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Trump's NASA cuts would destroy decades of science and wipe out its future

latimes.com

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Re: Trump's NASA cuts would destroy decades of science and wipe out its future

#161

Post by padjo »

mistrial9 wrote: post #69
pstuart wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only do they not care, they actually relish destroying anything they consider to be "woke", like science. It's unfortunate, but modern American conservatism is now defined by hating everything that liberals love. This is a pity, because there should be a balance between "progress" and "government restraint" -- and that is no longer possible.

this point of view is so utterly lacking self-critical thought about "extreme social views, we demand you accept it or you are haters" .. its just a thought-blocker and dead-end. Endless polarization.

Owning the libs is a thing. Owning the conservatives is not a thing.

Re: Trump's NASA cuts would destroy decades of science and wipe out its future

#163

Post by whatshisface »

timr wrote: post #137
e2le wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NASA has a positive ROI for the American economy. Hastily making cuts into programmes that generate significant economic and scientific value for your nation is a losers strategy. I'm sure it'll also have other deleterious effects on the economy such as brain drain which would be difficult to reverse. https://www.space.com/nasa-economic-impact-us-2023-report

> NASA has a positive ROI for the American economy. Citation absolutely required. Amongst other things, NASA has set huge piles of money on fire (literally!) building a rocket program that should probably be shut down entirely. Now, whether or not these particular scientific programs are a net positive investment is a more subtle point that is certainly up for debate, but "NASA has a positive ROI for the American eco…

Here's a citation that says the ROI for NASA is 3x.

https://www.space.com/nasa-economic-impact-us-2023-report

Re: Trump's NASA cuts would destroy decades of science and wipe out its future

#164

Post by jplusequalt »

blindriver wrote: post #109

[flagged]

>my children living in a US that is hamstrung with unaffordable debt for their entire lifetimes

Have you not lived in the same US that is trillions in debt your entire life?

Also, note my comment up above. If this was about finances, why is Trump's budget proposal increasing the debt?

Re: Trump's NASA cuts would destroy decades of science and wipe out its future

#165

Post by piva00 »

blindriver wrote: post #109

[flagged]

> EDIT: I don't support the tax cuts in the BBB, I think that's counteracting all the efforts to drop spending. But in talking about cuts in general, I think we do need to make painful cuts across the board.

NASA's budget in 2024 was ~24b USD, for the overall debt this is less than a drop in the bucket, for an agency doing cutting-edge R&D which has trickle down technological effects into the rest of society making multiples of their budget in advances to the US's technological prowess.

Are you really defending to cut their budget over so many other options? Yes, the cuts needs to come from somewhere but perhaps not from programs from an agency which has empirically proven to have a very high ROI?

Re: Trump's NASA cuts would destroy decades of science and wipe out its future

#166

Post by potato3732842 »

WinstonSmith84 wrote: post #114
potato3732842 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>~"neither group is perfect, but it's their actual job to find and present the truth." And let me guess, the cops' job is to protect and serve? The situation is both more simple and less simple than that. Journalists and scientists effective top priority is to serve their employers. Sure they want to report the news and shape truth in the same way that cops want to catch real criminals but all of these people are emp…

you're mistaking journalists for propagandists. It's an easy mistake to do though, true journalists are rare in the world. Scientists are a problem to authoritarians simply because they are educated and will likely refute the bs of politicians, let alone authoritarians.

Propagandists aren't the problem. The entire incentive structure of the journalism and consumer media industry (and others too, it's not just them) is the problem. These aren't people problems. These are institutional architecture and incentive problems. Look at the entire western world. We are in way deeper shit than just one political movement or one or a few leaders.

The hubris in the second half of your second sentence is chuckle worthy though.

Re: Trump's NASA cuts would destroy decades of science and wipe out its future

#167

Post by bumby »

api wrote: post #115
pu_pe wrote: post #83

The US is actively choosing to become completely reliant on private providers for access to space, which at this point boils down to SpaceX and Boeing. Both seem unreliable for different reasons. I just cannot see it as anything else than a blunder.

The blunder is choosing only two and including Boeing at all. It should be SpaceX, Rocket Lab, and Blue Origin, and maybe soon Stoke Space.

Were you prescient enough to claim that at the time of the contract or only in hindsight? At the time, most thought Boeing was the safer bet.

Re: Trump's NASA cuts would destroy decades of science and wipe out its future

#168

Post by whatshisface »

hackyhacky wrote: post #78
alistairSH wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We could zero out the military budget and that still doesn't get us anywhere close to balanced. Even cutting 100% of discretionary spending barely does the job. We either need massive cuts in mandatory spending (fundamental changes to social contract) or increased revenue (politically not viable). There's also near zero evidence we actually need a balanced budget for a healthy economy.

> There's also near zero evidence we actually need a balanced budget for a healthy economy. The alternative is to pay an ever increasing amount of interest on our ever increasing debt. The other alternative is to default on our debt obligations. Neither option is good.

If you borrow at 3% to invest in an asset that yields 10%, you can increase your position forever and will be rewarded.

Re: Trump's NASA cuts would destroy decades of science and wipe out its future

#169

Post by bumby »

aga98mtl wrote: post #119
pu_pe wrote: post #83

The US is actively choosing to become completely reliant on private providers for access to space, which at this point boils down to SpaceX and Boeing. Both seem unreliable for different reasons. I just cannot see it as anything else than a blunder.

US rockets were always made by private providers like SpaceX or Boeing.

Yes, but the government has much more control over all aspects, especially design. That changed with the commercial crew program.

Re: Trump's NASA cuts would destroy decades of science and wipe out its future

#170

Post by jsiepkes »

blindriver wrote: post #109

[flagged]

Well apparently the regime does have extra money to spend on defense. Even though the US already spends as much as, the what? Number 2,3,4,5 and 6 combined or something? Apparently defense needs this money even though there are no more missions in Iraq or Afghanistan.
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