Angry in the Great White North
Exploring the solar system on a dollar a day
Wednesday, March 15, 2006 at 06:24 PM

Read other posts by Steve Janke published by the National Post
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Scientists at NASA are angry that there is not enough money to do, well, everything:

One hot-button topic, for example, is a funding cut for a mission to Europa, a moon of Jupiter, with possible high value in term of exobiology. "The Europa line is gone because we don't have the money to do it now. We didn't say that we're never going to do it. It's just that we don't have it within this budget framework," [NASA Associate Administrator for Science, Mary Cleave,] responded.

"If you want to do Europa, the money is going to have to come from somewhere," Cleave said.

The scientists are upset because they weren't consulted before the cuts were made. I can't be sure that was true. I suspect some scientists were consulted, but not all scientists.

Well, there is no satisfying everyone.

But as Mary Cleave said, the money has to come from somewhere. I wonder if the private sector could step in. Why not offer a group of pharmaceutical and bio-engineering companies exclusive rights to exploit the practical applications of any biological discoveries made in such a mission? Pick an extremely long timeframe, say 100 years, to recognize the potential difficulties in bringing any potential products to market.

Similar offers could be made to natural resource concerns to help fund a trip to an asteroid or to the moon to mine for resources.

The money they put up might be enough to tip the balance and get the mission back on.

Maybe the costs are too high to realize a profit, but I don't see why NASA can't float an idea like this. Or maybe it's obvious that it can't work. Anyone have other ideas?

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