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Hubble is back

nasa.gov

41–50 of 128 posts

Re: Hubble is back

#41
post #36
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with having non-science people run an organisation of science people is self explanatory. In the Netherlands they have outsourced the organisation and managment of health care to the doctors themselves (roughly speaking). It is often cited as one of the main reasons the Netherlands rank #1 in health care ratings over the years.

In the US, the American Medical Association is run by doctors and they artificially limit the supply new doctors by capping the number of medical schools. So sometimes having the fox guard the henhouse is not the best way to save money.

The AMA doesn't directly govern the number of medical schools in this country. That would be the LCME (Liaison Committee on Medical Education), which is sponsored by the AMA and American Association for Medical Colleges.

It's also important to note that the number of medical schools isn't really artificially limited by the LCME, as they will accredit most any medical school that meets the accreditation standards.

On top of that, medical students in the US have to undergo a residency before becoming fully licensed physicians. These residencies are accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME), a separate organization.

However, while the ACGME can accredit these programs, the majority of funding for training resident physicians comes from the federal government (department of health and human services, center for medicare and medicaid services), and is capped by the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 (modified in 1999 to accommodate the rural physician shortage). Today, this costs the federal government around $11 billion each year for all of the residents in the country.

The real question, then, is who we can point to as the bottleneck for new doctors in this country. I found this article enlightening, but it may be behind a paywall:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28919221

Re: Hubble is back

#42

Interesting read. On the other hand, I remembered that hubble was manually repaired by astronauts mutliple times back in the space shuttle era. I'm wondering that, do we have capabilities to perform in-space non-ISS-kind repairs now? Soyuz may be able to do in-space rendezvous but cargo space is limited. Soyuz+Progress composition (may be too complicated)?

No we no longer have this capability. Soyuz capsules are not really designed for EVA.

You can do EVA with Soyuz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_5#EVA_details

However that mission will unlikely be possible for both technical and political reasons.

Re: Hubble is back

#43
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can achieve impressive results and still be "wasting money" if there were more cost efficient ways to achieve an equivalent result. I don't have an opinion on NASA but that could be the point of view those people are coming from.

Yep. I love space and science, but after working with NASA for a while, you see some of the problems. NIH syndrome is a huge problem, especially between GSFC and JPL. There are incompetent engineers who will have a well paying job at NASA for life. And then there the passionate, brilliant scientists and engineers the that dream and make it all work. A reduction in force of dead weight would go a long way but it will…

i think that's true generally of any organization.

pareto -- 80% of work done by 20% of workers.

there's also some other law about the work being done by the square root of the total workers.

Re: Hubble is back

#44

Reading about the specs and the planned degradation of the gyros is a very interesting exercise in planned reduction of a service. They know the gyros will eventually give out and they have contingency plans around what kinds of science they can continue to do even when they're down to 1 gyro. Very impressive. I'm always discouraged hearing people say NASA is wasting money and science and that's just not true IMHO.

It's always a lead into cutting NASA spending so remind them that it's not a zero sum thing, cutting NASA's budget isn't going to cause lower taxes, higher spending on $THINGS_SHE_PREFERS, or a fatter personal wallet, it'll just be cutting NASA's budget.

Re: Hubble is back

#45
post #41
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, the American Medical Association is run by doctors and they artificially limit the supply new doctors by capping the number of medical schools. So sometimes having the fox guard the henhouse is not the best way to save money.

The AMA doesn't directly govern the number of medical schools in this country. That would be the LCME (Liaison Committee on Medical Education), which is sponsored by the AMA and American Association for Medical Colleges. It's also important to note that the number of medical schools isn't really artificially limited by the LCME, as they will accredit most any medical school that meets the accreditation standards. On…

The AMA controls enough seats on that board to prevent new schools/seats from being created.

And the idea that an industry as profitable as medicine needs the taxpayer to fund its training is preposterous. This is just a deflection from the AMA's role.

Re: Hubble is back

#46
post #36
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with having non-science people run an organisation of science people is self explanatory. In the Netherlands they have outsourced the organisation and managment of health care to the doctors themselves (roughly speaking). It is often cited as one of the main reasons the Netherlands rank #1 in health care ratings over the years.

In the US, the American Medical Association is run by doctors and they artificially limit the supply new doctors by capping the number of medical schools. So sometimes having the fox guard the henhouse is not the best way to save money.

It doesn't matter how many medical schools or students exist, if there aren't enough residency positions for them. And the AMA does not control the number of residency positions.

Re: Hubble is back

#47

Reading about the specs and the planned degradation of the gyros is a very interesting exercise in planned reduction of a service. They know the gyros will eventually give out and they have contingency plans around what kinds of science they can continue to do even when they're down to 1 gyro. Very impressive. I'm always discouraged hearing people say NASA is wasting money and science and that's just not true IMHO.

It's always a lead into cutting NASA spending so remind them that it's not a zero sum thing, cutting NASA's budget isn't going to cause lower taxes, higher spending on $THINGS_SHE_PREFERS, or a fatter personal wallet, it'll just be cutting NASA's budget.

Why wouldn't it mean those things? That's the essential nature of budgeting.

Re: Hubble is back

#48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's always a lead into cutting NASA spending so remind them that it's not a zero sum thing, cutting NASA's budget isn't going to cause lower taxes, higher spending on $THINGS_SHE_PREFERS, or a fatter personal wallet, it'll just be cutting NASA's budget.

Why wouldn't it mean those things? That's the essential nature of budgeting.

The money will probably be directed to another department.

Re: Hubble is back

#49
post #3

Because NASA is awesome.

Well, they are. Yeah, I am a fan. NASA is one of the few all good things from government.

Government can be better, and I hope we can make it better too.

What else to say? I love a good NASA win, geek, nerd, engineering story.

Re: Hubble is back

#50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why wouldn't it mean those things? That's the essential nature of budgeting.

The money will probably be directed to another department.

That's one of the options in the parent post. My point is that the budgeting process is in fact mostly zero-sum. It's only not totally zero-sum because of the use of debt (which considered by itself is zero-sum over the long run) and the possible effect of particular spending on the broader economy (which makes it not perfectly zero-sum as a repeated process)
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