[Sixstrings]

NASA has released an interesting video timelapse, showing the camera view approaching Jupiter and its moon system.

Caption in the video, "for humanity, our first glimpse of celestial harmonic motion:"

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '[')b]Juno Approach Movie of Jupiter and the Galilean Moons
https://youtu.be/XpsQimYhNkA

[Sixstrings]

Did anyone watch the above video? It's the first time human eyes have seen camera footage of a multiple moon system in motion (in time lapse), from a spacecraft approaching the system.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '[')b]NASA's Juno spacecraft enters Jupiter's orbit

The arrival at Jupiter was dramatic. As Juno approached its target, it fired its rocket engine to slow itself down and gently slipped into orbit. Because of the communication time lag between Jupiter and Earth, Juno was on autopilot when it executed the daring move. ...

Scientists have promised close-up views of the planet when Juno skims the cloud tops during the 20-month, $1.1 billion mission.
http://www.foxnews.com/science/2016/07/05/nasas-juno-spacecraft-enters-jupiters-orbit.html

[Plantagenet]

ENJOY the JUNO probe----this will be the last big NASA planetary missions for a while. For some reason Obama isn't a big fan of NASA and the cuts he made in NASA's budget starting 7 years ago mean that there aren't any other big missions in the pipeline now.

It takes years and years to plan the missions and organize the science research team and physically build the spaceship---and with this mission NASA has used up all the planetary science missions they had gotten started before Obama took office and cut the budget.

The next big planetary mission may be well 10 years way. A mission to Jupiter's moon Europa might happen sometime in the 2020s.....assuming the next President puts some more money in NASA's budget.

[Lore]

Yeah, the would be President Trump isn't a big fan of science either. So, I have to agree with Plant. Space exploration will have to be left up to some extraterrestrial civilization.

[Synapsid]

Plantagenet,

I'm a little confused here. Last I looked Congress controls NASA's budget, and I don't believe Congress has been paying much attention to what Obama wants or doesn't want.

Can you clarify?

[Subjectivist]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Synapsid', 'P')lantagenet,

I'm a little confused here. Last I looked Congress controls NASA's budget, and I don't believe Congress has been paying much attention to what Obama wants or doesn't want.

Can you clarify?

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Subjectivist', '
')I'm a little confused here....

[Sixstrings]

A couple JPL videos:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '[')img]https://i.ytimg.com/vi/SgEsf4QcR0Q/hqdefault.jpg?custom=true&w=196&h=110&stc=true&jpg444=true&jpgq=90&sp=68&sigh=y27sM3C-XpVKQw33OaJe14Kmtp4[/img]

Jupiter: Into the Unknown (NASA Juno Mission Trailer)

"It's a monster. It's unforgiving. It's relentless. Deep inside are the secrets we're after, the secrets of our early solar system.

It's the biggest, baddest planet in the solar system. The biggest baddest radiation, the biggest baddest magnetic field. No spacecraft has ever flown so close to Jupiter, and this deep into the radiation belts."
https://youtu.be/SgEsf4QcR0Q

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', 'E')NJOY the JUNO probe----this will be the last big NASA planetary missions for a while. For some reason Obama isn't a big fan of NASA and the cuts he made in NASA's budget starting 7 years ago mean that there aren't any other big missions in the pipeline now.

[Sixstrings]

NASA's budget has been cut more and more, over time:



And then with climate change stuff added in, that's like unfunded mandate.. adding more things, while cutting the funding, that's an effective cut from both ends.

I'm not against the climate change things -- but that should have had the funding added with it.

NASA's current budget is only $19 billion. The Department of Commerce doesn't even do anything, yet it's got half that budget.

To compare that to something else in the budget -- the F-35 alone cost $1.5 trillion to develop (some of that paid by allies, and I don't know the breakdown but at least a trillion of that was probably the US).

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '[')b]How DOD’s $1.5 Trillion F-35 Broke the Air Force
http://www.cnbc.com/2014/07/31/how-dods-15-trillion-f-35-broke-the-air-force.html

[ennui2]

NASA's days are numbered. The future of space is private-industry (think SpaceX and Blue Origin).

Why waste all this money with the Mars program when Musk will probably get there first, for instance? It's a fruitless duplication of effort. Constellation is really just Apollo warmed over. It's more of a step back than a step forward.

If NASA phased out its manned program then maybe it would have more money leftover for space probes and telescopes.

But no, let's not look at it in this much detail because we can just throw up our hands and bash Obama for not doing enough for NASA ( despite the fact NASA scored a win with Juno.) Just more mindless ODS Idiocy.

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ennui2', 'W')hy waste all this money

[Sixstrings]

Long story short, I'm just saying --

* I think NASA's budget should be tripled, to $60 billion. Cut the military to find the money; let the allies defend themselves more, and the US could start investing in a growth-based future (in space, and all the tech that will come from that) versus us just being this global cop country that's gotta sit on everybody's border to defend them. That is a losing business for us to be in, long term, I think.

Eventually China's just gonna take over anyway. We're like the British Empire was -- but to not go extinct, we should look to the future and pour money into it so the USA stays #1.

* There should be at least $20 billion in the budget, annually, every year -- for science probes and rovers and space telescopes and all that. This is just one of the best things our government does, with money, just a contribution to humanity in general and the future.

And, it's just cool, is it not? No other country in the world can, or is willing to do these things -- but the US can, and does.

My argument is we should stop cutting the budget for it, and do MORE of it. European Space Agency does a few neat things, but far less than NASA.. because they don't put the money in.. their budget is only $5 billion.

China and India are very keen to do more in space -- but they've got a tech gap. They've got to repeat the whole 1960s, over there. China is so interested in it though, as a source of national pride, and yes they really do want to mine helium 3 on the moon -- that we should be taking that seriously, and get serious about the competition while we can still be ahead.

All science funding in general, is good -- things like the large haldron collider, that Europe did, etc.

I'm just saying, triple that NASA budget. To $60 billion.

1/3 for probes and rover and telescopes.. 1/3 of the money going to public private partnerships, like Spacex and Blue Origin and new ones.. and also the climate change stuff / earth based sciences nasa does. And then leave a solid 1/3 -- $20 billion annually -- for manned missions and a moon base and Mars base.

NASA has a lot of great plans, actually.. they just need the FUNDING.

They've already got the plans -- lots of stuff about exoplanets. They've even got a warp drive theory team, that's already made progress. The very longterm interest / goal really is getting out to an exoplanet -- a whole other Earth.

The stepping stones to all of that though, are those first steps.. orbital colonies, and the steps to get to that, it's gonna take work and doing and learning but they'd figure it out. And then, living on the moon and Mars. And then, manned missions to as far away as Jupiter.

All I'm saying here is triple NASA's budget. They could find the money, even $60 billion is not a lot, if something is a national priority for the future, just as the Apollo missions were and "manifest destiny" was, in the 1800s.

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', '
')
Did the sequester that cut the military, also cut NASA?

[Sixstrings]

My proposal of $60 billion is a bit much I suppose ( ) / we gotta have that $600 billion for the military, they really couldn't cut that by as much as $40 billion.

But they could find another $20 billion anyway, at least, that nasa budget should be $40 billion and not $20 billion.

To just accelerate all these things in the works.

Assuming the $19 billion budget isn't further cut / Mars mission postponed and canceled more.. then as it stands, the Mars mission will be "in the 2030s."

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '[')b]The most powerful rocket ever built
NASA's Space Launch System, designed to carry astronauts on deep space missions, underwent its final ground test last week.
https://youtu.be/Oai8BwWykRw

[Sixstrings]

This is what Plant was saying:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '[')b]Juno was a success—but there is precious little coming after it
Advisor claims Obama "revitalized" planetary science, but the opposite is true.

But the party is just about over. NASA, and more particularly the Obama administration, have failed to invest in future planetary science missions. ...

All of the stunning successes of the planetary exploration program, from Curiosity landing on Mars to New Horizons visiting Pluto, were planned and largely executed before Obama became president. He could have furthered these programs by continuing robust funding for a Mars sample return mission in the 2020s (which now may not happen), more fully embracing a Europa mission that Congress has aggressively pushed, and supporting ambitious ideas such as a lander for Titan's methane lakes. ...

"Now the Obama legacy is, unfortunately, going to be that NASA’s presence in the Solar System is going to be diminished, particularly in the outer Solar System," Dreier said. "When Obama leaves office, every mission in the outer Solar System except for New Horizons will be ending in 2017. Juno, Cassini—those are done in 2017. Dawn ends, too. New Horizons is way out in the Kuiper belt. And that’s it. It’s the first time the United States hasn’t had a presence in the outer Solar System since 1972 when they launched Pioneer 10."
http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/07/white-house-tries-to-take-credit-for-planetary-programs-it-gutted/

[vox_mundi]

"My God, it's full of stars!" ...

NASA to reveal 'surprising' activity on Jupiter's moon Europa

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', ' ') There's something going on beneath the surface of Jupiter's icy moon Europa. But what?

NASA teased a "surprising" announcement for Monday, based on Hubble Space Telescope images of the celestial body, which many experts believe could contain a subsurface ocean, even possibly some form of life.

The US space agency has already proclaimed that Europa has "strong evidence for an ocean of liquid water beneath its crust and which could host conditions favorable for life."

At Monday's announcement, "astronomers will present results from a unique Europa observing campaign that resulted in surprising evidence of activity that may be related to the presence of a subsurface ocean," it said in a statement.

The announcement will be made at a news conference at 2 pm (1800 GMT) Monday featuring Paul Hertz, NASA's director of astrophysics, and William Sparks, an astronomer with the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore.

... Last year, data from the Hubble Space Telescope confirmed that Jupiter's largest moon, Ganymede, has an underground ocean that contains more water than Earth's, broadening the hunt for places in the solar system where life might be able to exist.