What's New Friday March 28, 2008

WHAT’S NEW   Robert L. Park   Friday   28 Mar 08   Washington, DC

1.  ASLEEP ON MARS: THE "WASHINGTON MONUMENT" PLOY?  
It’s a lot easier to get Congress to create popular new initiatives than 
to pay the cost of keeping them up.   The most popular tourist attraction 
in the Capital is the Washington Monument; if Congress threatens to cut 
its operating budget the Park Service announces it will have to close the 
Monument.  Told on Tuesday that the cost of the Mars Rover mission must be 
cut 40%, Steve Squyres of Cornell, the PI, announced that either Spirit or 
Opportunity would have to be euthanized or at least hibernate for the rest 
of the fiscal year.  Are they kidding?  The cyber generation has bonded 
with the rovers.  Designed for a three month lifetime, the cuddly rovers 
have been going for four years, living on sunshine and never complaining 
about the cold nights.  You might as well announce that the National Zoo 
plans to cut expenses by tossing the panda cubs into the pirana tank.  
That was clear to, Michael Griffin, NASA Administrator, and on Wednesday 
he ordered the budget cut rescinded immediately. 

2.  NASA: RESIGNATION OF TWO TOP SCIENTISTS UNRELATED.
We know Michael Griffin immediately overrode the decision, but we don’t 
yet know who ordered the cut in the Mars rover budget in the first place.  
NASA Chief Scientist Alan Stern then announced his resignation.  Maybe he 
he had ordered the money be taken out of the Rover.  Stern joined NASA 
less than a year ago as head of the Science Mission Directorate.  The NASA 
staff was still trying to absorb the news about Stern’s resignation when 
it was revealed that NASA’s chief scientist, John Mather, had submitted 
his resignation.  A senior astrophysicist at the Goddard Space Flight 
Center in Maryland, and an adjunct professor of physics at the University 
of Maryland, Mather shared the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics with George 
Smoot http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN06/wn100606.html .  However, it was 
just a coincidence that the resignations of Stern and Mather came so close 
together.  Mather told WN he had resigned to devote more time to 
preparations for the James Webb Space Telescope, and said his resignation 
was not at all abrupt. 

3.  ISS: A REPORT FROM THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION. 
WN reported in January that a Japanese astronaut was training with a world-
champion boomerang thrower to see if a boomerang can circle in zero 
gravity  http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN08/wn012508.html .
We are pleased to announce that Takao Doi has now conducted the experiment 
and reports that “it flew the same way it does on Earth.”  The experiment 
does helps to put the ISS in perspective.

4.  SCIENCE DEBATE 2008:  NOT LOOKING PROMISING. 
The hope was to raise the profile of science in the campaign.  So far, 
science has no profile at all.  I can't recall it coming in the campaign.  
Organizers have not quite given up on an 18 Apr debate in Philadelphia, 
but it’s not looking good.  The only thing that’s clear so far is that 
this is a lousy way to pick a President.

THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND.
Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the
University of Maryland, but they should be.
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