NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman delivered some potentially good news at a Senate hearing this week, as well as some slightly odd news: in an environment of constrained budgets, the space agency was somehow finding resources to contest the decision to relegate Pluto from planet status.
"I am very much in the camp of 'Make Pluto A Planet Again'," Isaacman told the members of the Senate Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies.
"I would say we are doing some papers right now on a position that we would love to escalate through the scientific community to revisit this discussion and ensure that Clyde Tombaugh gets the credit he received once and rightfully deserves to receive again."
Isaacman was responding to US Senator Jerry Moran (R-KS), the chair, who brought up the subject.
Clyde Tombaugh, a US astronomer, discovered Pluto in 1930. Pluto was classified as a planet until 2006, when the International Astronomical Union (IAU) adopted a set of criteria for planetary status. To be classified as a planet, an object had to be in orbit around the Sun – check. It had to be nearly round under its own gravity – check. It had to clear the neighborhood around its orbit – nope … so Pluto was reclassified as a dwarf planet, and the argument over that decision has continued ever since.
It is into this controversy that Isaacman has tossed the agency's hat. While scientific debate is to be commended, given that the budget request Isaacman was defending would cut NASA science spending by almost half, "Make Pluto A Planet Again" seems a curious diversion for the limited resources that could be left within the agency.
Pluto was, of course, famously imaged by NASA's New Horizons probe. This is the same mission that could be on the chopping block if the budget request Isaacman was defending were to be approved. The principal investigator for the New Horizons mission, Dr Alan Stern, is very much on the side of Pluto being classified as a planet once again, judging by his comments on the IAU decision in Chasing New Horizons, which chronicles the mission.
Otherwise, the hearing was largely a retread of one earlier this week in which Isaacman accepted congratulations for the successful Artemis II mission, while also trying to explain how NASA would be able to undertake the ambitious goals set for the agency, such as establishing a moonbase, all while living with a reduced budget. Not all the lawmakers appeared convinced.
While much of Isaacman's testimony will have worried scientists, pondering what the administrator meant by launching with 70 percent of a mission's planned capability, there were a few glimmers of light. Last week, NASA boasted that the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope would be ready for launch ahead of schedule in September this year.
During the hearing, Isaacman hinted that it could be ready sooner than that. He told Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD): "You may in the near future be adjusting your marks to talk about Nancy Grace Roman launching in August instead of September."
For some, an earlier launch date is proof that efficiencies are indeed possible in NASA's bloated and forever-delayed programs. For others, there will be a lingering worry: have any important steps been skipped to bring the mission in ahead of schedule? ®
Source: The register