President Obama unveiled his new plan(PDF) for NASA. After scrapping the manned space program Constellation last fall the President pushed back plans to return to the moon and send a manned mission to Mars. This announcement and policy reversal struck some stargazers and scientists as disappointing.

The President’s plan reverses former President Bush’s plan for a new moon shot and focuses on private space flight, international cooperation and near-earth environmental observation.

Commerce Secretary Gary Locke says the new space policy will be good for business and inspire new jobs in the burgeoning private space industry.

“This policy is about energizing competitive domestic industries through innovation, entrepreneurship and technological leadership in space. It recognizes the sea changes occurring in the space community, with federal budgets tightening at the same time that commercial space capabilities and markets are gaining momentum.”– Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke

The new plan includes robotic probes to the sun, a manned mission to an asteroid and to Mars. It also puts new emphasis on near-Earth monitoring satellites to study climate and other environmental changes.

“Fifty years after the creation of NASA, our goal is no longer just a destination to reach. Our goal is the capacity for people to work and learn and operate and live safely beyond the Earth for extended periods of time, ultimately in ways that are more sustainable and even indefinite. And in fulfilling this task, we will not only extend humanity’s reach in space—we will strengthen America’s leadership here on Earth.”—President Barack Obama

Falcon Rocket, courtesy of SpaceX

Goals for Space Science, Exploration, and Discovery

The Administrator of NASA shall:
•Set far-reaching exploration milestones. By 2025, begin crewed missions beyond the moon, including sending humans to an asteroid. By the mid-2030s, send humans to orbit Mars and return them safely to Earth

•Continue the operation of the International Space Station (ISS), in cooperation with its international
partners, likely to 2020 or beyond, and expand efforts to: utilize the ISS for scientific, technological, commercial, diplomatic, and educational purposes; support activities requiring the unique attributes of humans in space; serve as a continuous human presence in Earth orbit; and support future objectives in human space exploration

•Seek partnerships with the private sector to enable safe, reliable, and cost-effective commercial spaceflight capabilities and services for the transport of crew and cargo to and from the ISS

•Implement a new space technology development and test program, working with industry, academia, and international partners to build, fly, and test several key technologies that can increase the capabilities, decrease the costs, and expand the opportunities for future space activities

•Conduct research and development in support of next-generation launch systems, including new U.S. rocket engine technologies

•Maintain a sustained robotic presence in the solar system to: conduct scientific investigations of other planetary bodies; demonstrate new technologies; and scout locations for future human missions

•Continue a strong program of space science for observations, research, and analysis of our Sun, solar system, and universe to enhance knowledge of the cosmos, further our understanding of fundamental natural and physical sciences, understand the conditions that may support the development of life, and search for planetary bodies and Earth-like planets in orbit around other stars

•Pursue capabilities, in cooperation with other departments, agencies, and commercial partners,
to detect, track, catalog, and characterize near-Earth objects to reduce the risk of harm to humans from an unexpected impact on our planet and to identify potentially resource-rich planetary objects.

America’s first hero astronaut is calling on the Obama administration to reverse course and keep NASA’s space shuttle program alive. John Glenn says retiring Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavor later this year would ground U.S. manned space flight for at least a decade.

“Why terminate a perfectly good system that has been made more safe and reliable through many years of development? And the shuttles are not worn out. Far from it.” — Former senator and astronaut John Glenn

The new manned space program called Constellation is still years away. Glenn joins astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin in asking President Obama to keep the shuttle program going.

With the recent extension of the World Wide Web outside of this world, space is just a click away. And taking full advantage of the new ability to live stream to astronauts orbiting Earth on the International Space Station, President Obama congratulates the team for installing the last piece of the U.S. portion of the space station.

During the mission, astronauts installed the Tranquility node and a cupola with seven windows that provide a panoramic view of Earth, celestial objects and visiting spacecraft. The Tranquility installation and its cupola mark reaching the 90 percent point in fully building out the space station.

The president is also joined by 12 students on the live call to space whom he hopes will be inspired to pursue careers in math, science and engineering.

Image Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

The federal agencies submitted their budget requests to Congress this week, marking a big moment for all things science. According to preliminary reports about $148 billion of the Presidents full $3.8 trillion budget is heading for scientific research programs.

Photo courtesy of Brookhaven National Laboratory

President Obama’s first State of the Union address was long as these speeches go but short on science. With only a few mentions of science, science education and innovation, the Monday morning science quarterbacks criticized the President for not including more science.

But two teenage future scientists — Gabriela Farfan and Li Boynton — proudly sat near the First Lady during the State of the Union, representing the President’s commitment to science and science education.

Next week, the true science state of the union will become clear as the National Science Foundation and NASA release their budget requests for 2011.

Photo: 19-year-old Stanford University Freshman Gabriela Farfan and 18-year-old Houston High School Senior Li Boynton, the day after the State of the Union. Courtesy of Intel.

President Barack Obama’s first State of the Union Address, January 27, 2010.

There are growing signs that outer space is going to become the domain of private enterprise. Since the U.S. space program began, it has been largely controlled by the federal government. But that’s all changing.

The first spaceport just broke ground in New Mexico. The first commercial spaceline is being built and citizen-astronauts are ponying up a lot of money for a ride to sub-orbital space. There is even one hotelier just waiting to start building space resorts.

The personal spaceflight industry kicked off five years ago when Burt Rutan won the Ansari X PRIZE, the first in a series of commercial competitions to solve big human problems. X PRIZE founder Peter Diamandis has been pushing for private enterprise to join the space race and now it appears NASA may be more open to outsourcing some parts of the space program to commercial interests.

Photo of Dr. Stephen Hawking with Peter Diamandis in zero gravity, courtesy of Diamandis

Over the course of the next few weeks we are going to be hearing a lot about carbon emissions–the gas released into the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels and a whole host of other human activities. While the catch-all is called “carbon emissions” they aren’t confined to carbon dioxide gas.

During the Copenhagen Climate Conference we are going to be hearing a lot about what will follow the Kyoto Protocol, the global treaty aimed at reducing carbon emissions to help reduce the effects of man-made global warming.

just as world leaders are getting ready to head to Denmark for a big climate negotiations conference that will determine the treaty to follow the Kyoto Protocol, a new scientific assessment is painting a dark picture of the future, based on recent climate science.

Though not an official report of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 14 of the 26 authors are scientists who helped construct the scientific assessment in 2007. Since then, they felt that so much new data shows that the previous estimates were too conservative and the rate of global warming was significantly underestimated.

Here are some key points of the 64-page Copenhagen Diagnosis: Updating the World on the Latest Climate Science (PDF).

Greenhouse gas emissions–namely carbon dioxide–in 2008 were 40% higher than in 1990.

The human induced global warming trend is still active, despite less solar activity and seasonally cool temperatures.

Glaciers, ice caps and ice sheets have been melting at an accelerated pace since 1990, especially on Greenland and Antarctica.

Arctic sea ice has been melting at a rapid rate, making parts of the Arctic ice-free in summer for the last three years.

Sea levels are rising much faster than previously thought–two inches in the last 15 years.

The report finds suggests that vulnerable elements of the climate system could push us past tipping points if emissions reductions are delayed. And in order to meet the globally-determined safe threshold of less than two degrees Celsius, carbon emissions must peak by 2015 and then rapidly decline to almost zero by 2050.

To underscore the importance of the Copenhagen Climate Conference, President Obama will appear during the proceedings on Dec. 9 to urge world leaders to reduce emissions right away.

President Obama Addresses UN Climate Summit

In what could be considered his most strongly-worded warning about the threat of climate change, U.S. President Barack Obama told the United Nations that there is little time to act before permanent environmental damage is irreversible.

In a stirring speech, he called upon Congress, scientists, engineers and citizens to take climate change seriously and work toward solutions to prevent the worst and adapt to the inevitable.

He also announced that the U.S. would begin tracking greenhouse gas emissions across the country and work toward eliminating long-standing fossil fuel subsidies.

Video of President Obama’s UN climate speech:

There appears to be a huge disconnect between the public and scientists, as evidenced through a Pew Research Center report that came out last week.

Science writer Chris Mooney, the author of Republican War on Science and Stormworld has a new book, titled, Unscientific America, showing just how un-science-focused most Americans are.

While the Pew report and Mooney both paint a gloomy picture of science in the U.S. there is still hope for a science rich future.

Are you science literate? Take this quiz and find out. (it’s only 12 questions.)

Listen here.

After a month of waiting, President Obama’s science adviser Dr. John Holdren and his choice for the top administrator at NOAA, Dr. Jane Lubchenco, were voted out of the Commerce, Science and Transportation committee today.

Speculations swirled about why the nominations were being held. Apparently one or more anonymous holds were placed on one or both nominees, which prevented them from moving to the Senate floor for a confirmation vote.

With the political process back on track, most people, including Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) the ranking committee member, says the nominees will be confirmed by unanimous consent within a week.

Then, they can get down to the business of science.

In an anticipated move, President Barack Obama reversed George W. Bush’s executive order, banning the use of embryonic stem cells in research. For eight years, scientists have been struggling to make advances while using weak stem cell lines, developed before August 2001.

Monday’s decision by President Obama sends new life and money into stem cell research, which could help paralyzed people walk and eventually lead to a cure for diseases like diabetes and Alzheimer’s.

President-elect Barack Obama indicated his support for science before he was elected President. He reaffirmed it by making science a central theme in his victory speech.

And, as his transition team indicates, he is serious about restoring the role that science plays in public policy.

President-elect Obama is surrounding himself with top-notch scientific advisers, including a long list of Nobel Prize winners. But is that enough to jump start new initiatives focused on science?

Only time will tell.