Scientists, engineers and administrators at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Ca?ada Flintridge don't really care to talk much about the intersecting sets of money and politics.
Federal funding is how the Mohawk Guy (Bobak Ferdowsi, systems engineer) and all his colleagues get the scratch to explore the mysteries of our solar system, and beyond. But having that money set aside in the budget and then keeping it there from year to year is always so touch-and-go that these geniuses among us would rather chat about anything else under the sun than the ways their funding is created.
When it comes to space exploration, Congress giveth, and Congress taketh away. When a Mars rover the size of an SUV has amazingly touched down millions of miles from here once again, stunning the world with the greatest technological expertise ever known on planet Earth, space gets sexy for a few weeks. Then the politicians lose interest again.Members of Congress had most recently taketh away funding for future Mars exploration. But last Thursday a very interested local congressman, Rep. Adam Schiff announced that the House Appropriations Committee had restored funds for important missions to both Mars and Jupiter in the current fiscal year.Schiff said the package contains $1.3 billion for planetary science and restores about $100 million previously removed by the Obama administration, our staff writer Adam Poulisse reported.
The restored funding allows NASA and JPL to begin important work on the Mars 2020 rover and a mission to Jupiter's moon Europa.
That 2020 mission aims to do what we've never done before: Not only send a fantastical robot to the red planet, but also cache some rocks and dirt from it that a future return mission to Earth could carry as payload. More so than the rovers currently roaming Mars, the 2020 mission would be aimed at solving the mystery as to whether life of any kind has ever been supported there.
Remarkable research such as this is absolutely key to further understanding of our universe. Pure exploration alone justifies the mission. But JPL's work is a key component to Southern California's economy as well. Thousands of highly trained workers are employed at the lab, and its existence here is important for dozens of local private contractors.
Plus, Mars rocks!