend a whopping $6.3 trillion. Of that largesse NASA received an historically generous appropriation of $24 billion. Still, that was just 0.35% of federal spending.”

-Statement by Greg Autry, Clinical Professor of Space Leadership, Policy & Business at Thunderbird School of Global Management, ASU, in a Forbes magazine article, “Pennywise, Future Foolish: Congress Moves To Cut NASA Science Budget.” As with foreign assistance, Americans tend to assume NASA has greater funding than it really has. At the same time, the majority of Americans want a strong space program.

Space Quote: Alien Crash Retrieval and Reverse Engineering?

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Roswell road sign. (Washington Post)

“In 2019, the UAPTF director tasked me to identify all Special Access Programs & Controlled Access Programs (SAPs/CAPs) we needed to satisfy our congressionally mandated mission.

At the time, due to my extensive executive-level intelligence support duties, I was cleared to literally all relevant compartments and in a position of extreme trust in both my military and civilian capacities.

I was informed, in the course of my official duties, of a multi-decade UAP crash retrieval and reverse engineering program to which I was denied access to those additional read-on’s.

I made the decision based on the data I collected, to report this information to my superiors and multiple Inspectors General, and in effect become a whistleblower.”

–Prepared statement by David Grusch, Former National Reconnaissance Officer Representative on DOD’s Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) Task Force, for a hearing before the House Oversight Committee held earlier this week. The hearing was titled “Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Implications on National Security, Public Safety, and Government Transparency.” The hearing is part of a series of such hearings calling for greater transparency by the federal government regarding UAP issues.

Space Quote: Meteorite Hunters

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): A meteorite in the Antarctic. (Rutgers University)

“We get a piece for our collection and a new meteorite sample for potential research…In turn, they know what they can sell the specimen for because they know what kind of meteorite it is.”

-Statement by Alan Rubin, a research geochemist and curator of the University of California, Los Angeles meteorite collection, in a Wall Street Journal article titled “A $25,000 Prize Still Sits in the Maine Woods. Meteorite Hunters Aren’t Giving Up.” The article discusses the meteorite-hunting hobby of some individuals and how it has created a symbiotic relationship between hunters and scientists. As another scientist in the article stated, ““We as scientists, with a few exceptions, don’t have the time, effort or money to go hunting meteorites.” You can also find the article here.

Space Quote: Did Harvard Professor Avi Loeb Find Evidence of Intelligent Alien Life?

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Characters from SyFy’s television series Battlestar Galactica. (SyFy)

“Our findings open a new frontier in astronomy of studying what lies outside the solar system through microscopes rather than telescopes.”

-Statement by Harvard Professor Avi Loeb to USAToday regarding his recent recovery of what is believed to be fragments of an asteroid from outside our solar system that crashed into the Earth back in 2014. More tests are being conducted on the pieces recovered from the Pacific Ocean to determine whether the material is natural or artificially made. If the latter, it may be the first evidence of intelligent life beyond Earth.

Space Quote: NASA and Another Type of Tourism

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): OceanGate’s Titan submersible. (Associated Press)

“OceanGate is doing for deep sea exploration, discovery, and research what companies like SpaceX, Blue Origin, World View, and Virgin Galactic are doing for space exploration and discovery…I look forward to supporting OceanGate’s effort to document the Titanic and its role as a deep ocean artificial reef when I join the expedition as a crewmember this summer.“

-Statement by NASA planetary scientist Alan Stern in an OceanGate press release from March 2022. Dr. Stern is best known for his role as the principal investigator of the New Horizons mission to explore Pluto and the Kuiper Belt. The press release also discusses NASA’s assistance to OceanGate in the development of the Titan submersible that is still lost in the Atlantic after a mission to take tourists to see the late Titanic. While Dr. Stern mentions exploration and discovery, this was simply tourism gone wrong. Tourism is a lucrative aspect of the four space companies listed above, but it is not without its risks. Fortunately, Dr. Stern had a good trip last summer, and we can only hope the five individuals on the Titan will also return safely to the surface.