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Virinchi Tadikonda

NASA budget 2015: More cuts, more politics. - 0 views

www.slate.com/...5_more_cuts_more_politics.html

shared by Virinchi Tadikonda on 27 Jun 14 - No Cached
  • In 2014 NASA got a total of $17.646 billion. The 2015 request is for $17.460 billion, a reduction of $186 million dollars, or about a 1 percent cut. That could’ve been worse. As we’ll see, though, it’s where those cuts are going that are bad.
    • Virinchi Tadikonda
      Virinchi Tadikonda on 27 Jun 14
       
      A reason for the lack of media coverage can be actually due to NASA not spending as much money to use for missions. A cut down of missions lead to less media coverage for typical launches unless major launches occur, such as a mission to the moon. 
  • ut I still fear NASA will have to cut other missions to fund this one
  • Some areas got more money, like Space Technology. That includes tech that will help the proposed asteroid retrieval mission.
    • Virinchi Tadikonda
      Virinchi Tadikonda on 27 Jun 14
       
      NASA seems to be directing it's resources more towards missions that are bigger. This means more funding, and cutting of smaller missions. 
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Commercial Spaceflight will see an increase of more than $150 million to a total of $848 million. That includes buying launches from commercial companies like SpaceX, and I’m all for that. That comes with a $300 million reduction to the Exploration Systems Development,
    • Virinchi Tadikonda
      Virinchi Tadikonda on 27 Jun 14
       
      Commercial Spaceflight by NASA is defined as flights that are for satellite repair and launching. This means that you can see crews up in space to repair GOES-R, Hubble, ISS, and other kind of satellites. 
  • Earth Science: cut by $56 million (given that so many in Congress are climate change deniers who want to cut Earth-observing missions, I think this may be a mistake). Astrophysics: cut by $61 million (including mothballing the wonderful SOFIA aircraft unless a German partner can pony up the cash; see page 15 of the report). Planetary Science: cut by $65 million. That last one is almost a victory, given how the White House has tried to eviscerate planetary exploration over the past few years. But don’t be fooled; these cuts would hurt. A lot. (Note added after I wrote this article but before it was posted: Casey Dreier at The Planetary Society has more on this situation.)
    • Virinchi Tadikonda
      Virinchi Tadikonda on 27 Jun 14
       
      This paragraph alone shows how space exploration is going downhill, and that such explorations are not necessary. Astrophysics and Earth Science are two major fields that require much research for space exploration. Without either or a lack of information from either departments due to cuts, this just spells bad news. 
  • Again, let me remind you that this is a budget request. Congress will have a different budget for NASA,
    • Virinchi Tadikonda
      Virinchi Tadikonda on 27 Jun 14
       
      This is a budget request, but the government is much more stingy. These numbers for cuts can be much higher without any warning. 
Virinchi Tadikonda

Are Solar Sails the Future of Space Travel? - 0 views

www.space.com/il-tech-space-exploration.html

shared by Virinchi Tadikonda on 27 Jun 14 - No Cached
    • Virinchi Tadikonda
      Virinchi Tadikonda on 27 Jun 14
       
      Innovation is one of the most important factors of space travel. This simple design can turn into something that we can use to potentially travel vast distances. 
  • But it took a long time for solar sails to go from concept to reality. The first successful demonstration of the propulsion system didn't come until 2010, when Japan's Ikaros probe deployed its 46-foot-wide (14 m) sail and became the first craft ever to cruise through space on the backs of photons.
    • Virinchi Tadikonda
      Virinchi Tadikonda on 27 Jun 14
       
      This just tells us that nothing comes easy, and that we might actually be a long distance away from achieving the next space milestone, which is setting foot on another planet. 
  • The $27 million Sunjammer mission, which takes its name from the Arthur C. Clarke story, will use a sail built by California-based company L'Garde that measures 124 feet (38 m) on a side. The sail, made of an advanced material called Kapton, is just 5 microns (about 0.0002 inches) thick. It weighs less than 70 pounds (32 kilograms) and packs down to the size of a dishwasher, NASA officials have said.
    • Virinchi Tadikonda
      Virinchi Tadikonda on 27 Jun 14
       
      As much as funds are being cut from NASA and budget cuts are taking a toll on all space related activities, research is definitely crucial. But we do not hear about these researches in the news. 
  • ...4 more annotations...
    • Virinchi Tadikonda
      Virinchi Tadikonda on 27 Jun 14
       
      Prevention of disasters is one of the most important security aspects of technology. This kind of probes will enhance safety among the public but the one thing I see is that the media has not covered this. It is not a big aspect of technology it seems, and I disagree. 
  • And some researchers have even higher hopes for solar sails, suggesting that a truly enormous sail —one the size of Texas, for example — could send a spaceship to another star system in just a few centuries. (A space-based laser would have to shine a powerful beam on the sail as the craft moved farther and farther away from the sun, however.)   
    • Virinchi Tadikonda
      Virinchi Tadikonda on 27 Jun 14
       
      This is the definition of future research for the benefit of society in the generations to come. This kind of technology can potentially unite us with another Earth. Unfortunately this is the first one I have found about any kind of research with solar panels in media. 
  • Several upcoming missions aim to harness the subtle push of sunlight, using gossamer "solar sails" to cruise through the heavens like boats through the sea.
  • A spacecraft equipped with a sail 1,300 feet (400 meters) wide, for example, could travel 1.3 billion miles (2.1 billion kilometers) per year, allowing it to escape the sun's sphere of influence in just a decade or so, according to researchers behind the Interstellar Probe, a NASA concept mission proposed about 15 years ago.
wstrahan

Greece is standing up to EU neocolonialism | Costas Douzinas and Petros Papaconstantino... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...eece-bailout-eu-neocolonialism

#neocolonialism greece

shared by wstrahan on 25 Jun 14 - No Cached
  • The bailout of Greece is not a gift or grant but a loan bearing high interest.
  • According to IMF estimates, Greece will pay €131bn in refinancing and interest payments between 2009 and 2014, far more than the initial bailout loan of €110bn.
  • The European governments now propose to offer a second loan, if Greece accepts an even more odious set of measures and sells off the family silver.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • The privatisation plan includes the sale of 17% of the public power corporation, the engineroom of growth, which will remove the state's controlling interest.
  • Under the new plan, foreign emissaries will be assigned to the main ministries and the company set up to privatise public wealth.
  • The market value of this stake is just €400m, because of the stock exchange decline. But the corporation owns 15 power plants and the budget for a new plant about to be built is €1.3bn.
  • The loss of economic sovereignty is accompanied by unprecedented attacks on the political and legal integrity of the country.
  • Under the new plan, foreign emissaries will be assigned to the main ministries and will run the companies that will privatise the public wealth.
jurasovaib

National Cancer Institute - 0 views

www.cancer.gov/...research-funding

jurasovaib008 cancer spending budget NCI

shared by jurasovaib on 29 Jun 14 - No Cached
  • jurasovaib on 29 Jun 14
     
    A fact sheet about the National Cancer Institute funding of cancer research. National Cancer Institute Fact Sheet 1.1
  • jurasovaib on 29 Jun 14
     
    A fact sheet about the National Cancer Institute funding of cancer research. National Cancer Institute Fact Sheet 1.1
abdulrahmanabdo

Researchers split over NSA hacking : Nature News & Comment - 0 views

www.nature.com.proxy.library.vcu.edu/...split-over-nsa-hacking-1.13911

NSAhacking

shared by abdulrahmanabdo on 04 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • Furthermore, the NSA has designated more than 150 colleges and universities as centres of excellence, which qualifies students and faculty members for extra support. It can also fund research indirectly through other agencies, and so the total amount of support may be much higher. A leaked budget document says that the NSA spends more than $400 million a year on research and technology — although only a fraction of this money might go to research outside the agency itself.
    • abdulrahmanabdo
      abdulrahmanabdo on 04 Jul 14
       
      Shows the sort of investing the NSA goes through in order to receive its top-level of intelligence gathering that it does yearly.
  • Many US researchers, especially those towards the basic-research end of the spectrum, are comfortable with the NSA’s need for their expertise.
    • abdulrahmanabdo
      abdulrahmanabdo on 04 Jul 14
       
      Shows that some are okay with what the NSA is conducting and shows the partnership the US researches have with the NSA. The researches are among many of the processes that paints the full picture of how NSA incorporates their domestic surveillance by using their PRISM program, which is the main focus of this inquiry project.
  • “I understand what’s in the newspapers,” he says, “but the NSA is funding serious long-term fundamental research and I’m happy they’re doing it.”
    • abdulrahmanabdo
      abdulrahmanabdo on 04 Jul 14
       
      A new view on the NSA issue that Snowden revealed.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • also wants to maintain the relationship.
    • abdulrahmanabdo
      abdulrahmanabdo on 04 Jul 14
       
      It almost seems as if they both need each other. This could be used in the article to illustrate how the NSA is partnered with US researches and need them to function. Another issue that would be covered in the inquiry paper to argue one of the many pieces that the NSA uses to accomplish its goal.
  • When it was revealed that the NSA had inserted a ‘back door’ into the NIST standards to allow snooping, some of them felt betrayed. “We certainly had no idea that they were tampering with products or standards,” says Green.
    • abdulrahmanabdo
      abdulrahmanabdo on 04 Jul 14
       
      A feeling of betrayal from the NSA to a researcher at Johns Hopkins (Mr. Green), can prove to be damaging as more researchers from all over the US find out about this betrayal and start to rethink their partnership with the NSA which then hinders the NSA advancement in intelligence gathering. It would seem that the NSA is hurting itself rather than helping itself at this moment, an interesting view to point out in the inquiry paper.
  • “There was a sense of certain lines that NSA wouldn’t cross,” says Felten, “and now we’re not so sure about that.”
    • abdulrahmanabdo
      abdulrahmanabdo on 04 Jul 14
       
      More proof of the annotation that was done directly above this one.
  • abdulrahmanabdo on 04 Jul 14
     
    Source #2 for my Research Nugget #1.
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