Você está na página 1de 49

Houston Urban Debate League 2011 Summer Debate Institute

Trade Off DA

INDEX ***Commercial/Space Station***.....................................................................................................................2 Commercial Access 1NC..........................................................................................................................2 ***Uniqueness Extensions***..........................................................................................................................5 ***Link Extensions***.....................................................................................................................................8 Constellation Links...................................................................................................................................8 Centers Link..............................................................................................................................................9 ISS Internal Link EXT............................................................................................................................10 ***Impact Extensions***.......................................................................................................................12 Space Dominance Impact.......................................................................................................................12 Economy Impact.....................................................................................................................................13 Russia Relations......................................................................................................................................14 International Cooperation Impact...........................................................................................................16 Space Cooperation..................................................................................................................................17 A2: Commercial Inevitable NASA $ Key...........................................................................................19 ***Weather Satellites Trade Off***...............................................................................................................20 Weather Satellites 1NC...........................................................................................................................20 Water & Food Shortages........................................................................................................................22 ***Impact Extensions***.......................................................................................................................24 Atmospheric Science Impact..................................................................................................................24 ***NEO Detection Trade Off***....................................................................................................................25 NEO Detection 1NC...............................................................................................................................25 ***James Webb Trade Off***........................................................................................................................26 The Webb 1NC.......................................................................................................................................26 ***Uniqueness Extensions***...............................................................................................................29 ***Link Extensions***..........................................................................................................................31 ***Impact Extensions***.......................................................................................................................36 HEG Impact............................................................................................................................................36 Competitiveness......................................................................................................................................42 ***Affirmative Answers***............................................................................................................................44 Link Turn................................................................................................................................................44 No Link...................................................................................................................................................45 James Webb N/U....................................................................................................................................46 Commercial - Small Budget Solves........................................................................................................49

Houston Urban Debate League 2011 Summer Debate Institute ***Commercial/Space Station*** Commercial Access 1NC

Trade Off DA

A. Uniqueness: Commercial trips to the I.S.S. are funded now but based on a limited budget the alternative is Russian launches Moskowitz 11
(Clara, February 15, Commercial Spaceflight a Priority Under NASA's Proposed Budget, http://www.space.com/10867-nasabudget-commercial-spaceflight.html)

Given limited funding, the space agency has decided to prioritize the International Space Station (ISS), and the effort to stimulate private U.S. companies to build spacecraft capable of carrying crews there, NASA administrator Charles Bolden said at a press conference yesterday. "It's difficult fiscal times and we had to make very difficult fiscal choices," Bolden said. "The centerpiece is ISS. If I want to sustain it and have it safe for crew, I need a way to get cargo and crews there as quickly and safely as possible. With that goal in mind, we changed the balance of funding to commercial crew and the vehicles themselves." NASA's three space shuttles are set to retire this year,
leaving NASA with a gap in its ability to ferry astronauts and cargo to the station, which is expected to operate for at least another nine years. Until private U.S. spacecraft are available, NASA will have to buy seats for its astronauts to ride aboard Russia's Soyuz capsules. (NASA sends some U.S. astronauts on Soyuz flights every year as part of a deal with the Russian Federal Space Agency.) Where most sectors of NASA would receive less funding than was recommended in the NASA Authorization Act Congress passed in October 2010, commercial spaceflight would receive more money under the new budget blueprint. The Obama administration budget request offers $850 million for development of private spacecraft, while the bill only stipulated $500 million for 2012. "With the extension of space station to at least 2020, making commercial crew successful is a high priority to close the gap," said Douglas Cooke, NASA's associate administrator for exploration systems. "The budget numbers have been increased to bring these on in a

meaningful timeframe." Given those levels of funding, Cooke said he would hope commercial spacecraft would be online by 2014 to 2016. B. Link: New programs will tradeoff with commercial spaceflight McGee 11
Principal Research Scientist, Founder at Astrowright Spaceflight Consulting LLC, Adjunct professor of the physical science department at the University of Southern Nevada, and Radiological Engineer at NSTec (Ben, March 5, Congress strikes back: The REAL Space Act, http://astrowright.wordpress.com/2011/05/03/congress-strikes-back-the-real-space-act/? blogsub=confirming#subscribe-blog) Now, we dont yet know how this bill will fare. In all likelihood, any

plan to return to the Moon would be in direct funding competition with NASAs push to help develop a commercial space transportation system. At this point, we have to hurry up and wait to see if NewSpace vs. Lunar turns into anything other than a glancing blow.

Houston Urban Debate League 2011 Summer Debate Institute C. Impact: First, US dependence on Russia for the ISS allows Iranian proliferation Hays and Danielson 10

Trade Off DA

Peter and Dennis, phd. Senior Scientist at the Policy and Strategy Devision of the Science Applications Internatioanl Corporation and Senior Technical Manager at the Jacobs Technology National Security Space Office in the Pentagon ( Improving Space Security through Enhanced International Cooperation, May, http://www.afspc.af.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-100226085.pdf) Unfortunately, however, it is not clear that bringing Russia aboard the ISS appreciably slowed its sale of weapons and dual-use technologies to states of concern such as Iran. In 1995, Russia signed an $800 million agreement with Iran to complete construction of the Bushehr nuclear reactor and in 1996 reports surfaced accusing Russia of providing significant and comprehensive assistance to Iranian ballistic missile development programs. 6 Congress responded with several approaches that sanctioned the Russians and eventually passed the Iran Nonproliferation Act (INA), a bill signed into law in March 2000 that allowed sanctions but did not make them mandatory as in previous legislation. Section 6 of the INA: Prohibits the US government from making payments in connection with ISS to the Russian space agency, organizations, or entities under its control, or any other element of the Russian government, after 1 January 1999, unless the president makes a determination that Russias policy is to oppose proliferation to Iran, that Russia is demonstrating a sustained commitment to seek out and prevent the transfer of WMD [weapons of mass destruction] and missile systems to Iran, and that neither the Russian space agency nor any entity reporting to it has made such transfers for at least one year prior to such determination. 7 No president has yet made a determination that Russia has a sustained commitment to oppose proliferation to Iran but in 2005 and 2008 the provisions of the INA were amended to allow the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) an ISS exemption that now extends through 1 July 2016. 8 This exemption has been critical in maintaining the schedule for completing construction of the ISS, especially as NASA became increasingly dependent on Russia for astronaut safety and transportation following the 2001 cancellation of the US crew return vehicle in favor of a Soyuz lifeboat and the stand down of the Shuttle fleet between February 2003 and July 2005 after the Columbia accident. With the price of Russian transportation to the ISS rising to $51 million per astronaut beginning in 2012, 9 no clear abatement of Russian technology exports or

strong support for more stringent UN sanctions on Iran, and current US indecision on whether and when it will deploy its next human space launch capabilities, the space cooperation experience with Russia illustrates just how difficult it can be to reconcile space cooperation and counterproliferation objectives.

Houston Urban Debate League 2011 Summer Debate Institute Second, Iranian proliferation leads to Israeli launch and nuclear war Schoenfeld 1998
[Gabriel, Senior editor, Commentary Magazine; Thinking About the Unthinkable in the Middle East, December, http://www.commentarymagazine.com/article/thinking-about-the-unthinkable-in-the-middle-east/#] Now, once again, the question

Trade Off DA

has arisen of what forcible steps Israel might take in order to deny nuclear weapons to its enemies. This past September, Ephraim Sneh, a general in the Israeli army reserves and a leading member of the opposition Labor party, spoke publicly of the possibility that the IDF might be compelled to "deliver a conventional counterstrike or preemptive strike" against Iranian atomic facilities. This was not long
after Teheran tested its Shahab-3 missile--to the yawns of the international community--and then displayed the missile in a military parade with banners draped from it reading, "Israel should be wiped from the map"--to still more yawns by the international community. Sneh was roundly criticized at home for his remarks, not because he was wrong but because, as Uzi Landau, the chairman of the Knesset's foreign-affairs and security committee, explained, "unnecessary chatter" could heighten the likelihood of Israel's being targeted for attack. But whether or not Sneh should have spoken out, the option he referred to may be less viable than it once was. Both Iran and Iraq have already taken measures--concealment, dispersion, hardening, surface-to-air defense--to ensure that the feat performed by Israel's air force in 1981, and for which it was universally condemned at the time, including by the United States, could not easily be repeated. If preemption is largely ruled out as an option, what then? To reduce its vulnerability--enemy missiles can arrive within ten minutes from firing-Israel may well be compelled to adopt a "launch-on-warning" posture for both its conventional and nuclear forces. For the purpose of considering this eventuality, we may assume that Israel has indeed developed a secure retaliatory force of the kind Tucker saw as essential to stability. Even so, however, this would not offer much reassurance. Unlike its neighbors, and unlike the U.S., Israel is a tiny country, and in a nuclear environment it would not have the luxury of waiting to assess the damage from a first strike before deciding how to respond. Thus, in any future crisis, at the first hint from satellite intelligence or some other means that a missile fusillade was being prepared from, say, Iran or Iraq, Israel, to protect its populace, would have to punch first. And it would have to strike not only at missile sites, some of which it might well miss, but at a broader range of targets--communications facilities, air bases, storage bunkers, and all other critical nodes--so as to paralyze the enemy and thus rule out the possibility of attack. These are the implications of launch-on-warning. Clearly, such a posture presents grave problems. Lacking secure second-strike forces of their own, and aware that Israel would no doubt try to hit them preemptively, Iran and Iraq would be under tremendous pressure to launch their missiles first--to "use them or lose them." In other words, what this scenario leads to is the prospect of both sides' moving

to a permanent position of hair-trigger alert. It is a nightmarish prospect. The possibility that nuclear war might break out at any moment--by accident, miscalculation, or design--would inevitably
place an intolerable strain on Israel's freedom of military movement, and take a no less heavy toll on civilian morale.

Houston Urban Debate League 2011 Summer Debate Institute ***Uniqueness Extensions*** NASA is funding commercial programs and will allow them to reach the space station HARWOOD 2011

Trade Off DA

(William; Reporter covering US space activity since 1984, NASA 2012 Budget Reflects Tough Choices, Uncertain Outlook, http://news.cnet.com/8301-19514_3-20031912-239.html, 2-14-2011)

NASA's $18.7 billion fiscal 2012 budget prioritizes the Obama administration's major goals and objectives, focusing on maintaining the International Space Station, retiring the shuttle and ramping up efforts to spur development of commercial manned spacecraft. The budget also reflects the administration's commitment to building
Faced with reduced funding and an uncertain outlook,

a new heavy-lift rocket and a crew capsule that could be used for deep-space exploration. But the budget follows the administration's proposal to freeze federal funding at 2010 levels for the next five years, resulting in a $276 million decrease for NASA compared to the agency's 2011 budget. Until Congress weighs in with actual funding, it's not clear when a viable United States manned spacecraft will emerge to service the station or when eventual deep-space missions might occur. In the meantime, with the shuttle's retirement looming after a final three missions, NASA will continue to rely on Russia to provide transportation to and from the space station aboard Soyuz spacecraft at about $55 million a seat. "This budget requires us to live within our means so we can invest in our future," NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden told reporters. "It maintains our strong commitment to human spaceflight and new technologies. It establishes critical priorities and invests in excellent science, aeronautics research and education programs that will help us win the future." Because "these are tough fiscal times, tough choices had to be made," he said. "Our No. 1 priority is safely flying out the shuttle and maintaining the safety and well being of the American astronauts currently living and working in space." NASA is working under a continuing resolution that requires the agency to operate at 2010 funding levels. The $19 billion fiscal 2011 budget remains in limbo, as does precise funding to begin ramping up work on commercial manned spacecraft, the new heavy lift launcher and the multipurpose crew vehicle NASA is planning for deep-space exploration. The new budget funds the congressionally mandated Space Launch System heavy-lift rocket and the Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle at roughly the same levels that were authorized in the 2011 budget: $1.8 billion for the rocket and $1 billion for the crew capsule. Closer to home, NASA managers hope the private sector can design, build, and

test commercial manned spacecraft for initial flights somewhere between 2014 and 2016 to carry astronauts to and from the International Space Station. The 2012 budget includes $850 million to kick-start development. "It's clearly a function of what funding's available," said Bill Gerstenmaier, chief of space operations at NASA
headquarters. "But for planning purposes, we've been looking in the 2014, '15 or '16 time frame, somewhere in there for crew. But the proof of the pudding is when we actually start getting some concrete budgets and start getting some real plans and start to see some real proposals." Space science would receive just over $5 billion in the 2012 budget, a slight increase over the yet-to-be-implemented 2011 budget, while space operations, which includes the shuttle and station programs, drops $1.16 billion to $4.3 billion in 2012. The reduction is due in large part to the shuttle's retirement. All of those funding levels are frozen through 2016--projected spending in 2013 through 2016 is shown as "notional"--and until Congress gives its final approval, design details and target dates are nebulous. "Any budget takes place in a context," said Elizabeth Robinson, NASA's chief financial officer. "Perhaps the context this year is a little more complicated than others but as always, it's a combination of internal and external factors. Both an internal and external factor is we still don't know what's happening to our funding levels in 2011. The agency is proceeding in all of its programs, but commitments to life cycle costs and launch dates are likely to be impacted by whatever we get in 2011." In the wake of the 2003 Columbia disaster, the Bush administration ordered NASA to finish the space station and retire the shuttle by the end of fiscal 2010. Using money freed up by the shuttle's retirement and the end of station assembly, NASA was told to develop a program to return astronauts to the moon for long-duration stays by the early 2020s. NASA developed the Constellation program to meet those objectives and began designing low-Earth orbit and heavy lift versions of a new shuttlederived rocket known as Ares and a new crew capsule, called Orion, that could fly to the station and, eventually, deep-space targets. The Obama administration canceled the Constellation program last year, deciding it was not affordable. Instead, the administration favored a "flexible path" approach laid out by a blue-ribbon panel that called for relying on the private sector to ferry astronauts to and from the station. NASA was to focus on developing a new architecture for visiting a variety of deepspace targets including nearby asteroids and, eventually, Mars.

Houston Urban Debate League 2011 Summer Debate Institute Despite cuts, NASA will be able to fund commercial flights and the ISS

Trade Off DA

MOSKOWITZ - 2011 (Clara; Senior Writer Space.com, NASAs 2011 Budget Should Allow Flexibility Despite Cuts, http://www.space.com/11411-nasa-2011-budget-cuts-constellation-funding.html, 2011) A new federal spending bill represents a cut to NASA's funding, but a lessening of restrictions on how the agency spends that money for the rest of this year. The new measure is a political compromise between democrats and
republicans, and includes significant spending cuts in the 2011 federal budget. NASA will have to make do with about $18.5 billion, putting its budget roughly $240 million below last year's funding level. NASA and the rest of the federal government had been in limbo while lawmakers haggled over the budget. But on Thursday (April 14), Congress passed a spending measure called a continuing resolution that will cover the last five months of the year 2011. The new budget compromise followed a series of stopgap measures Congress had used to fund the government in lieu of agreeing on an official fiscal year 2011 budget.

Experts said NASA will likely be able to accomplish most of the plans on the table under the new bill. "NASA will be able to do what it has to do until the next budget," space policy expert Roger Handberg, a political science professor at the University of Central Florida, told SPACE.com. "NASA has been survival mode since last fall when the first continuing resolution was put in place." The new budget at least
frees NASA from a stifling provision under its 2010 budget that prevented it from cutting funding to the moon-bound Constellation program. Yet that program was canceled by President Barack Obama in early 2010, and NASA has been targeting new goals ever since. [NASA's Shuttle Program in Pictures] Now the space agency will finally be free to stop spending money on canceled Constellation projects. "The elimination of the Constellation provision will free up resources otherwise committed," Handberg said, saving NASA some of the money that it loses in the reduction of its annual budget. NASA leaders expressed gratitude that the agency can now move forward fully toward its new direction. "This bill lifts funding restrictions that

limited our flexibility to carry out our shared vision for the future," NASA administrator Charles Bolden said in a statement. "With this funding, we will continue to aggressively develop a new heavy lift rocket, multipurpose crew vehicle and commercial capability to transport our astronauts and their supplies on American-made and launched spacecraft." Overall, Bolden admitted the need for spending cuts, and was optimistic that they agency would be able to do a lot with what it's given. "We are committed to living within our means in these tough fiscal times - and we are committed to carrying out our ambitious new plans for exploration and discovery," Bolden said.

Houston Urban Debate League 2011 Summer Debate Institute NASA funding focused on ISS

Trade Off DA

MOSKOWITZ - 2011 (Clara; Senior Writer Space.com, NASAs 2011 Budget Should Allow Flexibility Despite Cuts, http://www.space.com/11411-nasa-2011-budget-cuts-constellation-funding.html, 2011) Given limited funding, the space agency has decided to prioritize the International Space Station (ISS), and the effort to stimulate private U.S. companies to build spacecraft capable of carrying crews there, NASA administrator Charles Bolden said at a press conference yesterday. "It's difficult fiscal
times and we had to make very difficult fiscal choices," Bolden said. "The centerpiece is ISS. If I want to sustain it and have it safe for crew, I need a way to get cargo and crews there as quickly and safely as possible. With that goal in mind, we changed the balance of funding to commercial crew and the vehicles themselves." NASA's three space shuttles are set to retire this year, leaving NASA with a gap in its ability to ferry astronauts and cargo to the station, which is expected to operate for at least another nine years. Until private U.S. spacecraft are available, NASA will have to buy seats for its astronauts to ride aboard Russia's Soyuz capsules. (NASA sends some U.S. astronauts on Soyuz flights every year as part of a deal with the Russian Federal Space Agency.) Where most sectors of NASA would receive less funding than was recommended in the NASA Authorization Act Congress passed in October 2010, commercial spaceflight would receive more money under the new budget blueprint. The Obama administration budget request offers $850 million for development of private spacecraft, while the bill only stipulated $500 million for 2012. "With the extension of space station to at least 2020, making commercial crew successful is a high priority to close the gap," said Douglas Cooke, NASA's associate administrator for exploration systems. "The budget numbers have been increased to bring these on in a meaningful timeframe." Given those levels of funding, Cooke said he would hope commercial spacecraft would be online by 2014 to 2016.

Houston Urban Debate League 2011 Summer Debate Institute ***Link Extensions*** Constellation Links The plan directly trades off from commercial contracts Space News 2010

Trade Off DA

(Brian Berger, NASA: 2011 Budget Puts Exploration on Sustainable Path, February, http://www.spacenews.com/policy/102001nasa-2011-budget-puts-exploration-sustainable-path.html)

In approving NASAs 2010 budget late last year, Congress imposed restrictions intended to prevent NASA from canceling Constellation contracts this year without formal legislative approval. In place of building Orion and the Ares family of rockets, NASA now intends to spend $6 billion over the next five years fostering development of commercially operated systems capable of ferrying astronauts to and from the international space station. Obamas plan covers the new investment in part by
increasing the agencys budget by a like amount over the next five years. NASAs 2011 budget, however, would rise just $276 million, or 1.47 percent over this years level.

Constellation is directly tied to the commercial budget the plan will decimate it MOSKOWITZ 2011
(Clara; Senior Writer Space.com, NASAs 2011 Budget Should Allow Flexibility Despite Cuts, http://www.space.com/11411-nasa-2011-budget-cuts-constellation-funding.html, 4-15-2011) The new budget compromise followed a series of stopgap measures Congress had used to fund the government in lieu of agreeing on an official fiscal year 2011 budget. Experts said NASA will likely be able to accomplish most of the plans on the table under the new bill. "NASA will be able to do what it has to do until the next budget," space policy expert Roger Handberg, a political science professor at the University of Central Florida, told SPACE.com. "NASA has been survival mode since last fall when the first continuing resolution was put in place." The new budget at least frees NASA from a stifling

provision under its 2010 budget that prevented it from cutting funding to the moon-bound Constellation program. Yet that program was canceled by President Barack Obama in early 2010, and NASA
has been targeting new goals ever since. [NASA's Shuttle Program in Pictures] Now the space agency will finally be free to stop spending money on canceled Constellation projects. "The elimination of the Constellation provision will free up resources otherwise committed," Handberg said, saving NASA some of the money that it loses in the

reduction of its annual budget. NASA leaders expressed gratitude that the agency can now move forward fully toward its new direction. "This bill lifts funding restrictions that limited our flexibility to carry out our shared vision for the future,"NASA administrator Charles Bolden said in a statement. "With this funding, we will continue to aggressively develop a new heavy lift rocket, multipurpose crew vehicle and commercial capability to transport our astronauts and their supplies on American-made and launched spacecraft."

Houston Urban Debate League 2011 Summer Debate Institute Centers Link

Trade Off DA

Funding is being distributed to centers that access commercial spaceflight the plan changes that SPACE TRAVEL 2011
(Staff Writers, NASA Spending Shift to Benefit Centers Focused on Science and Technology, http://www.spacetravel.com/reports/NASA_Spending_Shift_to_Benefit_Centers_Focused_on_Science_and_Technology_999.html, 6-8-2011)

Euroconsult along with the consulting firm Omnis have announced the findings of a study foreseeing a significant shift in NASA spending toward Earth science and R and D programs and away from legacy spaceflight activities. According to the report "NASA Spending Outlook: Trends to 2016," NASA's budget, which will remain flat at around $18.7 billion for the next five years, will also be characterized by significant shifts from space operations to technology development and science. With the shift in budget authority, NASA Centers focused on Earth observation, space technology, and aeronautics will see increases in funding, while those involved in human spaceflight will see major funding reductions. Indeed, the termination of the Space Shuttle program will lead to a budget cut over $1 billion for Space
Operations, resulting in a 21% budget cut for the Johnson Space Center. Overall, the agency's budget for R and D will account for about 50% of all NASA spending. "Budget allocation across Centers will vary greatly," said Steve Bochinger, President of Euroconsult North America. "As NASA shifts priorities for human spaceflight from Shuttle

operations to Human Exploration Capabilities and commercial spaceflight, the budget will be redirected to a range of technology development programs. Likewise, as NASA shifts its science mission focus away from space science to Earth science, the science budget will be redistributed among centers." This shift in NASA's priorities will also affect the agency's contract spending. As large legacy programs end, new research and development programs will be initiated. This turnover of
programs should provide many new contracting opportunities over the next five years, especially at Research Centers. The Euroconsult/Omnis report details these changes. "The uniqueness of this report is that it brings together in one picture NASA's budget, spending and contracting, providing insights into opportunities created by the new NASA direction," said Bretton Alexander, Senior Consultant for Omnis.

Houston Urban Debate League 2011 Summer Debate Institute


ISS Internal Link EXT

Trade Off DA

NASA commercial funding is key to U.S. access to the space station Alexander 2009
Bretton, President of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation (Testimony in the Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics on the Science and Technology Committee, http://www.hq.nasa.gov/legislative/hearings/2009%20hearings/12-2-09%20Alexander.pdf)

invested $500 million in the development of two commercial systems, with additional investment contributed by the companies themselves, through the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program. After several years of development, NASA demonstrated its confidence in the commercial cargo sector by declining to purchase additional Russian cargo flights after 2011 and instead awarding over $3 billion in domestic Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contracts for Space Station cargo. In just four years, commercial cargo has transitioned from a small initiative to a program that is crucial to the continued existence of the Space Station. The bottom line is that commercial space services are on the critical path for cargo to the Station and NASA has a vested interest in its success. With commercial cargo now on the critical path for the Space Station, it is time to consider the value of commercial crew services for Space Station as well. Commercial Crew is Essential to Mitigate the Gap Despite having an option for crew transportation in the COTS program the so-called Capability D option NASA has not yet invested in the development of full commercial crew capabilities, opting to prove out cargo services first with the possibility of crew later. The case for beginning a commercial
To its credit, NASA has already been acquiring cargo delivery to the Station. First, NASA crew program has grown stronger in the years since the COTS cargo program began: o Flights of the Atlas, Delta, Falcon, and other vehicles have helped mature the capabilities that will be needed during a future commercial crew program; o Commercial companies have invested their own internal R&D and study money to explore commercial crew; o NASAs $50m CCDev program is revealing the strength of interest in commercial crew by both large and medium-sized companies in the aerospace industry; o And the Augustine Committee notes that the use of commercial vehicles to transport crews to lowEarth orbit is much more of an option today than it might have been in 2005. Today, three years after the award of the COTS Space Act Agreements (SAAs), we no longer have the luxury of time. The Space Shuttle will be retired next year, or shortly thereafter, while the first flight of Ares I and Orion has slipped to at least 2017, according to the Augustine Committee. In fact, the Committee added that if the Space Station is extended to 2020 as seems likely, the first human launch of Ares I would slip further, even if NASA receives the extra money the Committee recommended. As a result,

we will be dependent on the Russians for crew transportation to the International Space Station for at least five years, if not longer. Page 5 Given that Ares I/Orion is not likely to be ready until at least 2017 and that system is optimized for the unique requirements of exploration beyond Low Earth Orbit, we believe a vibrant U.S. commercial crew program is essential for avoiding a sole-source reliance on the Russian Soyuz vehicles in the interim.
In fact, we have already purchased rides on Russian Soyuz spacecraft at the price of $51 million per seat, having taken extraordinary measures and changing U.S. nonproliferation laws to allow these payments. Buying crew services from U.S. industry should not be viewed as nearly so extraordinary. Moreover, Russias prices are rising and are certain to increase once we become totally reliant on them. A robust U.S. commercial crew program, however, will apply competitive pressure on Russia to keep costs down. Also, NASAs ability to purchase Soyuz vehicles from Russia expires in 2016. Ares/Orion is not likely to be ready by then. It is impossible to know with certainty whether another extension of INKSNA (Iran, North Korea, and Syria Nonproliferation Act) will be granted by Congress at that time. Pursuing a commercial option to meet near-term needs for Station could help alleviate the risks inherent in Russian reliance. By not pursuing commercial, it is almost certain Congress will have to re-address the INKSNA issue.

10

Houston Urban Debate League 2011 Summer Debate Institute Budget cuts will force the United States to cut off the space station

Trade Off DA

Wall Street Journal 9 / APRIL 10, Space Station Nears an Extension, Google/ But prolonging the facility's life, particularly in the midst of the current global economic turmoil, could also force some tough question within the U.S. space program. Washington could have to spend $10 billion or more between 2015 and 2020 to continue using the space station -- potentially siphoning dollars from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's annual budget of more than $18 billion, primarily from projects intended to return U.S. astronauts to the moon by 2020. The moon-landing initiative faces potentially significant delays unless Congress provides a fresh pot of money to support further space-station operations, according to U.S. industry and government officials. But neither Congress nor the White House wants the political flak for cutting off station operations without reaping the benefits of prior spending. Decisions have been complicated by the fact that arguments between the White House and some lawmakers have held up nominatin of the next NASA administrator. A NASA spokesman said Thursday that the agency is developing
cost estimates for extending station operations through 2020 "in the event the [Obama] administration decided to propose" that option in future budget requests. The agency also said that in the meantime, it "continues to take no steps that would preclude extending station operations."

Funding is zero sum new policies compromise the ISS HECHT 2 (Jeff; Writer for New Scientist, NASAs Budget Trouble Threatens Safety, http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2022-nasas-budget-trouble-threatens-safety.html, RK) Tight NASA budgets threaten the safety of the space shuttle and the International Space Station, an independent safety panel has warned. Last year in its annual report, the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel warned NASA it needed better long-term planning to assure safety of the ageing shuttle fleet and the ISS. The new report says "the Panel's safety concerns have never been greater". It blames tight budgets and a concentration on short-term "program survival" for preventing the long-term planning needed to assure continued safety. "The efforts to make the budget a zero-sum game are going to erode safety if they continue," panel chairman Richard Blomberg told New Scientist. NASA has done a good job of assuring each mission is safe, but lacks the money to invest in vital long-term projects. Complex systems like the shuttle
change as they age, he says, "and you may find yourself in some uncharted territory where safety can be compromised". The panel has been advising NASA since the Apollo era. Congress created it after a 1967 fire killed three astronauts on the ground. NASA designed the shuttle to operate for 10 years or 100 missions, with the fleet flying 60 times each year. Although the flight schedule has been sharply reduced, the shuttles now are going to be used for at least 30 years. That lifetime could be possible with continual updates and improvements, Blomberg says, but NASA lacks the money to worry about tomorrow when it has to ensure the safety of today's launch. Apollo-era infrastructure and a shrinking and ageing support staff pose additional problems. The massive Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Flight Center in Florida was built in the 1960s to stack Saturn moon rockets. "A lot of test equipment in the program still runs on vacuum tubes," says Blomberg. Engineers and technicians have been able to keep that vital custom-built equipment running for decades, but the experts are reaching retirement age and key components such as tubes are getting hard to find. Although a formal response to the report is months away, Blomberg says NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe seemed receptive. O'Keefe wants to look at alternatives, comparing the costs and benefits of overhauling old facilities with building new ones better-matched to current needs. "NASA has always given a fair and thoughtful response to our findings," says Blomberg, though he acknowledges that he does not have to find the money to implement them.

11

Houston Urban Debate League 2011 Summer Debate Institute ***Impact Extensions*** Space Dominance Impact Dependence on Russia destroys US Space leadership IHT 11 (International Herald Tribune, July 23, After the Shuttle, lexis)

Trade Off DA

The outlook for bold ventures is bleak. The United States is not abandoning human activities in space. American astronauts will be performing experiments on the International Space Station at least through 2020, but they will have to get there on Russian space craft. The earliest that
American commercial companies could carry astronauts into nearby space might be 2015 or 2016. President Obama has proposed more ambitious manned missions - using technologies yet to be developed - to an asteroid by 2025 and the orbit of Mars by the mid-2030s. Congress is, so far, unpersuaded. In tough economic times, it is fair to ask why money should be spent on manned space travel, especially since unmanned probes and space telescopes have produced much richer scientific findings. The answer is that manned missions are still the prime symbol of a nation's prowess in space. We support President Obama's idea to send astronauts to places never visited before. Even lesser missions would make clear that the United States is not ceding the

peaceful exploration of space at a time when others, notably China, are energetically pursuing their own programs. NASA's $18 billion budget is a tiny part of some $3.7 trillion in annual federal spending. Congress ought to
provide enough money to keep the United States at the forefront of both human and robotic space exploration.

Space Station is key to human spaceflight credibility Mulville 1, Acting Administrator of NASA /Daniel NASA Advisory Council Findings from the International Space Station Management and Cost Evaluation (IMCE) Task Force December 20 The International Space Station is the largest and most challenging international engineering project ever undertaken. After years of careful preparation, completion of the ISS construction phase is imminent.
Dedicated efforts by NASA centers, industrial contractors, and the ISS International Partners have begun to realize an impressive technical success. Nonetheless, the viability of the entire international human space flight

enterprise is being undermined by a loss of confidence in NASA's ability to exercise adequate management and cost discipline in the ISS program. The deficiencies in NASA's management and financial
control of the ISS program identified in the IMCE report cannot be excused and must not be ignored. Resolving these deficiencies will require major restructuring of the management, budget, infrastructure, and staffing of NASA's human space flight enterprise.

12

Houston Urban Debate League 2011 Summer Debate Institute Economy Impact Commercial services ensure US aerospace competiveness Space Leaders 11,

Trade Off DA

50 leaders from the spaceflight sector including former NASA administrator Gerald Griffon, President of the Planetary Society Dr. Jim Bell, and President of the X Prize Foundation Peter Diamandis (March 2, Letter from Space Leaders to Congress Urging Support of NASAs Use of Commercial Crew Services to the ISS http://aerospaceblog.wordpress.com/2011/03/02/letter-from-space-leaders-to-congress-urging-support-of-nasas-use-of-commercial-crewservices-to-the-iss/)

After the Space Shuttle retires, Russia

is set to carry American astronauts to the Space Station. By hiring American businesses, NASAs Commercial Crew to Space Station program also generates thousands of high tech American jobs across states ranging from Florida, to Alabama, to Texas, to California, to Virginia, to Colorado, to Nevada, and to Maryland, rather than sending these jobs overseas to Russia to build Soyuz capsules and rockets. Aerospace competitiveness key to the economy Augustine, 5 retired chairmen and CEO of Lockheed Martin Corp., charied National Academics Committee on Prospering in the Global Economy of the
21st Century (Norman R., Aviation Week and Space Technology, US Science and Technology is on a Losing Path Pg. 70 Vo. 163 No. 17 10-31-05, LN) This transition

to a borderless economy provides great opportunities for companies that are prepared to take advantage, as the history of the aerospace industry amply demonstrates. But in any dynamic, technology-intensive industry, leadership can be lost very quickly. Thus, many other industries are now joining the aerospace industry in learning to compete in
an uncertain and quickly changing world. Today, candidates for many jobs that currently reside in the US are just a mouse click away in Ireland, India, China, Australia and dozens of other countries. At first, manufacturing jobs were the ones most susceptible to moving overseas. I recently traveled to Vietnam, where the hourly cost of low-skilled workers is about 25 cents, less than 1/20th of the US minimum wage. But the competitive disadvantage is not confined to so-called lowend jobs. Eleven qualified engineers can be hired in India for the cost of just one in the US. At the same time, other countries are rapidly enlarging their innovation capacity. They are investing in S&T and encouraging their highly trained citizens who are working abroad to return home.

Even more important, these countries are creating the well-funded schools and universities that will produce future scientists and engineers. The US is not competing well in this new world. Other nations will continue to have the advantage of lower wages, so America must take advantage of its strengths. But those strengths are eroding even as other countries are boosting their capacities. Throughout the 20th century, one of America's greatest strengths has been its knowledge-based resources particularly its S&T system. But today, that system shows many signs of weakness. This nation's trade balance in high-technology goods swung from a positive flow of $33B in 1990 to a negative flow of $24B in 2004. In 2003, foreign students earned 59% of the engineering doctorates awarded by US universities. In 2001, US industry spent more on tort litigation and related costs than on R&D. A major factor determining US competitiveness is the quality of the workforce, and the public school system provides the foundation of this asset. But that system is failing specifically in the fields most important to the future: science, engineering and mathematics. In a recent international test involving mathematical understanding, US students finished 27th among
the participating nations. In China and Japan, 59% and 66% of undergraduates, respectively, receive their degrees in science and engineering, compared with 32% in the U.S. In the past, the US economy benefited from the availability of financial capital. But today it moves quickly to wherever a competitive advantage exists, as shown by the willingness of companies to move factories to Mexico, Vietnam and China. One of America's most powerful assets is its free enterprise system, with its inherent aggressiveness and discipline in introducing ideas and flushing out obsolescence. But other nations have recognized these virtues and are seeking to emulate the system. The

aerospace industry is especially susceptible to these broader economic trends. Without well-educated scientists and engineers, the industry will not be able to compete with well-organized programs in countries with abundant engineering talent. In addition, security issues in the industry highlight its reliance on homegrown talent, as opposed to importing its people from abroad. Troubles in the aerospace industry also could have implications throughout the US economy. In particular, the industry has been especially effective at making use of and producing systems engineers, some of whom eventually move to other industries. If aerospace were to decline, a considerable portion of these valuable individuals would be lost.

13

Houston Urban Debate League 2011 Summer Debate Institute Russia Relations ISS is key to Russian Relations Dinerman 2009
Taylor, @ The Space Review, 9-15-09 [http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1396/1]

Trade Off DA

Both Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton saw in the ISS a useful too for sustaining and cementing important relationships. The US-Japan alliance has been strengthened and improved thanks to the ISS. More importantly, the space

station program has kept lines of communications open between Washington and Moscow that would otherwise not exist. Even in times of tension the US and Russia maintain a 24/7 combined operational system of coordination that would be unthinkable in any other context. The ISS is not a tool of US influence on Russia, but without it there would be less trust and understanding on both sides. The other ISS partners have their own roles, but the US-Russia nexus is the backbone of the project. Increasing US Russia Relations key to solve prolif, nuclear terrorism and nuclear use Perry and Scowcroft, 09
(William and brent, Chairs CFR, april, US Nuclear Weapons Policy) Despite nearly universal opposition, North Korea has developed a small nuclear arsenal, and Iran appears to be following in its footsteps. Other states, particularly in the Middle East, are starting nuclear power programs modeled after that of Iran. The proliferation of nuclear weapons and fissile materials is thus dangerously close to a tipping point. Beyond this danger,

there are still tens of thousands of nuclear weapons in the world. If just one of these thousands of weapons fell into the hands of terrorists, it could be detonated with catastrophic results. So, although the old danger of a massive nuclear exchange between great powers has declined, a new risk looms of a few nuclear detonations being set off by a terrorist group or a nuclear-capable rogue state, or of a nuclear power making a tragic mistake. The threat of nuclear terrorism is already serious, and, as more nations acquire nuclear weapons or the fissile material needed for nuclear weapons, it will increase.
Of course, the detonation of a relatively primitive nuclear bomb in one American city would not be equivalent to the type of nuclear exchange that was feared during the Cold War. Nonetheless, the results would be catastrophic, with the devastation extending well beyond the staggering fatalities. The direct economic losses would amount to many hundreds of billions of dollars, but the indirect economic impact would be even greater. The social and political effects are incalculable, especially

High priority should be accorded to policies that serve to prevent such a catastrophe, specifically programs that reduce and protect existing nuclear arsenals and that keep new arsenals from being created. All such preventive programs, by their nature, have international dimensions. Their success depends on the United States being able to work cooperatively with other countries, most notably Russia. That such international cooperation can be successful is illustrated by the Nunn-Lugar
if the detonation were in Washington, DC, and disabled a significant part of the U.S. government. The terror and disruption would be beyond imagination.

Cooperative Threat Reduction Program in the 1990s. U.S.-Russian efforts on that program led to thousands of nuclear weapons and their launchers being dismantled and thus made the world safer. But unless U.S.-Russia relations improve, it is

difficult to imagine those two governments cooperating on future programs that require such a high level of mutual trust. Proliferation causes nuclear war Utgoff 2002
Victor, Summer, Survival, vol 44, no. 2, ProQuest In sum, widespread proliferation is likely to lead to an occasional shoot-out with nuclear weapons, and that such shootouts will have a substantial probability of escalating to the maximum destruction possible with the weapons at hand. Unless nuclear proliferation is stopped, we are headed to a world that will mirror the American Wild West of the late 1800s. With most, if not all, nations wearing nuclear six-shooters on their hips, the world may even be a more polite place than it is today, but every once in a while we will all gather on a hill to bury the bodies of dead cities or even whole nations.

14

Houston Urban Debate League 2011 Summer Debate Institute Terrorism leads to extinction Sid-Ahmed 2004
(Mohamed, Egyptian Political Analyst, 8/26/04 Extinction!)

Trade Off DA

What would be the consequences of a nuclear attack by terrorists? Even if it fails, it would further exacerbate the negative features of the new and frightening world in which we are now living. Societies would close in on

themselves, police measures would be stepped up at the expense of human rights, tensions between civilisations and religions would rise and ethnic conflicts would proliferate. It would also speed up the arms race and develop the awareness that a different type of world order is imperative if humankind is to survive. But the still more critical scenario is if the attack succeeds. This could lead to a third world war, from which no one will emerge victorious. Unlike a conventional war which ends when one side triumphs over another, this war will be without winners and losers. When nuclear pollution infects the whole planet, we will all be losers.

15

Houston Urban Debate League 2011 Summer Debate Institute International Cooperation Impact

Trade Off DA

OBrien 2008
Assistant Administrator for External Relations of NASA (Michael F, Congressional Testimony in front of the Subcommittee on Research and Science Education Committee on Science and Technology, April 2, http://gop.science.house.gov/Media/Hearings/research08/April2/obrien.pdf)

NASAs premier example of international space cooperation is the ongoing assembly of the ISS. With
participation from 15 nations, NASA and its space agency counterparts have worked together to design, develop, assemble onorbit and operate one of the most complex science and engineering projects in history. With the last two Space Shuttle missions, NASA delivered to the ISS several key international elements: the European Columbus laboratory, a portion of the Japanese Kibo laboratory and the Canadian Dextre robotic manipulator system. As a result, NASA continues

to honor the nations commitment to our international partners on the Space Station, while meeting the most prominent milestones of the program. As NASA Administrator Michael Griffin testified before the Committee
on Science and Technology on February 13, 2008, its development is the largest task ever performed by the civilian agencies of the United States or our international partners. Such international partnerships will be an integral part of our next steps out beyond low Earth orbit, toward what President John Kennedy called this new ocean. The success of the ISS is all the more remarkable due to the necessary harmonization of complex engineering and technology development activities among the United States, Russia, Japan, Canada and many nations of Europe. The ISS International Partners represent over a dozen different political systems, budgetary mechanisms, and cultural, management and industrial approaches, that rely on the multilingual skills of engineers, astronauts and mission controllers around the world. 4 The history of Space Shuttle crew assignments clearly demonstrates the global nature of NASAs human space flight program. Fifty-nine international astronauts from 15 countries have flown on the Space Shuttle a total of 89 times, representing one-fifth of the total Shuttle Mission Specialists. As we move forward, each ISS Partner has an allocation of future Space Station crew opportunities for the lifetime of the program, based on its contributions to the ISS as articulated in the Space Station international agreements.

Solves conflict with China Hays and Danielson 2010


Peter and Dennis, phd. Senior Scientist at the Policy and Strategy Devision of the Science Applications Internatioanl Corporation and Senior Technical Manager at the Jacobs Technology National Security Space Office in the Pentagon ( Improving Space Security through Enhanced International Cooperation, May, http://www.afspc.af.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-100226085.pdf)

China presents the US with both the greatest opportunities


known to have demonstrated this capability.

and the most difficult challenges for space cooperation. In October 2003, China independently launched and recovered its first taikonaut, or astronaut, becoming just the third member of an elite spacefaring club with Russia and the US. Then in January 2007 China first successfully tested a kinetic energy ASAT and again joined Russia and the US as one of only three states

Chinas growing power and space emphasis may become manifest in mostly

peaceful and cooperative ways or may lead to increasing competition and perhaps even conflict with the US. If the US can successfully High Frontier engage China in effective space cooperation it may reduce the risks of increasing competition but it must avoid the mistake of treating China like the Soviet Union or seeing this relationship through the lens of the Cold War. The Soviet Union was only a military superpower, whereas China is a major US trading partner and an economic superpower that recently passed Germany to become the worlds third largest economy and is poised to

Because of its economic muscle, China can afford to devote commensurately more resources to its military capabilities and will play a more significant role in shaping the global economic system. For example, China holds an estimated $1.4 trillion in
pass Japan soon, and is on a path to become larger than the US economy, perhaps within 10 years. foreign assets (mainly US treasury notes), an amount that gives it great leverage in the structure of the system.

16

Houston Urban Debate League 2011 Summer Debate Institute Space Cooperation The Space Station leads to international science cooperation Niiler 2003

Trade Off DA

Eric, NPR, The politics of the International Space Station, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1190721

Maintaining a space outpost with the help of 15 other countries has proven difficult for the United States, both politically and technically, but as NPR's Eric Niiler reports, the station's international partnership -- though imperfect -- is crucial to its survival. The International Space Station was first conceived in the waning years of the Cold
War. The Soviet Union was preparing to launch its own space station, called Mir, which went into orbit in 1986. The United States wanted to match its superpower rival. President Ronald Reagan announced plans for a U.S.-led project during his 1984 State of the Union address. "A space station will permit quantum leaps in our research in science, communications, in metals, and in lifesaving medicines which could be manufactured only in space," Reagan said at the time. "NASA will invite other countries to participate so we can strengthen peace, build prosperity, and expand freedom for all who share our goals." The United States did bring in other countries -- Japan, France, Canada and West Germany -- to help fund the project while solidifying America's alliances. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, in 1993 the United States decided to expand its international partnership by inviting Russia to join the space station effort. Eugene Skolnikoff, professor emeritus of political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, says that although the project was international from the start, the United States was clearly in charge. "We would decide what we wanted to do and tell others what to do and pony up the money," Skolnikoff says. "We tended to do this unilaterally and tell the others they had to go along." Although nearly 20 years have passed since President Reagan announced his ambitious plan, the station remains only partially built. The promised quantum leaps in technology and medicine still haven't materialized, and budget cuts have severely curtailed the ability to conduct scientific research on the station. James Lewis, space analyst for the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., says that given these cuts, the station has lost its original justification. "The space

station doesn't have any more reason for being except for showing we can do something in space and have a reason to cooperate with other countries," Lewis says. That international cooperation has proven extremely valuable since the shuttle Columbia broke up last month. With further shuttle flights on hold, NASA has to rely exclusively on its Russian partners to ferry supplies to the station and bring the existing crew home in May. And the United States is turning to its European allies to pay for these Russian supply flights. Although the United States brought these nations into the project for abstract political reasons, now their help is more concrete, says John Logsdon, a political scientist at the George Washington University and member of the panel investigating the shuttle disaster. "One thing that the current situation shows is the wisdom of an international partnership," Logsdon says. "When the U.S. runs into a problem, it has partners in Russia, Europe, Japan, Canada that it can turn to for assistance." As tensions grow between the United States and its allies over a possible war in Iraq, some worry that this dispute could affect the International Space Station. The United States and its partners still need to resolve funding issues and decide who will get to use the station once its complete. Given the current political climate on Earth, Logsdon says keeping the station running in space will require "creative diplomacy."

17

Houston Urban Debate League 2011 Summer Debate Institute Thats key to U.S.-EU relations Potocnik 6

Trade Off DA

European Commissioner for Science and Research (Janez, Between cooperation and Competition - Science and Research as a Transatlantic Bridge Builder, 3/7, http://www.iterfan.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=139&Itemid=2) The specific weight of Science

and Research within the Transatlantic Agenda has been growing steadily and has acquired greater visibility lately, notably with the latest EU-US summit in December last year. Basic research, nano, space, information technology, innovation and other areas now figure prominently on that agenda. This is certainly the fruit of a converging political determination on both sides of the Atlantic. But it is also the consequence of the fact that both sides increasingly perceive science and research as a critical component of the respective policies for economic competitiveness, growth and jobs. The new American Competitiveness Initiative announced by President Bush in his recent State-of-the-Union address and
substantiated in the budget proposal that the US government just put forward clearly points in this direction. And it is interesting to read how, in its goals as well as in some of its ingredients, it clearly echoes our own Lisbon objectives and measures! . And indeed, research is taken more seriously politically than ever before. Think about the scientific dimension of issues like environmental protection or climate change, that have seen Europe and the US on opposite

Science and research are perceived both here and in the US as more useful than before

science and politics go hand in hand. But they are also examples of the fact that sometimes when the politics brings us apart, then science can help us find the necessary common ground. We have seen this clearly happen during the last few years. Now the relations between Europe and the US are again marked by positive cooperative tones and promising
sides in economic progress and consumer protection. Think about access to space and the development of global positioning systems. These are cases where

perspectives. But we have gone through a period, up to recently, during which the list of differences looked longer than the list of agreements. From steel to agricultural subsidies, from GMOs to Kyoto, from the International Criminal

Court to the war in Iraq, some people on both sides almost lost sight of the solidity and durability of the transatlantic partnership. But, interestingly, even during those more difficult times, science and research have always stood out as areas where cooperation could continue to grow, unaffected by political tensions elsewhere. Or better: science and research benefited from a sort of "compensatory" status. They came to be perceived as fields where - precisely while we were "quarreling" on several other matters - we could still prove to ourselves, to one another and to the world, that we remained each other's best partners and allies. Now that we have moved on to a smoother phase in our transatlantic dialogue, science and research must continue to exert their bridging function. The commitments made by our top political leaders in June last year must be taken seriously and delivered upon. I intend to start from there, build on past achievements, to make further substantial progress in
transatlantic cooperation in S&T.

US-European relations solve a global war OSullivan 4


John, editor of The National Interest, March/ www.inthenationalinterest.com/Articles/Vol3Issue13/Vol3Issue13OSullivanPFV.html The report's starting point -- that U.S.-European

relations are extremely important -- is undeniable. A united Western alliance would shape world institutions in line with values and practices rooted in liberty and democracy and coax rising powers such as India and China into going along with this international status quo for the foreseeable future. Indeed, this is already happening as China accepts liberal economic rules at home in order to enter institutions such as the G7 and the World Trade Organization. By contrast, a disunited West would tempt such powers to play off Europe and America against each other and foster a global jockeying for power not unlike the maneuvering between a half-dozen great powers that led to 1914.

18

Houston Urban Debate League 2011 Summer Debate Institute A2: Commercial Inevitable NASA $ Key NASA Funding is key Industry insiders prove The Nation 11
(July 18, Private space race heats up as US shuttle retires, lexis)

Trade Off DA

Private companies, aided by National Aeronautics and Space Administration cash and expertise in human space flight, are rushing to be the first to build a space capsule to replace the retiring US shuttle programme in the next few years. With Atlantis wrapping up its final mission and the end of the 30-year US programme, Nasa is pinning its hopes on the commercial industry to build the next low-cost vehicle to take astronauts to low Earth orbit. "We are transferring 50 years of human space flight experience from Nasa to the private sector," said Phil McAlister, acting director of commercialspaceflight development at Nasa. Faced with mounting criticism over its lack of a replacement for the shuttle, the US space agency insists it is focused on building a deep space vehicle while it "partners" with the private sector on a spacecraft to tote astronauts to familiar destinations like the International Space Station (ISS). "We are bringing financial resources so we are going to invest in these systems, and we are also helping them technically," McAlister said. Earlier this year, the US space agency distributed nearly 270 million (Bt8.1 billion) in seed money to four companies Boeing, SpaceX, Sierra Nevada and Blue Origin to boost their bids to be first in the new space era. US President Barack Obama's budget request for fiscal year 2012 includes 850 million for such efforts and would mark the third round of funding so far. A host of former Nasa astronauts have already joined the private sector as highly paid consultants to companies in the space race. By the middle of the decade, Nasa hopes that more than one option will be available to carry US astronauts into orbit. "Competition is a key aspect of our strategy," said McAlister. "We want very much to have competition, with multiple providers." Nasa has sent astronauts to low Earth orbit at least 150 times over the past four decades, McAlister said. Now, it is aiming for a space plan that would transport a total of eight astronauts, four at a time, aboard two flights per year to the ISS. Boeing, which is working on the CTS-100 spacecraft, and SpaceX with its Dragon capsule, say they are ready for the challenge. "We have laid out a viable programme that does test flights in 2014 and will be ready to carry a crew in 2015," said John Elbon, vice president and programme manager of commercial crew at Boeing. "Of course it will be depending on the funding we will receive [from Nasa] going forward between now and 2015," he said, touting Boeing's long history of building spacecraft, including the first manned space capsules Mercury and Gemini, as well as Apollo, which took men to the moon. Space tourism could also prove a lucrative side business, he said, with a company called Bigelow aerospace working on a space habitat module that could be leased to countries without a spaceflight programme for short-term research. Elbon declined to project a cost per seat, but said it would likely be competitive with what it currently costs to send an astronaut to the ISS on a Russian Soyuz capsule, or about 51 million per ticket. When it comes to SpaceX, founded in 2002 by multimillionaire Internet entrepreneur Elon Musk, the cost per seat could be as low as 20 million on its four-seat Dragon spacecraft. "With Nasa's support, SpaceX will be ready to fly its first manned mission in 2014," Musk said on SpaceX's website. SpaceX communications director Kirstin Grantham said it has "a tremendous advantage over other companies looking to carry astronauts, because our vehicles were designed from the start to carry astronauts and, unlike other companies, our vehicles have already flown". In December 2010, SpaceX became the first company to successfully send its own space capsule, the Dragon, into orbit and back. The next step is for a fly-by of the ISS as part of a mission in which the Dragon will approach the orbiting station within six miles. Nasa may allow the company to also berth with the outpost as part of that same mission, scheduled to take place in 2011.

19

Houston Urban Debate League 2011 Summer Debate Institute ***Weather Satellites Trade Off*** Weather Satellites 1NC Trades Off threaten satellites that track Natural Disasters and Global Warming WEST 2006

Trade Off DA

(Larry; Budget Cuts and Mismanagement Place Environmental Satellites at Risk, http://environment.about.com/b/2006/03/06/budget-cuts-and-mismanagement-place-environmental-satellites-at-risk.htm, 3/5, SO)

Budget cuts and cost overruns are threatening the current integrity and future existence of a network of U.S. environmental satellites that help scientists forecast hurricanes, droughts and floods, and predict global warming, according to a news story by the Associated Press. "The system of environmental satellites is at risk of collapse," said Richard A. Anthes, president of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research and chairman of a National Academy of Sciences committee that advises the federal government on developing and operating environmental satellites, in an interview with the Associated Press. "Every year that goes by without the system being addressed is a problem." Satellites Give Warning Before Disasters Strike Scientists say that neglecting the environmental satellites orbiting the Earth could have severe human consequences. If the environmental satellites arent there to provide up-to-date information about approaching natural disasters and threats from other severe climate and weather conditions, then scientists will be unable to warn the people most likely to be harmed and the public safety officials who must try to protect them. Yet, at a time
when the United States is still recovering from the worst hurricane season on record, when Africa and South America are experiencing devastating droughts, and when regions worldwide are feeling the first effects of global warming, NASA is managing its budget as though extreme weather and natural disasters were pass. In an effort to save money, NASA has canceled plans for at least three earth-observing satellites, and cost

overruns have delayed a new generation of weather satellites until 2010 or 2012. The Government Accounting Office has called the entire U.S. environmental satellite effort a program in crisis. Balancing Budgets and Priorities NASA Administrator Michael Griffin has the difficult job of trying to stretch his shrinking budget to cover the cost of operating the space shuttle and the space station as well as space exploration and programs such as the environmental satellites. NASAs proposed budget for 2007 includes $6.2 billion for space shuttle and space station operations, and $4 billion for planning future missions to the moon and Mars, but only $2.2 billion for satellites that help scientists observe the Earth and the sun. "We simply cannot afford all of the missions that our scientific constituencies would like us to sponsor," Griffin told members of Congress when he testified before the House Science Committee on Feb. 16, 2006. Perhaps not, but it seems as though humanitys critical need for the information that environmental satellites provide should place them higher on NASAs list of priorities.

20

Houston Urban Debate League 2011 Summer Debate Institute Natural disasters will cause extinction. SID AHMED 2005
(Mohamed, Managing Editor for Al-Ahali, The post-earthquake world, Issue #724, http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2005/724/op3.htm)

Trade Off DA

The human species has never been exposed to a natural upheaval of this magnitude within living memory. What happened in South Asia is the ecological equivalent of 9/11. Ecological problems like global warming and climatic disturbances in general threaten to make our natural habitat unfit for human life. The extinction of the species has become a very real possibility, whether by our own hand or as a result of natural disasters of a much greater magnitude than the Indian Ocean earthquake and the killer waves it spawned. Human civilisation has developed in the hope that Man will be able to reach welfare and prosperity on earth for everybody. But now things seem to be moving in the opposite direction, exposing planet Earth to the end of its role as a nurturing place for human life. Today, human conflicts have become less of a threat than the confrontation between Man and Nature. At least they are less likely to bring about the end of the human species. The reactions of Nature as a result of its exposure to the onslaughts of human societies have become more important in determining the fate of the human species than any harm it can inflict on itself. Until recently, the threat Nature represented was perceived as likely to arise only in the long run, related for instance to how global
warming would affect life on our planet. Such a threat could take decades, even centuries, to reach a critical level. This perception has changed following the devastating earthquake and tsunamis that hit the coastal regions of South Asia and, less violently, of East Africa, on 26 December. This cataclysmic event has underscored the vulnerability of our world before the wrath of Nature and shaken the sanguine belief that the end of the world is a long way away. Gone

are

the days when we could comfort ourselves with the notion that the extinction of the human race will not occur before a long-term future that will only materialise after millions of years and not affect us directly in any way. We are now forced to live with the possibility of an imminent demise of humankind.

21

Houston Urban Debate League 2011 Summer Debate Institute Water & Food Shortages Funding is key to the economy and preventing conflicts over dwindling food and water COLLETON 2011

Trade Off DA

(Nancy; Budget Cuts Put Environmental Intelligence at Risk, Space News, 4/20, http://spacenews.com/commentaries/110418cuts-environmental-intelligence-risk.html) U.S. scientific agencies are bracing for big budget cuts, and Americas environmental information supply chain is in grave danger as a result. The timing of this potential dumbing down of environmental intelligence couldnt be worse in light of the upward trend in natural disasters, like the recent catastrophic earthquake and tsunami in Japan and last years deadly Russian heat wave. The United States alone experienced a record 247 natural disaster events in 2010, according to Munich Re. Meanwhile, international competition is increasing as China has announced a plan to launch 13 weather satellites in the coming decade. And, report after report cautions about the destabilizing impacts of increasingly insufficient water resources, given the linkages between drought, wheat production, the world food crisis and civil unrest. Theres no doubt that tough choices must be made in tough economic times. These choices, however, must not compromise our nations ability to collect and deliver accurate and timely information about our world that enables governments, communities, companies and individuals to make sound decisions that save lives, protect and grow the economy, strengthen national security and improve our quality of life. Environmental intelligence is the result of a critical but fragile supply chain that begins with science and observations ground sensors, ocean buoys, stream gauges, satellites, etc. and ends with actionable information that allows decision-makers to better respond and adapt to a changing planet. That supply chain is threatened, however, by broad cuts to the nations Earthobserving programs. Most of us benefit from the environmental information supply chain almost every day in the form of that cherished weather report we consult before going to work or sending the kids off to school. The weather information supply chain begins with NASA research and development, which leads to technology that is transitioned to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for operational purposes. NOAA satellites and other instruments collect and store environmental data that are fed into complex computer models. That model output fuels forecasts provided by NOAAs National Weather Service and the $1.7 billion private-sector weather services industry, which in turn delivers value-added weather information and alerts to media outlets, farmers and agricultural companies, transportation authorities, and even directly to your smartphone. What many people do not realize is that the supply chain process that produces that much-valued weather report is years to decades in the making and is threatened by looming gaps in critical data due in large part to funding deficits combined with satellites operating beyond their planned lifetimes, with replacements either not ready or not planned. These same gaps also threaten a similar supply chain process sometimes involving different players such as the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Geological Survey that produces a variety of vital information products related to oceans, drought, volcanoes, earthquakes, tsunamis, forests, polar ice, climate and more. Therefore, each time Earth science investment is reduced, the nations ability to monitor and forecast tornadoes and tsunamis, for example, or provide data for the emerging wind energy market is threatened. And its not just the satellites and other instruments that monitor the planet that are jeopardized by slash-and-burn budget cuts, but also critical improvements in computing capabilities, efforts to integrate data sets across numerous federal agencies whose formats are incompatible with one another, and the mechanisms by which the public and private sectors deliver data to users and decision-makers in a timely manner. Significant sacrifices are an unfortunate reality in the face of hard economic challenges. But the proposed U.S. budget cuts lack a nuanced approach that recognizes potential long-term impacts and costs that would far outweigh the benefit of any short-term savings. They also illuminate another important issue: No long-term national vision exists for these vital programs that enable us to see how the planet is changing to capture and deliver information needed by energy companies to better manage resources, emergency workers to respond to a hurricane or earthquake, military planners to prepare for friction caused by drought-induced food shortages, or government officials to respond to disasters such as the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Perhaps the question shouldnt be what can we cut, but rather how do we better invest to better protect our citizens and grow the economy? In a time of national budget woes, its fantasy to think that any one agency or program is immune to cuts. We must beware, however, that cutting too deep or without care or a plan will almost certainly lead to inadequacies in the information needed to make sound decisions related to our environment, which impacts every sector of the U.S. economy, today and for many years and decades to come.

22

Houston Urban Debate League 2011 Summer Debate Institute Declining crop yields cause World War III Calvin 1998

Trade Off DA

William H.;Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences University of Washington, January The Great Climate Flip-Flop Atlantic Monthly 281:1 EBSCO)
The population-crash scenario is surely the most appalling. Plummeting

crop yields would cause some powerful countries to try to take over their neighbors or distant lands if only because their armies, unpaid and lacking food, would go marauding, both at home and across the borders. The better-organized countries would attempt to use their armies, before they fell apart entirely, to take over countries with significant remaining resources, driving out or starving their inhabitants if not using modern weapons to accomplish the same end: eliminating competitors for the remaining food. This would be a worldwide problem and could lead to a Third World War but Europes vulnerability is particularly easy to analyze. The last abrupt cooling, the Younger Dryas, drastically altered Europes climate as far east as Ukraine. Present-day Europe has more than 650 million people. It has excellent soils, and largely grows its own food. It could no longer do so if it lost the extra warming from the North Atlantic.

Conflict over Water risks escalation to Nuclear War Weiner 1990


(Jonathan; Former Writer and Editor for The Sciences) The Next One Hundred Years: Shaping the Fate of Our Living Earth p. 214 WBW
If we do not destroy ourselves with the A-Bomb and the H-Bomb, then we may destroy ourselves with the C-Bomb, the change Bomb. And in a world as interlinked as ours, one explosion may lead to the other. Already in the Middle East, from Northern Africa to the Persian Gulf and from the Nile to the Euphrates,

tensions over dwindling water supplies and rising populations are reaching what many experts describe as a flashpoint. A climate shift in that single battle-scarred nexus might trigger international tensions that will unleash some of the 60,000 nuclear warheads the world has stockpiled since Trinity.

23

Houston Urban Debate League 2011 Summer Debate Institute ***Impact Extensions*** Atmospheric Science Impact Knowledge of the Earths atmosphere solves extinction Ramanujan 4
(Krishna Ramanujan, NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center, 2004)

Trade Off DA

When people search for conditions that might support life on other planets, one of the first things they look for is water. Right now, NASA is searching for signs of water on Mars as a precursor to whether life may have been possible there. But the thin sliver of gases and air that make an atmosphere around a planet is just as necessary for life to exist. The atmosphere traps air around our planet, making it possible to breathe and to have a climate. It also regulates the temperature within a range that allows life to exist, and our ozone layer blocks life-threatening ultraviolet radiation from the sun from reaching earth's surface. Earth's atmosphere sustains life in all these ways, and by the thinnest margins. If a person could cruise at a speed of 60 miles an hour straight up, it would take just 6 minutes to exit the air we need to survive. Considering the relatively delicacy of this thin protective film, understanding our atmosphere goes hand in hand with protecting life as we know it. On June 19, NASA will launch Aura, a next generation Earth-observing satellite that will make global observations of the ocean of air that surrounds our planet. Aura will supply the best information yet about the health of Earth's atmosphere. Answering Key Science Questions Aura will provide an essential component for understanding changes in our climate, our air quality, and the ozone layer that protects life from harmful solar radiation. In doing so, it will help answer some fundamental questions regarding climate change. One question that researchers have asked is: Is the stratospheric ozone layer recovering? International agreements, like the Montreal Protocol, have banned ozone destroying chemicals like Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), but scientists are unclear about the effectiveness of these treaties. Aura will accurately detect global levels of CFCs, and their byproducts, chlorine and bromine, which destroy the ozone layer. Another question that researchers need more information to: What are the processes controlling air quality? Aura will help greatly to unravel some of these mysteries by tracking the sources and processes controlling global and regional air quality. When ozone exists in the lower atmosphere, the troposphere, it acts as an air pollutant. Gasoline and diesel engines give off gases in the summer that create ozone and smog. Aura will help scientists follow the sources of ozone and its precursors. Finally, Aura will offer insights into the question: How is the Earth's climate changing? As the composition of Earth's atmosphere changes, so does its ability to absorb, reflect and retain solar energy. Greenhouse gases, including water vapor, trap heat in the atmosphere. Airborne aerosols from human and natural sources absorb or reflect solar energy based on color, shape, size, and substance. The impact of aerosols, tropospheric ozone and upper tropospheric water vapor on Earth's climate remains largely un-quantified, but now Aura will have the unique ability to monitor these agents.

24

Houston Urban Debate League 2011 Summer Debate Institute ***NEO Detection Trade Off*** NEO Detection 1NC A. Uniqueness: Small asteroid detection has enough funding now Planetary Defense 11
(February 14, NASA FY2012 Budget and NEO Program (Increase from About US$6 M to US$20M) http://planetarydefense.blogspot.com/2011/02/nasa-fy2012-budget-and-neo-program.html)

Trade Off DA

NASA FY2012 Budget request from President Obama has been released. Some quick highlights related to NEOs. It looks as if the Near Earth Object Observations (NEOO) program will have its budget increased from US$5.8M in FY2010 (and similar amount in FY2011 due to the Continuing Resolution) to approximatively a little over US$20M in FY2012. From the recent budget release from NASA: Near Earth Object Observations (NEOO) program - Budget Authority, $ in millions Actual FY2010: US$5.8 M FY2011: Continuing Resolution (CR) FY2012: US$20.4 M FY2013: US$20.5 M FY2014: US$20.6 M FY2015: US$20.7 M FY2016: US$21.1 M The NEOO project detects and tracks at least 90 percent of the near Earth objects (NEOs)-- asteroids, and comets that come within 1.3 astronomical units of the Sun. It's long term goal is to find those of at least 140 meters in size that have any potential to collide with Earth and do significant damage to the planet. In the course of this effort, initial characterization of NEOs that could be viable targets for robotic and crewed exploration will also occur. In accordance with the findings and recommendations of the January 2010 NRC study on the NEO hazard, NEOO will continue to: - Collect, archive, and analyze the small body data collected by NASA's WISE mission, and support increased follow-up and analysis of this data; - Enable collection of NEO detection and characterization data by ground-based systems, including the U.S. Air Force's (USAF) Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Reporting System (Pan-STARRS) and investigate the use of other USAF space surveillance assets for this mission; - Support the continued operation of planetary radar capabilities at the NSF's Arecibo and NASA's Goldstone facilities; and - Investigate both ground and space-based concepts for increasing capacity to detect, track and characterize potentially hazardous objects down to sizes 140 meters and below.

B. Link: Budget overruns put NEO detection at risk CNN 9


(August 13, NASA falling short of asteroid-detection goals, http://articles.cnn.com/2009-0813/tech/nasa.asteroid.detection_1_earth-object-program-near-earth-minor-planet-center?_s=PM:TECH) Without more funding, NASA will not meet its goal of tracking 90 percent of all deadly asteroids by 2020, according to a report released today by the National Academy of Sciences. The agency is on track to soon be able to spot 90 percent of the potentially dangerous objects that are at least a kilometer (.6 miles) wide, a goal previously mandated by Congress. Asteroids of this size are estimated to strike Earth once every 500,000 years on average and could be capable of causing a global catastrophe if they hit Earth. In 2008, NASA's Near Earth Object Program spotted a total of 11,323 objects of all sizes. But without more money in the budget, NASA won't be able to keep up with a 2005 directive to track 90 percent of objects bigger than 460 feet across. An impact from an asteroid of this size could cause significant damage and be very deadly, particularly if it were to strike near a populated area. Meeting that goal "may require the building of one or more additional observatories, possibly including a spacebased observatory," according to the report. The committee that investigated the issue noted that the United States is getting little help from the rest of the world on this front, and isn't likely to any time soon. Another report is planned for release by the end of the year that will review what NASA plans to do if we spot a life-threatening asteroid headed our direction.

C. Impact: Thats key to solve accidental nuclear war BBC News 2 (Asteroids 'could trigger nuclear war, July 15, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2128488.stm)
A small asteroid could accidentally trigger a nuclear war if mistaken for a missile strike, experts have warned. Scientists and military chiefs studying the threat are calling for a global warning centre to be set up to inform governments immediately of asteroid impacts. The risk is seen as particularly grave if an asteroid blast were to happen in areas of military tension, such as over nuclear-armed neighbours India and Pakistan. Each year about 30 asteroids several metres in length pierce the atmosphere and explode, with even the smaller sized ones unleashing as much energy as the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima in Japan.

25

Houston Urban Debate League 2011 Summer Debate Institute ***James Webb Trade Off*** The Webb 1NC

Trade Off DA

A. Uniqueness & Link: The James Webb Telescope is being funded now but its next on the chopping block. The aff will force its cancellation Hand 11
(Eric, Nasa budget cuts threaten two new telescopes, http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=nasa-budget-cutsthreaten-two-telescopes)
As the space shuttle glides through its final week, another

arm of the US space program faces a bleak future. Astrophysics was once NASA's highest-funded science division and, with the Hubble Space Telescope, a long-time publicrelations winner. But its two flagship telescope missions, ranked as the highest priorities for US astronomy, are now under threat as budget constraints start to bite. Stung by spiraling costs and charges of mismanagement, the James
Webb Space Telescope (JWST) -- Hubble's long-awaited successor -- is now seen by some critics as too expensive to fly. And the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST), which would hunt for exoplanets and probe the poorly understood phenomenon known as dark energy, may take too long to develop to be worthwhile. Added to that,

the astrophysics division is facing a budget crunch while other science divisions within the agency weather the fiscal storm and even come out ahead. "Clearly there's strong support for science,"
astrophysics director Jon Morse said at an advisory panel meeting on 13 July as he reviewed his division's place in the scientific pecking order at NASA. "The change here is about priorities." With support from President Barack Obama, the agency's Earth science budget is at an all-time high. Over the next four months, the planetary science division is due to launch three major missions: to the Moon, to Mars and to Jupiter. And the heliophysics division plans to send a probe plunging into the blistering atmosphere of the Sun, closer than ever before. But because the overall NASA science budget is relatively flat, something had to give. Since 2008, astrophysics funding has plunged relative to other NASA science (see 'Falling fortunes') -- and relative to physics and astronomy funding at other agencies. In Congress, the division faces outright hostility. While

Boss lamented the budget trends at last week's meeting, a House appropriations committee was endorsing a bill that would cancel funding for the JWST. By all accounts, the 6.5-metre telescope will be at least as important to astronomy as Hubble has been. Designed
to operate in the infrared, where the oldest celestial objects shine, the JWST could peer back to the Universe's first stars. It could also use the exquisite resolution offered by the vacuum of space to spot Earth-like planets. "Every once in a while, NASA does something that changes the game," says Michael Turner, director of the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics at the University of Chicago, Illinois. "JWST is in that category." But the cost of the JWST has also changed the game. In November, an independent panel called in by Congress blasted the project for mismanagement. It found that the telescope's price tag had ballooned to US$6.5 billion and that its launch date would have to be delayed to 2015 (see Nature 468 , 353-354; 2010). Even that projection seems to have been too optimistic. At the advisory panel meeting, Rick Howard, the recently installed JWST program director, said that following his overhaul of the mission, the telescope will now launch in 2018 at the earliest. "Of course people are disappointed," says project scientist John Mather of the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, which is managing the project. "I wanted it sooner, too." Although the extra time should be enough to resolve technical setbacks that have slowed the project, it also raises costs, as engineers and scientists must be employed for longer. Howard would not reveal exactly what the new price tag was, but he acknowledged that it would be more than $6.5 billion. About $3 billion has been spent already. To get the mission back on track, NASA replaced all of the JWST's senior managers and put Howard at the helm. So far, he says, all of the telescope's 18 mirror segments have been polished and assembled. Engineers have also determined why some of the telescope's infrared detectors have begun to degrade. The bad detectors are being replaced at an additional cost of $40 million to $50 million, Howard says. Many

expect that the project's political defenders, such as Senator Barbara Mikulski (Democrat, Maryland), will be able to fend off the immediate threat in Congress. Garth Illingworth, an astronomer at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who was on the independent panel that reviewed the JWST, says that his real worry is whether the telescope will receive the massive infusion of funds it needs to get off the ground by 2018. The White House is
currently requesting $355 million for the project in 2012, and slightly more each year for the next four years. At those levels, Illingworth says, the telescope will never launch. If

the JWST is delayed yet again it will further imperil WFIRST, the next big astrophysics mission. The project, declared as the top priority in last year's decadal review of US astronomy by the National Academy of Sciences, is designed to measure
the effects of dark energy -- thought to be accelerating the expansion of the Universe -- and to monitor distant stars for signs of exoplanets. But the rising cost of the JWST, together with NASA's declining astrophysics budget, could mean that the $1.6-billion project might not get off the drawing board, let alone the launch pad. The progress of a European Space Agency proposal to launch a similar telescope, called Euclid, by 2017 puts WFIRST in an even bigger bind. The proposal, submitted on 14 July, will face a final selection round in October. "If Euclid happens and is as good as they say, then I'm not sure [WFIRST] makes sense," says Turner. Morse maintains that the division's budget woes will not affect other, smaller astrophysics missions scheduled for the next few years, but with two flagship missions in jeopardy that is small consolation to many astrophysicists. "We're certainly more vulnerable than ever," says Boss, who worries that the seriousness of the situation may be lost on those outside the astrophysics community. "Maybe people are saying, 'They've got Hubble; that's all they need.'"

26

Houston Urban Debate League 2011 Summer Debate Institute B. Impacts: First, Webb can find habitable planets Gardner et. al. 06

Trade Off DA

[Jonathan P., a group of 18 professionals from around the world, with varying specialties, The James Webb Space Telescope, May 15, http://www.springerlink.com /content/h2374012xk30qpw5 /fulltext.pdf]
HOW ARE HABITABLE ZONES ESTABLISHED? What are the sources of water and organics for planets in habitable zones? How are systems cleared of small bodies? What are the planetary evolutionary pathways by which habitability is established or lost? Does our Solar System harbor evidence for steps on these pathways? Water and Organics: Some geochemical evidence suggests that Earths water did not come from locally formed planetesimals at 1AU (Morbidelli et al., 2000). However, the source of water is uncertain. Asteroids are a dynamically plausible source and could be isotopically consistent, if chondrites are a typical sample of the section of the primordial asteroid belt that supplied water to the Earth (Robert, 2001). However, other geochemical evidence severely limits the amount of chondritic material the Earth might have acquired (Drake and Righter, 2002). Cometary HDO/H2O values measured in three longperiod comets are twice that of Earths ocean water (Meier et al., 1998). Also, the D/H ratio of short-period comets and their presumed Kuiper Belt progenitors remains unknown. By measuring isotopic ratios in comets and larger Kuiper Belt bodies, JWST

can solve this part of the puzzle, removing a major uncertainty in the source of water for our own planet. Similarly, the source of the early abundance of Martian water is uncertain; as on Earth, it could be local, asteroidal, or cometary (Lunine et al.,
2003). The continued search for extant Martian water inventories is of relevance to this problem as well. Comets remain a highly plausible source of Earths organics (Pierazzo and Chyba, 1999) and the inventory of organics derived from high-sensitivity IR spectra will be of value in constraining the theories. JWST

measurements of the composition and structure in protoplanetary disks around other stars will extend the quantification of the source of water and organics to putative habitable worlds around stars other than the Sun. Second, that solves space colonization Harrold 08
[staff writer for the Gazette July 18, 2008, Max Harrold, The Gazette, Earth's twin coming into view; Scientists believe habitable planet will be spotted soon, Lexis]
With less fanfare than H.G. Wells's science fiction, but no less of the sweep, scientists in Montreal this week are conjuring new Earths. This time, it's for real. Spotting Earth's twin is

Everywhere we can look for planets we are finding them," said Sara Seager, a Torontonian who teaches physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "Everyone wants to meet an alien," Seager said, "but (extraterrestrial) life might just be bacteria." Of the 300 or so known exoplanets, as planets in other star systems are called, most are too close to their suns and too hot to sustain life. Some astronomers have claimed there are about 45 Earth-like planets. They might have water vapour in their atmospheres, Seager added. But until better optical techniques are devised, the Earth-like worlds can't be hailed as certainties, she said. "It certainly will happen in my lifetime," said Seager, who is about 40. "I intend to live a very long life." Finding an Earth twin, or several, would revolutionize how humans see themselves, she said. It might also begin a new era of space colonization. People "would probably want to send a probe there," she said. The hitch? "The closest one is probably 200 years away" using existing means of space travel. The distance isn't stopping scientists around the globe from engaging in a race to nail an Earth-like sighting, however. The biggest challenge is separating the intense light of a star to isolate a planet orbiting the star. Some planets have been sighted next to stars, but they are often so large and dense they would not support life. Seager is excited about other scenarios. If not Earth's twin, how about a cousin? she asked. Some planets spotted close to their suns might be habitable since the suns
tantalizingly close - perhaps a year or two away - a conference of the world's top space scientists was told yesterday. " are much smaller and cooler. Some are several times larger than Earth, but with what might be a rocky composition, like Earth, and the chemicals in their atmospheres to sustain life.

existing space telescopes like the Hubble, and the James Webb Space Telescope, to be launched in 2013, could be the ones to spot another oasis in space. Canada's $130-million contribution to the Webb includes providing its guidance system. A full-scale, 5.4-tonne model of the telescope is on view until tomorrow at the Old Port. The 37th International Scientific Assembly, for 2,000 leading space scientists, wraps up Sunday. Seager said looking for life on other planets is no longer considered futile, or blasphemous. "Even the Vatican's astronomer has said it's okay to look."
Seager said

27

Houston Urban Debate League 2011 Summer Debate Institute Third, colonization is key to solving extinction Monga Bay 2006

Trade Off DA

environmental science and conservation news site, 2006 (November 30. To avoid extinction humans must colonize space says Hawking. http://news.mongabay.com/2006/1130-hawking.html) As he was awarded the most prestigious prize in science, British

theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking said that humans need to colonize outer space in order avoid extinction. Hawking, who was presented Thursday with the Copley medal from Britain's Royal Society, told BBC Radio that humanity faces extinction if it confines itself to Earth."The long-term survival of the human race is at risk as long as it is confined to a single planet," Hawking said. "Sooner or later disasters such as an asteroid collision or a nuclear war could wipe us all out. But once we spread out into space and establish independent colonies, our future should be safe."Hawking said that improvements in technology could make space travel for feasible in the future."Science
fiction has developed the idea of warp drive, which takes you instantly to your destination. Unfortunately, this would violate the scientific law which says that nothing can travel faster than light," he added "but matter/antimatter annihilation" could

make it possible to travel at speeds just below the speed of light. "My next goal is to go into space," he said.Hawking, who has long pushed for space exploration and has performed groundbreaking research on black holes and the origins of the universe, believes that we could have a permanent base on the moon in 20 years and a colony on Mars in the next 40 years."Life on Earth is at the ever-increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster, such as sudden global warming, nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus or other dangers we have not yet thought of," he said this summer at a news conference in Hong Kong. The Copley medal is the world's oldest award for scientific achievement. First awarded in 1731, Charles Darwin, Albert
Einstein, Louis Pasteur and Sir James Cook have been recipients the award.

28

Houston Urban Debate League 2011 Summer Debate Institute ***Uniqueness Extensions*** NASAs chief confirms, budget stable enough for James Webb telescope Wall 2011

Trade Off DA

7-13-11, a science writer for the Idaho National Laboratory and has been an intern at Wired.com, The Salinas Californian newspaper, and the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. He has also worked as a herpetologist and wildlife biologist. He has a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology from the University of Sydney, Australia, a bachelor's degree from the University of Arizona, and a graduate certificate in science writing from the University of California, Santa Cruz (Michael, NASA Chief to Congress: Save the James Webb Space Telescope, space.com, http://www.space.com/12263-nasa-chief-congress-james-webb-space-telescope.html)

NASA chief Charlie Bolden went to bat for the agency's imperiled next-generation space telescope Tuesday (July 12), telling members of Congress that the instrument has greater potential for discovery than the iconic Hubble Space Telescope. A proposed congressional budget bill announced last week would terminate NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), an ambitious instrument with a history of delays and cost overruns. But NASA can deliver JWST to space for about the same price as Hubble, Bolden said and the science returns would be even greater. "I have tried to explain what I think is the importance of James Webb, in terms of opening new
horizons far greater than we got from Hubble," Bolden told members of the House Science, Space and Technology committee Tuesday. "I would only say that for about the same cost as Hubble in real-year dollars, we'll bring

James Webb into operation." NASAs nearly done with the telescope, not much more funding required Wall 2011
7-13-11, a science writer for the Idaho National Laboratory and has been an intern at Wired.com, The Salinas Californian newspaper, and the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. He has also worked as a herpetologist and wildlife biologist. He has a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology from the University of Sydney, Australia, a bachelor's degree from the University of Arizona, and a graduate certificate in science writing from the University of California, Santa Cruz (Michael, NASA Chief to Congress: Save the James Webb Space Telescope, space.com, http://www.space.com/12263-nasa-chief-congress-james-webb-space-telescope.html)

Bolden came to Capitol Hill Tuesday to discuss NASA's plans for its next heavy-lift rocket system specifically, to explain to an increasingly impatient Congress why the agency has yet to decide upon a design. But he also fielded questions about JWST's fate and made a case for the instrument's continued funding. For example, Bolden stressed that NASA has made changes to JWST's management, and that the instrument is already quite far along in development. More than 75 percent of the telescope's hardware has already been delivered, Bolden said. The NASA chief also stressed JWST's potential to
revolutionize our understanding of the universe, invoking Hubble's great achievements as an example of what such powerful telescopes can do. "When we started Hubble, dark energy didn't exist. At least, we didn't know about it," Bolden said. "When we launched Hubble, there was no such thing as extrasolar planets. So those kinds of discoveries would probably go lacking, unless some other nation stepped forward and did it."

29

Houston Urban Debate League 2011 Summer Debate Institute Money can be redirected to keep JWST alive, and many committees are fighting for it AAS 2011

Trade Off DA

7-20-11, Government official space association (American astronomical society, AAS Informational Email 2011-08: Recent Policy Activity on James Webb Space Telescope and Pu-238, spaceref.com, http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.rss.html? pid=37792)

Because of the magnitude of this proposed cancellation, the AAS quickly released a strong statement on the importance of the JWST on July 7. The report was quickly publicized through various media outlets and communicated to policy makers. Other statements of support for JWST have come from Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), chair of the Senate Commerce, Justice, Science Appropriations Subcommittee, Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD), Rep. Donna Edwards (D-MD), the Canadian Astronomical Society (CASCA), the JWST Advisory Committee (JSTAC), and other professional organizations. The
Association of Universities for Astronomy Research (AURA) is keeping a list of statements supporting JWST and their links: http://www.aura-astronomy.org/news/news.asp?newsID=264 During the full Committee markup on July 13,

Congressman Adam Schiff (D-CA) offered an amendment to restore $200 million in funding for the project in FY2012 by transferring the funds from NASA's Cross Agency Support budget, for which the
bill allocated approximately $3 billion. Unfortunately, the amendment was defeated. More details may be found via AIP's FYI email alerts at http://www.aip.org/fyi/2011/088.html However, during the introduction of the markup, Rep. Wolf,

the chair of the appropriations committee and the source of the original proposed language, said, "We want to do it, but we want to do it in the right way." Wolf said he would work with Ranking Minority Member Chaka Fattah (D-PA) on the telescope as the bill moved ahead

30

Houston Urban Debate League 2011 Summer Debate Institute ***Link Extensions*** James Webb budget is tied to others the plan will reduce its funding Pace 11

Trade Off DA

Director of the Space Policy Institute, and professor of the practice of international aairs at George Washington Universitys Elliott School of International Aairs, and former associate administrator for program analysis and evaluation at NASA (Scott, Conversations with Scott Pace, Aerospace America, April, Ebsco) I think NASA

is facing a broad range of problems across the board, not just in human spaceflight but also in its science programs, its astrophysics line. The James Webb telescope overruns are troublesome. We thought we had established a stable technical baseline and had absorbed the bulk of the cost increases, but there have been additional increases and their magnitude comes as a surprise to me. As an analyst, I would like to know more deeply why that occurred. And there have been cost increases and technical challenges in the Mars Science Laboratory program. What do those problems portend for the future? Those are both flagship-level NASA programs, so the implications of the cost increases will have profound impacts on the whole NASA science scene for many years to come, because other programs will have to be cut or delayed, too. So that is a problem for the NASA science community, but it is something that can be solved within the NASA budget, in the science community lines. NASA will make the choices that it needs to make. It has faced these kinds of problems before, and no one
questions that there will be an astrophysics line or that there will be a planetary exploration line.

31

Houston Urban Debate League 2011 Summer Debate Institute

Trade Off DA

James Webb Telescope on chopping block now-budget key-Aff spending breaks budget, JWT cant be kept Fox News 11
(July 7,NASA's Next-Gen Space Telescope on the Chopping Block, http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/07/06/housesubcommittees-budget-bill-puts-most-powerful-space-telescope-on-chopping/?test=faces)

Lawmakers working on next year's federal finances have taken the ax to the James Webb Space Telescope. That's right, NASA's next-generation space telescope, the successor to Hubble and the space agency's biggest post-shuttle project, may be killed. To be clear, there are many more steps in the budget process before this is final -- lawmakers are working on next year's budget despite a stalemate between the White House and Republican leadership, so a lot could change in the next couple weeks.
And odds are decent that at least some lawmakers will fight to preserve this enormous technological marvel (and the jobs associated with its construction). But this is not good news for astronomy, to put it mildly. The House Appropriations Committee released its 2012 Commerce, Justice and Science funding bill today, ahead of a scheduled committee markup Thursday. The bill provides $50.2 billion overall for the nation's projects in those three areas, which is $7.4 billion less than President Obama's budget request. NASA's budget is slashed by $1.6 billion, which is $1.9 billion less than Obama wanted. About $1 billion of that comes from the end of the shuttle program, and NASA Science funding is cut by $431 million from last year. "The bill also terminates funding for the James Webb Space Telescope, which is billions of dollars over budget and plagued by poor management," an Appropriations Committee press release says flatly. While management problems are a little more

subjective, the telescope is indeed massively over budget, as we've told you before. In November, a congressional panel described the telescope as "NASA's Hurricane Katrina," because of its destructive toll on other agency projects. That review found the telescope's price tag had mushroomed to $6.5
billion and that it would not be ready until at least 2015. Then, just last week, the watchdog site NASA Watch obtained a memo from Goddard Space Flight Center describing that it may not launch until after 2018 -- even that is "unfeasible," the report said. But that earlier report, last November, also pointed out a key fact: "The funds invested to date have not been wasted." The JWST has enabled several engineering feats, from brand-new metal compounds to a huge space umbrella that will shield it from the sun. The umbrella will unfurl in space along with an enormous 18-piece primary mirror made of material that is supposed to warp in frigid temperatures. Astronomers say the JWST will provide unprecedented imagery of the deepest corners of the cosmos. This bombshell is not the only piece of bad news for the scientific community. The National Science Foundation is also losing funding, set to receive $907 million less than Obama requested as part of his campaign to "Win the Future." The NSF will get a modest $43 million for core research, Politico reports. Aside from that, NOAA is down $1 billion. The EnvironmentalProtection Agency is down $1.5 billion, about 18 percent. Pentagon spending would grow by $17 billion in 2012, on the other hand. Again, this is all far from over, and plenty of fiscal feuding remains

before we can write the JWST's obituary. But with a budget debate raging in Washington -- and, many economists say, the specter of a new economic crisis looming -- future space telescopes could be a low priority.

32

Houston Urban Debate League 2011 Summer Debate Institute

Trade Off DA

JWST can be launched within 5 years if it isnt funded in 2011 itll be pushed farther back and impossible to finance Lobbia et al, 10
the Aerospace Corporation (Executive Secretary), holds a BS degree in Aerospace Engineering, and MS and PhD degrees in Aeronautics and Astronautics Engineering [October 29, 2010, Marcus Lobbia, James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) Independent Comprehensive Review Panel (ICRP), http://www.scribd.com/doc/42064436/Jim-Webb-Space-Telescope-report]

To meet this schedule (launch in September 2015; end of six-month commissioning in February 2016)and to meet the goal of minimum-cost-to-launchwould require an additional ~$1.4 billion over the current life cycle cost estimate in the FY 2011 Presidents Budget from FY 2011 through the first half of FY 2016, including an additional ~$250 million in both FY 2011 and FY 2012. The level of the near-term increases needed to fund the lowest cost approach to launch, particularly in FY 2011, is a challenge to the Agency, OMB, and Congress. Yet this is what is needed to put JWST on a recovery path when complemented by appropriate management and structural changes in the Project. If such funds are not available, particularly in FY 2011, the launch date will slip into 2016 (and probably even later), and the overall cost will likely grow by amounts that exceed the additional funds required in FY 2011 and FY 2012. The
derivation of these totals and the rationale for these amounts are more fully discussed in Appendix A.

Any remaining technical work on the project cant be resolved until JWST is fully funded Lobbia et al, 10
the Aerospace Corporation (Executive Secretary), holds a BS degree in Aerospace Engineering, and MS and PhD degrees in Aeronautics and Astronautics Engineering [October 29, 2010, Marcus Lobbia, James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) Independent Comprehensive Review Panel (ICRP), http://www.scribd.com/doc/42064436/Jim-Webb-Space-Telescope-report]

Slipping the schedule of the JWST spacecraft element has increased risk. The CDR for the spacecraft is still months away and little work has been done because of the focus on other areas. The rationale for delaying the spacecraft CDR appears to have been to address the more challenging technology areas of the mission early to retire risk and avoid major cost and schedule impacts, but is really just another example of deferring work to fit within an overconstrained budget profile. This had the unintended consequence of placing the burden of interface accommodation largely on the spacecraft. It is thus likely that thermal, mechanical, and dynamics issues will need to be absorbed by the spacecraft, which could create significant cost and schedule impacts to the spacecraft element going forward.

33

Houston Urban Debate League 2011 Summer Debate Institute James Webb Telescope on brink now- the aff pushes it past American Physical Society 11

Trade Off DA

(July 18,James Webb Telescope Funding Update,http://physicsfrontline.aps.org/2011/07/18/james-webb-telescope-fundingupdate/) According to Michael S. Lubells July 12 blog post, the House was poised to eliminate funding for the James Webb Space Telescope. Well, during a 4 -hour markup of the Commerce, Justice, Science (CJS) Fiscal Year 2012 appropriations bill, the House Appropriations Committee rejected an attempt to restore that funding the Administration request is $373.7 million. The CJS subcommittee that marked up the bill on July 7 eliminated funding for the project, charging NASA with mismanagement. According to its report: The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) Independent Comprehensive Review Panel revealed chronic and deeply rooted management problems in the JWST project. These issues led to the project cost being underestimated by as much as $1,400,000,000 relative to the most recent baseline, and the budget could continue to rise depending on the final launch date determination. Although JWST is a particularly serious example, significant cost overruns are commonplace at NASA, and the Committee believes that the underlying causes will never be fully addressed if the Congress does not establish clear consequences for failing to meet budget and schedule expectations. The Committee recommendation provides no funding for JWST in fiscal year 2012. During the full

Committee markup, Congressman Adam Schiff (D-CA) offered an amendment to restore $200 million in funding for the project by taking it from NASAs Cross Agency Support budget, for which the bill allocated approximately $3 billion. Unfortunately, the amendment was defeated. CJS Subcommittee
Chairman Frank Wolf (R-VA) alleged that NASA had been hiding costs associated with the telescope and cited a new finding by the Government Accountability Office, which estimated the telescopes cost at $7.8 billion. Later, Wolf said NASA had rushed its planning for the telescope and cited a series of cost escalations. Despite the appearance of doom and gloom, there is still hope for JWST. After learning of the House Subcommittees actions on the July 7, Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), chair of the Senate CJS Appropriations Subcommittee, released the following statement: Today, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies passed a bill that would terminate the James Webb Space Telescope, kill 2,000 jobs nationwide and stall scientific progress and discovery. It was a

shortsighted and misguided move. The Webb Telescope will lead to the kind of innovation and discovery that have made America great. It will inspire Americas next generation of scientists and innovators that will have the new ideas that lead to the new jobs in our new economy. The Administration must step in and fight for the James Webb Telescope. We understand that Chairman Wolf is prepared to work behind the scene to help restore funding for the telescope, and that he took a hard line publically on the project for political reasons. We can only hope.

34

Houston Urban Debate League 2011 Summer Debate Institute

Trade Off DA

Budget is key to keep JWST from getting cut-Aff pushes spending way over budget-JWST will get cut with plan Discover 11
(July 7,Congress puts Nasa and JWST on chopping block, http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/07/07/congress-puts-nasa-and-jwst-on-the-chopping-block/)

When I saw the Presidential Budget Request this year for NASA, I was heartened: lots of money for commercial space transport and science. Obama hasnt been a vocal supporter of NASA, so it was a relief. Congress has countered, however. The House just released its Appropriations bill that covers science funding for NSF, NASA, NOAA, and NIST. Almost across the board: cuts. Massive ones. This bill (PDF)
actually keeps NSF at the fiscal year 11 funding, although thats $900 million less than the Presidential request. NOAA is being cut $100 million (2.2%), or $1 billion less than requested. NIST: cut by $50 million over FY11 (6.5%), $300 million less than requested. But NASA is the one where the cuts are nothing short of savage. The

cuts total $1.64 billion from last year, which is nearly $2 billion less than requested. Thats a cut of 8.8%. A billion of that is due to the Shuttle retiring, but the galling part is that the House is requiring that all funding for the James Webb Space Telescope, Hubbles successor, be cut entirely. In other words, they are canceling the JWST program. To be fair, the JWST project has been over budget, behind
schedule, and mismanaged for years. Its sapped money away from other projects as well. But the reason this is so aggravating is that despite all that the pieces are built and currently being assembled. Im not sure its cost-

effective to cancel it at this point; better to put a hold on it, audit the whole thing top to bottom, and re-organize as needed. JWST has been a real problem, but it will also be one of the most spectacular

observatories ever built. A six meter mirror in space tuned for infra-red observations, it will see farther and in more detail than any space telescope ever built. It will see galaxies when they were first forming, it will image planets orbiting distant suns, and will map our Universe like never before. At this point, canceling it means billions of dollars will be thrown away, when the cost to complete it is far less*..As I understand it, the bill will get out of the subcommittee today and probably go to the full Appropriations Committee next Wednesday. The Senate will create its own version, and then the two bills will have to be reconciled before going to the President to sign. Canceling JWST may just be saber-rattling, but either way contacting your Rep is a good idea. We have a long

way to go here; this is just the opening salvo.

35

Houston Urban Debate League 2011 Summer Debate Institute ***Impact Extensions*** HEG Impact

Trade Off DA

Abandoning the James Webb will crush U.S. science leadership the plan is key to revive our international leadership Illingworth, 11
Ph.D., Australian National University, chairs a relatively new committee, the Astronomy and Astrophysics Advisory Committee, that offers advice to Congress and NSF, NASA and DOE on the implementation of the science program developed by the astronomy science community through studies carried out by the National Academy of Sciences [January 21, 2011, Garth Illingworth, letter to Dr. John P. Holdren, http://www.stsci.edu/jwst/community-advice/JSTAC_Holdren_JWST.pdf]

The James Webb Space Telescope is a project of astonishing scientific capability that is the natural successor to the iconic Hubble Space Telescope. With 100X the power of Hubble, yet a comparable cost to launch, it reflects the huge technological steps that the US, and our international partners (Europe and Canada), have made in the last twothree decades since Hubble was designed and built. JWST will maintain US leadership in space science and technology. The partnership for JWST with the European Space Agency (ESA), its member states and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) reflects the success of such past partnerships (e.g., Hubble) between NASA and these international agencies. JWST was the topranked project of all projects, ground and space, in the 2000 US Decadal Survey, and is extensively acknowledged as a cornerstone of the next decades astronomical research in the
2010 US Decadal Survey (where it was understood for the report that JWST would become operational this decade). Furthermore, JWST is now the single largest investment by Canada in astronomy and a major investment by Europe, consistent with its very high scientific importance to each of their scientific and political communities. It is crucial for our international partners that JWST progresses expeditiously. Hubble, and the other ongoing Great Observatories (Chandra and Spitzer) have demonstrated the value and cost-effectiveness of broadly-capable space observatories through their wide-ranging and continuing scientific discoveries. Such Great Observatories have been shown to return discoveries very cost-effectively. The Great Observatories have also made a disproportionately large contribution to advancing public science interest and literacy (Hubble again is the pre-eminent example). Furthermore, the breadth of the science programs that such flagship missions can undertake, along with their ability to respond quickly to discoveries from other missions and observatories, makes them a truly unique scientific resource that benefits large numbers of scientists, their students and their postdoctoral researchers. Hubbles role in the discovery of planets beyond our solar system, of dark energy, and of young galaxies looking back through 96% of time to just 500 Myr after the Big Bang are some of the many examples of forefront science areas that have touched the popular imagination. 2 JWST will play a similar role to Hubble, except

that its dramatically higher performance will lead to an even broader range of studies and discoveries even closer to the cuttingedge of astrophysical frontiers. The James Webb Space Telescope Advisory Committee (JSTAC) is an international committee of senior
members of the scientific community who are experienced with large space projects and their optimal operation. Given the importance and cost of JWST, the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) Director set up JSTAC with the support and concurrence of NASA, ESA and CSA. The core focus of the JSTAC is to offer advice on maximizing the scientific return from JWST within its 5-year required life (10-yr goal). The JSTACs recommendations to the STScI Director are made available to the space agencies and are also made public to the science community (and all interested parties) through the STScI website. The space agencies are also cognizant of the JSTACs deliberations and recommendations through their ex-officio agency members. The JSTAC fully endorses the completion of the construction and the launch of JWST not only because it will dramatically increase humanitys understanding of the cosmos, but also because it will continue Hubble's legacy of inspiring the next generation of scientists. JWST will also demonstrate technologies crucial for future NASA science missions of all sizes. The JSTAC is very concerned that recent funding and management issues during the development process for JWST may place the future of the mission at risk. The JWST Independent Comprehensive Review Panel (ICRP) report provided a critical assessment of the recent management problems and budget issues in response to a letter from Senator Mikulski to the NASA Administrator. As the ICRP report noted, technical progress on the mission had been excellent but a number of issues have arisen that require additional funding to resolve. The JSTAC recognizes the fiscal challenges facing the US as well as the international partners, but asks for your support and that of OSTP to work with OMB and NASA, and ultimately Congress, to find a costeffective approach to bring this remarkable mission to fruition. The impact of not moving forward expeditiously towards launching JWST as soon as practical would reverberate far beyond the astronomical science community. The cancellation of the Superconducting Super Collider (SSC) had ramifications for US leadership in the physical sciences that is still being felt. The center of gravity of highenergy physics moved to Europe. As a project of comparable scale and scientific importance, JWST is crucial to US scientific leadership both in science and through the visibility of its space program. US leadership in space has arisen through NASAs human spaceflight program and through its stunningly successful and popular science missions. To

abandon JWST at this time would not only have a dramatic impact on NASAs science programs, but would also have a dramatic impact on US leadership in space. JWST, like Hubble, is a flagship program that has public visibility and scientific capabilities far beyond
smaller missions. The cost and the risks of flagships are more than compensated for by the scientific and public interest returns. Our international partners are making very substantial investments in JWST, and are key partners for the US effort. The contributions of the European Space Agency (ESA), its member states and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) are central to the success of 3 the project. Europe is providing two scientific instruments, the launch vehicle and operations staff for the project at the STScI. In value, this contribution is equivalent to the total cost of a medium-sized space mission within ESA. The Canadian contribution of the critical fine guidance sensor and a further science instrument is the largest space science project supported to date by the Canadian Space Agency. The CSA also provides operations staff at the STScI. The international contributions have been essential for the development and implementation of the project and their contributions represent a major commitment of their resources towards a project that will do much to raise the visibility of the US and its technological capabilities. JWST is challenging but doable. No other nation could currently undertake a mission of the scale of JWST. JWST distinguishes the US technologically and scientifically, and is a striking example of US leadership in the field of space science. The JSTAC asks for your support in moving JWST forward expeditiously to launch. I would be happy to provide further information or a briefing on the importance of the JWST science mission from the perspective of the JSTAC.

36

Houston Urban Debate League 2011 Summer Debate Institute That undermines the economy and U.S. leadership SMITH 2011

Trade Off DA

(Josh; National Journal, As Shuttle Program Winds Down, Uncertainty Looms for NASA, http://mobile.nationaljournal.com/tech/as-shuttle-program-winds-down-uncertainty-looms-for-nasa-2011-05-18, 2011) Congress has yet to fully decide what that next step is. NASA often finds itself squeezed between competing interests in Washington. In 2009, President Obama halted a plan to send astronauts back to the moon, but this year Congresswith an eye to home-state jobsappropriated $3.8 billion to fund a so-called "heavylift" rocket program for an undetermined destination. Obama has called for more spending on climate science, commercial rockets, the International Space Station, and a new generation of space-exploration technology. Congress has generally been skeptical of plans to use more commercial space services. The space shuttle Endeavour took off Monday; the last shuttle mission is scheduled for July. NASA could be vulnerable, as the end of the space shuttle program coincides with efforts to slash government spending. Lawmakers and witnesses at the hearing pointed fingers at congressional and White House proposals to cut NASAs budget. Obamas latest budget proposal froze NASAs budget at 2010 levels while House Republicans called for up to $379 million in cuts. Reducing space budgets may be an attractive option, but in the long term it could hurt the U.S. economy, said Frank Slazer, vice president of the Aerospace Industries Association. While cutting the federal deficit is essential to assuring our economic future, cutting back on exploration investments is a penny-wise but poundfoolish approach that will have infinitesimal impact on the budget deficit, he said. Cutting exploration further

threatens our economic growth potential and risks our continued national technical leadership overall, even as emerging world powers increase their investments in this important arena. Space exploration has real impact back on earth, said Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, who represents Florida, which hosts
the Kennedy Space Center and other NASA facilities and space industries. Americas space program is not something we simply do for fun, he said. Many industries exist because of the space program. Rubio called for a betterdefined goal for NASA. And losing the competitive edge in space could undermine American economic power and national security, said Elliot Pulham, CEO of the Space Foundation. "The mastery of space has

always carried with it a not-so-subtle message to friend and foe: 'This is what we are capable of. You want to work with us. You want to be our friend. You want to follow our lead. You do not want to challenge us,'" he said.

37

Houston Urban Debate League 2011 Summer Debate Institute The impact is global nuclear war Khalizad 11

Trade Off DA

[Zalmay, former US ambassafor to Afghanistan, Iraq and the UN, overall badass, The Economy and National Security Feb 8 -National Review Online] Today, economic and fiscal trends pose the most severe long-term threat to the United States' position as global leader. While the United States suffers from fiscal imbalances and low economic growth, the economies of rival powers are developing rapidly. The continuation of these two trends could lead to a shift from American primacy toward a multi-polar global system, leading in turn to increased geopolitical rivalry and even war among the great powers. The current recession is the result of a deep financial crisis, not a mere fluctuation
in the business cycle. Recovery is likely to be protracted. The crisis was preceded by the buildup over two decades of enormous amounts of debt throughout the U.S. economy -- ultimately totaling almost 350 percent of GDP -- and the development of credit-fueled asset bubbles, particularly in the housing sector. When the bubbles burst, huge amounts of wealth were destroyed, and unemployment rose to over 10 percent. The decline of tax revenues and massive countercyclical spending put the U.S. government on an unsustainable fiscal path. Publicly held national debt rose from 38 to over 60 percent of GDP in three years. #ad#Without faster economic growth and actions to reduce deficits, publicly held national debt is projected to reach dangerous proportions. If interest rates were to rise significantly, annual interest payments -- which already are larger than the defense budget -- would crowd out other spending or require substantial tax increases that would undercut economic growth. Even worse, if unanticipated events trigger what economists call a 'sudden stop' in credit markets for U.S. debt, the United States would be unable to roll over its outstanding obligations, precipitating a sovereign-debt crisis that would almost certainly compel a radical retrenchment of the United States internationally. Such scenarios would reshape the international order. It was the economic devastation of Britain and France during World War II, as well as the rise of other powers, that led both countries to relinquish their empires. In the late 1960s, British leaders concluded that they lacked the economic capacity to maintain a presence 'east of Suez.' Soviet economic weakness, which crystallized under Gorbachev, contributed to their decisions to withdraw from Afghanistan,

. If the U.S. debt problem goes critical, the United States would be compelled to retrench, reducing its military spending and shedding international commitments. We face this domestic challenge while other major powers are experiencing rapid economic growth. Even though countries such as China, India, and Brazil have profound political, social, demographic, and economic problems, their economies are growing faster than ours, and this could alter the global distribution of power. These trends could in the long term produce a multi-polar world. If U.S. policymakers fail to act and other powers continue to grow, it is not a question of whether but when a new international order will emerge. The closing of the gap between the United States and its rivals could intensify geopolitical competition among major powers, increase incentives for local powers to play major powers against one another, and undercut our will to preclude or respond to international crises because of the higher risk of escalation. The stakes are high. In modern history, the longest period of peace among the great powers has been the era of U.S. leadership. By contrast, multi-polar systems have been unstable, with their competitive dynamics resulting in frequent crises and major wars among the great powers. Failures of multi-polar international systems produced both world wars. #page#American retrenchment could have devastating consequences. Without an American security blanket, regional powers could rearm in an attempt to balance against emerging threats. Under this scenario, there would be a heightened possibility of arms races, miscalculation, or other crises spiraling into all-out conflict. Alternatively, in seeking to accommodate the stronger powers, weaker powers may shift their geopolitical posture away from the United States. Either way, hostile states would be emboldened to make aggressive moves in their regions. As rival powers rise, Asia in particular is likely to emerge as a zone of great-power competition. Beijing's economic rise has enabled a dramatic military buildup focused on acquisitions of naval, cruise, and ballistic missiles, long-range stealth aircraft, and anti-satellite capabilities. China's strategic modernization is aimed, ultimately, at denying the United States access to the seas around China. Even as cooperative economic ties in the region have grown, China's expansive territorial claims -- and provocative statements and actions following crises in Korea and incidents at sea -- have roiled its relations with South Korea, Japan, India, and Southeast Asian states. Still, the United States is the most significant barrier facing Chinese hegemony and aggression. #ad#Given the risks, the United States must focus on restoring its economic and fiscal condition while checking and managing the rise of potential adversarial regional powers such as China. While we face significant challenges, the U.S. economy still accounts for over 20 percent of the world's GDP. American institutions -- particularly those providing enforceable rule of law -- set it apart from all the rising powers. Social cohesion underwrites political stability. U.S. demographic trends are healthier than those of any other developed country. A culture of innovation, excellent institutions of higher education, and a vital sector of small and medium-sized enterprises propel the U.S. economy in ways difficult to quantify. Historically, Americans have responded pragmatically, and sometimes through trial and error, to work our way through the
abandon Communist regimes in Eastern Europe, and allow the Soviet Union to fragment kind of crisis that we face today. The policy question is how to enhance economic growth and employment while cutting discretionary spending in the near term and curbing the growth of entitlement spending in the out years. Republican members of Congress have outlined a plan. Several think tanks and commissions, including President Obama's debt commission, have done so as well. Some consensus exists on measures to pare back the recent increases in domestic spending, restrain future growth in defense spending, and reform the tax code (by reducing tax expenditures while lowering individual and corporate rates). These are promising options. The key remaining question is whether the president and leaders of both parties on Capitol Hill have the will to act and the skill to fashion bipartisan solutions. Whether we take the needed actions is a choice, however difficult it might be. It is clearly within our capacity to put our economy on a better trajectory. In garnering political support for cutbacks, the president and members of Congress should point not only to the domestic consequences of inaction -- but also to the geopolitical implications. As the United States gets its economic and fiscal house in order, it should take steps to prevent a flare-up in Asia. The United States can do so by signaling that its domestic challenges will not impede its intentions to check Chinese expansionism. This can be done in cost-efficient ways. While China's economic rise enables its military modernization and international assertiveness, it also frightens rival powers. The Obama administration has wisely moved to strengthen relations with allies and potential partners in the region but more can be done. #page#Some Chinese policies encourage other parties to join with the United States, and the U.S. should not let these opportunities pass. China's military assertiveness should enable security cooperation with countries on China's periphery -- particularly Japan, India, and Vietnam -- in ways that complicate Beijing's strategic calculus. China's mercantilist policies and currency manipulation -- which harm developing states both in East Asia and elsewhere -- should be used to fashion a coalition in favor of a more balanced trade system. Since Beijing's over-the-top reaction to the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to a Chinese democracy activist alienated European leaders, highlighting human-rights questions would not only draw supporters from nearby countries but also embolden reformers within China. #ad#Since the end of

. Unless we get our economic house in order, there is a risk that domestic stagnation in combination with the rise of rival powers will undermine our ability to deal with growing international problems. Regional hegemons in Asia could seize the moment, leading the world toward a new, dangerous era of multi-polarity.
the Cold War, a stable economic and financial condition at home has enabled America to have an expansive role in the world. Today we can no longer take this for granted

38

Houston Urban Debate League 2011 Summer Debate Institute JWST funding is key to broader space leadership AAS, 7/7/11

Trade Off DA

the American Astronomical Society (AAS), established in 1899 and based in Washington, DC, is the major organization of professional astronomers in North America. Its membership of about 7,500 individuals also includes physicists, mathematicians, geologists, engineers, and others whose research and educational interests lie within the broad spectrum of subjects now comprising contemporary astronomy [July 7, 2011, American Astronomical Society Statement on the James Webb Space Telescope, http://aas.org/press/pr2011Jul07_jwst]

The proposal released on July 6 by the House Appropriations Subcommittee for Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies to terminate the James Webb Space Telescope would waste more taxpayer dollars than it saves while simultaneously undercutting the critical effort to utilize American engineering and ingenuity to expand human knowledge. Such a proposal threatens American leadership in the fields of astrophysics and advanced space technology while likely eliminating hundreds, if not thousands, of high-tech jobs. Additionally, this proposal comes before the completion of a revised construction plan and budget for a launch of JWST by 2018. The United States position as the leader in astronomy, space science, and spaceflight is directly threatened by this proposal. The JWST is the highest-ranked mission in the National Academy of Sciences Astronomy and Astrophysics decadal survey released in 2000 and remains a high priority for the Nations astronomers in this decade as well, as the revolutionary successor to the Hubble Space Telescope. This survey, conducted once every 10 years by hundreds of the Nations leading scientists, prioritizes based on scientific merit and impact projects
proposed by the scientific community that require significant government support for completion. These reports represent a community consensus on the efforts necessary to advance our

The potential of JWST to transform astronomy underlies many of the activities recommended in the 2010 decadal report released last August. JWST is designed to observe well beyond Hubbles capabilities. It is expected to serve thousands of astronomers in the coming decades to revolutionize our understanding of our place in the Universe, just as Hubble has done since its completion and launch just over two decades ago. The JWSTs completion, launch, and operation will unveil new knowledge about the earliest formation of stars and planets and on a wide range of additional advanced scientific questions, including many not yet formulated.
knowledge of the universe. As was true with the Hubble Space Telescope, recognized as a tremendous success by the public, scientists, and policy-makers, building the most advanced telescopes comes with the

the whole Nation can rightly take pride in the engineering and scientific accomplishment that the completion and launch of such instruments represents. With the help of important international partners, we are the only nation that could lead such an effort; we should not shirk from completing the project when the most difficult engineering challenges have already been overcome. As stated in the Casani report, an independent review of project readiness completed late last year, The JWST Project has made excellent progress in developing the difficult technologies required for its successful operation, and no technical constraints to successful completion have been identified. The mirrors stand ready and waiting for integration into the spacecraft. The telescope has passed both preliminary design review and critical design review. It is time
risk of unexpected costs and delays. However, to complete construction and look ahead to JWSTs launch and science operations.

39

Houston Urban Debate League 2011 Summer Debate Institute Collapse of the James Webb will crush US science leadership and kill thousands of jobs SpaceDaily, 7/11/11

Trade Off DA

[Staff Writers @ SpaceDaily, 7/11/11, AAS Issues Statement On Proposed Cancellation Of James Webb Space Telescope, http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/AAS_Issues_Statement_On_Proposed_Cancellation_Of_James_Webb_Space_Telescope_999 .html, SM]

The American Astronomical Society (AAS) today issued a strong statement protesting yesterday's proposal from the House Appropriations Committee to cancel the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), Hubble's successor and the centerpiece of U.S. space astronomy for the next two decades. "The proposed cancellation of JWST is a bad idea," says AAS Executive Officer Dr. Kevin B. Marvel. "Several billion dollars have already been spent developing new cuttingedge technology, and the last thing the American people want is for Congress to throw good money away. The U.S. will rightly be proud of the accomplishments of JWST, but first we need to finish it and launch it." JWST is much larger than the Hubble telescope - 6.5 meters (21.3 feet) in diameter compared with 2.4 meters (7.9 feet) and is designed to see much farther out in space and much farther back in time, to the era when the first stars and galaxies lit up
the infant universe. Conceived in 1996 and under construction since 2004, JWST is passing one technical milestone after another en route to a launch later this decade. Just last month opticians finished polishing the last of its 18 primary-mirror segments. The House move to cancel JWST is part of a larger congressional effort to impose belt-tightening at NASA, the National Science Foundation (NSF), and other federal science agencies. In the Appropriations Committee's draft bill, for example, NASA is funded at $16.8 billion, which is $1.6 billion below last year's level and $1.9 billion below President Obama's request, and NSF would receive $6.9 billion, the same as last year's funding and $907 million below the president's

any short-term budgetary gains from canceling JWST would be more than offset by the associated loss of high-tech jobs, damage to U.S. preeminence in science and technology, and loss of a mission that, like Hubble, is guaranteed to inspire the public and motivate large numbers of American schoolchildren to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. "JWST will lay the foundation on which a better understanding of the early universe will be built," says AAS President Dr. Debra M. Elmegreen. "It has the potential to transform astronomy even more than the Hubble Space Telescope did, and it will serve thousands of astronomers in the decades ahead. We cannot abandon it now." The full text of the AAS
request. The AAS recognizes that these are difficult and challenging economic times but feels strongly that statement, written by the Society's Executive Committee and the Committee on Astronomy and Public Policy, follows: American Astronomical Society Statement on the James Webb

The proposal released on July 6 by the House Appropriations Subcommittee for Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies to terminate the James Webb Space Telescope would waste more taxpayer dollars than it saves while simultaneously undercutting the critical effort to utilize American engineering and ingenuity to expand human knowledge. Such a proposal threatens American leadership in the fields of astrophysics and advanced space technology while likely eliminating hundreds, if not thousands, of high-tech jobs. Additionally, this proposal comes before the completion of a revised construction plan and budget for a launch of JWST by 2018. The United States position as the leader in astronomy, space science, and spaceflight is directly threatened by this proposal. The JWST is the highestranked mission in the National Academy of Science's Astronomy and Astrophysics decadal survey released in 2000 and remains a high priority for the Nation's astronomers in this decade as well, as the revolutionary successor to the Hubble Space Telescope. This survey, conducted
Space Telescope Adopted 7 July 2011 once every 10 years by hundreds of the Nation's leading scientists, prioritizes - based on scientific merit and impact - projects proposed by the scientific community that require

The potential of JWST to transform astronomy underlies many of the activities recommended in the 2010 decadal report released last August. JWST is designed to observe well beyond Hubble's capabilities. It is expected to serve thousands of astronomers in the coming decades to revolutionize our understanding of our place in the Universe, just as Hubble has done since its completion and launch just over two decades ago. The JWST's completion, launch, and operation will unveil new knowledge about the earliest formation of stars and planets and on a wide range of additional advanced scientific questions, including many not yet formulated. As was true with the Hubble Space Telescope, recognized as a tremendous success by the public, scientists, and policy-makers, building the most advanced telescopes comes with the risk of unexpected costs and delays. However, the whole Nation can rightly take pride in the engineering and scientific accomplishment that the completion and launch of such instruments represents.
significant government support for completion. These reports represent a community consensus on the efforts necessary to advance our knowledge of the universe.

40

Houston Urban Debate League 2011 Summer Debate Institute Loss of the James Webb Telescope destroys US Space dominance and science leadership Discover 7-7
(July 7, 2011Why we need the James Webb Space Telescope, http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2011/07/07/why-we-need-the-james-webb-space-telescope/)

Trade Off DA

The demise of JWST would be a huge blow to american space-based astronomy as well. On the ground, the US has ceded much of its historical primacy to the Europeans. If JWST were cancelled, it would be a heavy blow to the US dominance in running true space-based observatories. NASA will continue to run experiments in space i.e., targeted smaller missions focused on limited scientific goals, but they will be giving up their unique place in creating flagship facilities that literally anyone can potentially use. The impact of Hubble came in large part because it wasnt a specific experiment for one particular problem. It has broad capabilities, that were kept up to date with servicing missions, but using those capabilities was then essentially crowd-sourced to the entire world. Through on-going rigorous, and frankly brutal, evaluations of
scientific proposals, the community identifies the single most important scientific questions to be addressed by Hubble. This process is carried out every. single. year., making sure that Hubble gets the most bang for the buck. The same process also applied to NASAs other flagship missions (e.g., Chandra, Spitzer), focused on other wavelengths, but these facilities too are rapidly running out of time. To see what the loss of JWST would mean, look at the following chart of NASA missions. JWST is the only flagship observatory coming up. If we lose it, the person with the next great idea loses the chance to try it out.

41

Houston Urban Debate League 2011 Summer Debate Institute Competitiveness

Trade Off DA

JWST is key to revolutionize our understanding of science ground based telescopes are insufficient. Mountain, 11
the current Director of the Space Telescope Science Institute, Ph.D in astronomy [Winter 2011, Matt Mountain, The James Webb Space TelescopeIts Complicated, but so Is Leadership, vol 28, issue 1, https://blogs.stsci.edu/newsletter/files/2011/03/STScIWINTER2011NL.pdf#page=49]
The recent release of NASAs Independent Comprehensive Review Panel report (the Casani report) on the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has understandably caused

As the dust has settled, its important to step back for a moment to reflect on why we want to build such an audacious telescope. The words of the President of the AAS, Debra Elmegreen, in a recent article in Space News bear repeating, We all need to recognize that JWST and the initial $5 billion investment cannot be allowed to fail, since so much of future astrophysics research was built upon the foundation it was to provideas the Casani report concludes, JWST will play a key role in understanding how and when the first galaxies were born, characterizing the planets that are now being discovered around nearby stars, in providing further insights into the nature of the dark energy and dark matter, and into how stars and planetary systems are born. There is no easy path to understanding such complex scientific questions. To do these things at the level needed to advance scientific understanding requires a complex telescope with truly unique capabilities. JWST is that telescope. (Space News, American Leadership in
consternation within the community, and some of our colleagues sound-bite quotes decrying the state of space astrophysics were quickly circulated in the press and on the Internet. Astrophysics at Risk, 22 November 2010.) I came to the Space Telescope Science Institute because of JWST. Even though I helped to build two large ground-based telescopes, I

there are astronomical observations we struggle to do from the ground. For example, even with 8-m or 10-m telescopes it is next to impossible to take the spectra of highredshift galaxies to understand the starformation processes a billion years after the Big Bang. The same is true when trying to measure distant (z > 1) supernovae to try and unravel Dark Energyits a really tough measurement from the ground. As is mapping dust emission to uncover telltale trails of young planetary systems; this is proving to be difficult even in the closest systems. My colleagues who built the Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes similarly realized that to take the next steps in exploring the Universe would require a bigger space telescope. There is no mystery why: observational astrophysics is a photon-limited field, and once you have near perfect detectors (as we do), our only free parameters are either to spend millions of seconds on every observation or to increase the aperture of the telescope. A large-aperture space telescope combined with the low backgrounds found at L2 was the basic design rationale for JWST, and the broad science this telescope enables was compelling enough to make it the highest-priority large space mission of the 2000 Decadal Survey on Astronomy and Astrophysics. A decade later, even as our scientific expectations have evolved since the original science case was writtenas the Casani report itself notesJWST remains the most scientifically powerful telescope NASA, ESA and CSA will ever have built: the next Great Observatory to replace the Hubble Space Telescope. A decade ago, we were just coming to terms with the possibility of Dark Energy. With JWST, we will reach back to the beginning of time to detect very early supernovae and break the possible degeneracy between supernova evolution and Dark Energy. A decade ago, we had not yet begun to measure the constituents of exoplanetary atmospheres with transit spectroscopy using Hubble and Spitzer. With JWST, we will use the same technique; as the recent 2010 Decadal Survey (New Worlds, New Horizons in Astronomy and Astrophysics; NWNH) recognized, JWST will be a premier tool for studying planets orbiting stars that are smaller and cooler than the Sun. The goal of detecting liquid water on a planet close to the size of Earth, in the habitable zone around another star, may be within the reach of JWST. As NWNH notes, with JWST the era of study of cousins of the Earth is underway. And this does not include the great unknown territory that will be uncovered when we fly a telescope 100 times more sensitive than Hubble, almost 1000 times more sensitive than Spitzer. Imagine the creative energy unleashed by the roughly 8,000 astronomers who currently use Hubble and Spitzer. According to a White Paper submitted to NWNH (Sembach et al. 2009),
recognized that over the period 20052007, the Spitzer and Hubble programs alone generated over $130M in General Observer grants, and this community published over 3,000 papers based on Hubble and Spitzer data.

JWST is the next Hubble, the next Spitzerthats why we are building this ambitious telescope.

42

Houston Urban Debate League 2011 Summer Debate Institute

Trade Off DA

Astronomical discoveries can spur national interest in STEM thats key to long term growth and competitiveness Elmegreen 11
President of the American Astronomical Society and is the Maria Mitchell Professor of Astronomy and Department Chair in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Vassar [March 11, 2011, Dr. Debra Elmegreen, Testimony of Dr. Debra M. Elmegreen President of the American Astronomical Society Before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies On Astronomy and Astrophysics in the FY 2012 Budget, http://blog.aas.org/wpcontent/uploads/2011/03/AAS-Testimony-to-Congress.pdf]

The excitement of scientific discovery is a powerful force among our Nations youth, and leads directly to an improved standard of living in our Nation by attracting talented young people to pursue STEM careers. Astronomy has a role to play in this regard, not just in uncovering the mysteries of the Universe, but by drawing young people to the worlds of science, technology and engineering. Nearly everyone I have met involved in the pursuit of science, from student to professor, is amazed by discoveries about the Universe revealed by NSF-supported telescopes like the VLA and NASA missions like the Hubble Space Telescope and the Kepler mission. The Rising Above the Gathering Storm report warns that our younger generation is less educated than its parents, and that the nation is not adequately training the next generation of engineers and scientists; this failure directly impacts our economy. The public science literacy rate is less than 30%, and the US must improve to remain competitive. Astronomy offers one way to help because it is a mind-opening field that engages the public and schoolchildren in science; 60 million people go to museums and planetariums every
year, 15% of all future K-12 teachers take astronomy as their only college science course, and 250,000 college students are enrolled in astronomy courses annually.

STEM education is the key internal link to the US economy The Hill, 11
[Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas), U.S. Economic Future Needs STEM Education, April 1th, 2011, http://opportunityequation.org/news-press/us-economic-future-needs-stem]

The United States has begun to lose its status as a scientific and technological leader, and the only way we can hope to compete in the 21st century global economy is if we invest in research and science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education. It is vital that we not lose sight of that, even in these tough budget times. As we work to pass an FY 2011 appropriations bill and a budget resolution for FY 2012, I urge my colleagues to remember that our long term economic growth and competitiveness are dependent upon the investments in research and education that we make today. Many high-tech companies cite the availability of a skilled STEM workforce as the number one reason for determining where they locate their facilities. More and more U.S. companies are moving abroad because they cant find the highly skilled workforce they need here at home. According to 2008 data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the professional IT workforce was projected to add a little under a million new jobs between 2008 and 2018. This represents more than twice the rate of the overall workforce growth between 2008 and 2018. If we want those jobs to stay in the U.S., and in Texas, we must continue to invest in STEM education for our future workforce. Our best STEM students have no trouble competing with their international peers, but we cannot rely on just the top five percent. On average, our K-12 students continue to lag far behind their international peers in math and science aptitude. Earlier this year, the National Assessment Governing Board released the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) science scores. The assessment found that less than half of our nations students are demonstrating solid academic performance and proficiency in science. Equally troubling are
the significant achievement gaps at every level between White and minority students. The NAEP revealed that, on a zero to 300 scale, Black fourth-graders and eighth-graders scored an average of 36 points lower than their White counterparts and Black 12th-graders scored an average of 34 points lower than their White counterparts.

43

Houston Urban Debate League 2011 Summer Debate Institute ***Affirmative Answers*** Link Turn The plan boosts NASAs Credibility that causes more funding Wronkiewicz, 09
Degree from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign [September 14, 2009, Matt Wronkiewicz, http://www.floridatoday.com/content/blogs/space/2009/09/nasa-not-as-expensive-as-you-think.shtml

Trade Off DA

The key to more funding for NASA is credibility. It's been decades since they last finished a project without blowing the budget or de-scoping the requirements. What they really needed right now was an Ares I on track for its first flight in 2011. When the Vision for Space Exploration was announced back in 2004, NASA was given yet another chance to do something great in outer space. Yet they managed to take the program completely off the rails even before Congress had a chance to under-fund it. Now the HSF panel is asking for more money for NASA, and it's going to be a really hard sell. Taxpayers have been promised the Moon too many times.

44

Houston Urban Debate League 2011 Summer Debate Institute No Link Any tradeoffs would come from other budgets SVITAK 2011
(Amy; Senior Writer Space.com, NASAs Budget Could Get Infusion From Other U.S. Departments, http://www.space.com/11247-nasa-budget-funding-commerce-justice-departments.html, 3/29/2011, RZ)

Trade Off DA

Congressional appropriators could tap the funding accounts of the U.S. departments of Commerce and Justice to help cover what some see as a $1 billion shortfall in NASAs $18.7 billion spending plan for
2012, which allocates less money for a heavy-lift rocket and crew capsule than Congress directed last year. Theres over a billion-dollar difference between the budget request and the authorized levels in [20]12 for the launch system and the crew vehicle, and now that falls squarely back on the shoulders of [the appropriations committees] to try and figure out where to come up with that money, said a panelist at a March 23 breakfast on Capitol Hill. Sponsored by Women in Aerospace (WIA), the breakfast was held under the Chatham House Rule, an 84-year-old protocol fashioned by the London-based nonprofit thinktank to promote frank discussion through anonymity. [What Obama and Congress Should Do for Spaceflight] The panelist, one of six whose names and job titles were circulated by WIA prior to the meeting, said funding requested in NASAs 2012 spending plan does not square with levels Congress set in the NASA Authorization Act of 2010 that U.S. President Barack Obama signed into law in October. Specifically, the request called for spending $1.2 billion less than the $4 billion Congress authorized for the heavy-lift launch vehicle and crew capsule in 2012. At the same time, the request includes $350 million more than the $500 million Congress authorized to nurture development of commercial vehicles to deliver cargo and crews to the International Space Station after the space shuttle retires later this year. Consequently, the panelist said, it is now up to congressional appropriators to find a billion dollars in other places in NASA to pay for those activities or to decide to

make those tradeoffs and take that money out of the departments of Commerce or Justice or the other agencies that are funded in the same bill as NASA. NASAs annual appropriation is part of a broader spending package totaling nearly $65 billion that funds the U.S. Commerce and Justice departments, the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Standards and Technology and related agencies. But with NASA and other federal agencies operating in a fiscally constrained environment, the
panelist said Congress could struggle to fund new multibillion-dollar programs next year. Its not impossible but the ability to do that is severely constrained in the environment were working in now, and thats exacerbated by budget requests coming up from the administration that dont track with the authorization, the panelist said. Congress has yet to pass an appropriations bill for 2011, leaving NASA and most federal agencies to subsist at 2010 spending levels in the current budget year. The panelist said passing spending legislation for NASA is a complicated and challenging thing this year, and it will be again next year given a fiscal climate that has changed dramatically authorized funding levels for the space agency were set last fall. However, the panelist said the appropriations subcommittees that fund NASA are very supportive of the agency, theyre supportive of the authorization, they want to see NASA get as close as possible to those authorized levels, so that will be a work in progress.

45

Houston Urban Debate League 2011 Summer Debate Institute James Webb N/U The JWST is about to get cut AFP, 11
[July 7, 2011, US lawmakers vote to kill Hubble successor, http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gLvaDP1TmYcCWXpml9ZEnLzE1K8w? docId=CNG.15e6fb7b6a41f06eb05223cc51ca0fe9.4d1]

Trade Off DA

, key US lawmakers voted Thursday to kill off funding for the successor to the vastly successful space-gazing Hubble telescope. The US House of Representatives Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, and Science approved by voice vote a yearly spending bill that includes no money for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). The move -- spurred on by belt-tightening in cashstrapped Washington -- still requires the full committee's approval, the full House's approval, the Senate's approval, and ultimately President Barack Obama's signature. But the relatively mild dissents in the committee, which said in a terse statement this week that the project "is billions of dollars over budget and plagued by poor management," suggests the JWST faces an uphill fight to survive. The vote struck a blow at the National Aeronautics and Space
WASHINGTON In a fresh blow to NASA's post-shuttle aspirations Administration's goals with the space shuttle program about to end after 30 years, and Obama's decision to axe a new plan to return astronauts to the moon. NASA plans to lay out a budget that "will allow us to launch the Webb telescope in this decade," deputy administrator Lori Garver told reporters at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. "We will be working with Congress to assure them we can manage this program and develop the most amazing space telescope," she said, calling the JWST "a perfect example of reviewing the unknown

Initial estimates put the cost of the telescope, designed to help the hunt for knowledge about early galaxies in the universe, at $1.6 billion, but now the total price tag has ballooned to $6.5 billion, he said. NASA has repeatedly pushed back the telescope's launch date, now set for 2018 at the earliest. The project, initially named the Next Generation Space Telescope, is designed to look deeper into space than the Hubble Telescope, and would also venture farther than the Earth-orbiting Hubble, launched in 1990. Some Democrats on the panel voted against the bill, and lawmakers often wait until the full committee takes up legislation to offer amendments to protect cherished projects. The vote came one day after Obama, in an unprecedented question and answer
and reaching for new heights." In February, NASA Inspector General Paul Martin told lawmakers the JWST had careened billions of dollars over budget. session with Twitter users, said NASA needs new technology breakthroughs to revitalize its mission to explore the universe. "We are still a leader in space exploration, but, fran]kly, I have been pushing NASA to revamp its vision," Obama said, as the shuttle Atlantis geared up for its final mission. Obama, who axed NASA's Constellation program that would have sent astronauts back to the moon, said the United States should move beyond the space travel models it used in the Cold War-era race to the moon in the 1960s. JWST is an international collaboration grouping NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA).

46

Houston Urban Debate League 2011 Summer Debate Institute James Webb is massively expensive will require budget tradeoffs ATKINSON 10

Trade Off DA

(Nancy; Universe Today, Costs for James Webb Telescope Soar Again, http://www.universetoday.com/78101/costs-forjames-webb-telescope-soar-again/, 11/10) The price tag for NASAs next big space telescope keeps rising and the launch date will likely be delayed as well. A new report from an independent panel on the James Webb Space Telescope reveals it will take about $6.5 billion to launch and run the telescope for its projected 10-year mission. The price had previously ballooned from $3.5 billion to $5 billion. Originally the telescope was slated to launch in 2007, but was pushed back to 2014. Now, the panel says, the earliest launch date would be in September 2015. The panel, requested by Congress, said there appears to be no technical issues with the telescope, but budget and management problems are the reasons for the cost overruns and delays. There is no reason to question the technical integrity of the design or of the teams ability to deliver a quality product to orbit, said John Casani from the Jet Propulsion Lab, who chaired the panel. The problems causing cost growth and schedule delays have been associated with budgeting and program management, not technical performance. The money to cover the overruns will require $250 million more in NASAs FY 2011 and 2012 budget. But with the current state of affairs in the country and Congress, it is likely other programs will suffer or be cut in order to pay for JWST. In a teleconference with reporters, NASA associate administrator Chris Scolese admitted that NASA officials did not do a very good job of keeping track of what was going on with the massive telescope project. We were missing a certain fraction of what was going on, Scolese. The fault lies with us. The panel concluded that the budget was not sufficient in the early days of the telescopes development for everything to go as hoped. The budget was flawed, from a money standpoint it was just insufficient to carry out the work, said John Klineberg, a member of the panel and a retired engineer. The budget was skewed, and the reserves to complete the work were also wrong because they were predicated on a budget that was too low. Headquarters did not spot the errors, and they didnt fully recognize the extent to which the budget was understating the needs of the project. This is a large, complex project and to estimate something to a real degree of precision is hard, Klineberg added. The panel found no way for current costs to be reduced, but found ways to reduce the likelihood of cost-growth in the future. In order for JWST to be built and launched, the panel said NASA should restructure the project organization at Goddard Spaceflight Center to improve the accounting of costs and reserves. The program will now report directly to the Administrators office. Richard Howard will be the new JWST program director, replacing Phil Sabelhaus. We have to focus on doing what is right to get the project back on track, said Scolese, but I want to emphasize that there are no technical problems with the telescope and we have to thank the team for doing a great technical job. The important thing we have to fix is the cost management at the project level and at the management level. In a statement, NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden said, I am disappointed we have not maintained the level of cost control we strive to achieve, something the American taxpayer deserves in all of our projects.NASA is committed to finding a sustainable path forward for the program based on realistic cost and schedule assessments. The teleconference with journalists included a first at least for this reporter: one caller berated NASA management and swore at Scolese, obviously frustrated by the lack of oversight by NASA on what is supposed to be a flagship mission for the space agencys astronomy division. The infrared telescope will have a 6.5 meter (22 ft.) mirror and a sunshade the size of a tennis court. JWST should be able to look back in time to find the first galaxies that formed in the early Universe, and to peer inside dust clouds where stars and planetary systems are forming.

47

Houston Urban Debate League 2011 Summer Debate Institute James Webb is massively expensive will require money from other programs GREENFELD-BOYCE - 2011
(Nell; National Public Radio, Scientists Undeterred by Hubble Successors Costs, http://www.npr.org/2011/06/08/137040818/scientists-undeterred-by-hubble-successors-costs, 6/8 2011)

Trade Off DA

The James Webb Space Telescope, named after a NASA administrator during the Apollo days, is designed to push past
those limits and others. The telescope, which is bigger and more powerful than Hubble, will be able to do things like peer at the very first galaxies, search for water on planets that orbit distant stars, and reveal parts of the universe that have never been seen before. All of that comes with a big price tag. A recent independent review said the telescope will cost about $1.5 billion more than the $5 billion NASA had planned to spend. While it was supposed to launch in 2014, it's looking like 2018 at the earliest. Hammel seems unfazed by these setbacks. "It's clear that it's hard to build," she says. "But you've got to do hard things, because that's where the frontiers are." In the two decades it's been orbiting Earth, the Hubble Space Telescope has revolutionized astronomy, probing the mystery of dark matter and showing that the first galaxies formed earlier than anyone ever thought. Experts expect the James Webb Space Telescope to have a similar impact. But unlike Hubble, which orbits close to Earth, James Webb will be far out in space, about 1 million miles away. This infrared telescope could be blinded by heat, so it needs to be cold minus 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Part of the reason the telescope is so

expensive is that a bunch of technologies had to be invented just to make it work, and it was hard to estimate their costs upfront. Matt Mountain, head of the Space Telescope Science Institute, points to innovations like its 18
gold-coated mirrors, and its five-layer sunshade the size of a tennis court. "There's a whole range of these new technologies which had to be brought in," he says. Mountain says the technologies they worry least about are the ones that "scare" people the most. Those are the "unfolding technologies" that make this a collapsible telescope. The James Webb Space Telescope is the size of a Boeing 737, but it has to fold up to fit in a slender rocket then unfold once it's in space. And the whole thing has to work perfectly, because repair missions won't be an option for an instrument that's so far away. About $3 billion has already been spent. NASA officials are now hunting around for the extra money it will take to complete the testing and building. The agency also just shook up the telescope's management and put a new project manager, Rick Howard, in charge. Howard says some scientists do worry that James Webb could become the telescope that ate NASA's entire astronomy budget. "There are a lot of people that are concerned about that, there's no doubt

about that," he acknowledges.

48

Houston Urban Debate League 2011 Summer Debate Institute Commercial - Small Budget Solves Alexander 9

Trade Off DA

President of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation (Bretton, Testimony in the Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics on the Science and Technology Committee, http://www.hq.nasa.gov/legislative/hearings/2009%20hearings/12-2-09%20Alexander.pdf)

A Commercial Crew program of $2.5-3.0 billion over 5 years should be sufficient funding. For example, one major aerospace company conducted a study that concluded they could develop a commercial capsule to transport crew to low Earth orbit and human rate an existing U.S. launch vehicle for around $1 billion. As another example, SpaceX has an unfunded option in its COTS Agreement for $308 million to upgrade its Dragon spacecraft to carry crew to and from the Station. Demonstrating the diversity of interest and capability, the Augustine Committee received price estimates from, according to the report, five different companies interested in the provision of commercial crew transportation services to low-Earth orbit. These included large and small companies, some of which have previously developed crew systems for NASA. Additional evidence that a Commercial Crew program is viable at $2.5-3.0 billion is again provided by the Gemini program. Despite only having access to 1960s technology, and with only a few years of total experience with spaceflight, NASA and industry human-rated the Titan II launch vehicle (which required 39 months), and designed and tested a crew capsule, for about $2.5 billion in todays dollars. The Gemini program completed all missions safely. Since NASAs budget for the next five years is almost $95 billion, a $2.5 billion Commercial Crew program represents less than 3% of total NASA expenditures. Clearly, it is not an either/or proposition between commercial crew and NASA exploration. Commercial vehicles will not have the capability to go beyond low Earth orbit, while NASA must develop the capability to conduct exploration beyond low Earth orbit.

49

Você também pode gostar