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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

#201

Post by labster »

davidw wrote: post #31

Well, yes, that's the point. Authoritarians want to consolidate power and loot wealth, not improve things or make the world a better place.

Americans want looting and authoritarianism, so that’s what they’re getting. There’s no excuses here after a majority of people voted for Trump’s return, with his repeated promises that he wouldn’t be held back this time around.

We got exactly what we voted for — worldwide tariffs, sending the military to round up migrants, a military parade with tanks in DC, antivax boards — all of these things he talked about before election. Everything happening now with the dismantling of science programs and universities is exactly what Americans voted for.

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

#202

Post by Tadpole9181 »

GuestFAUniverse wrote: post #158
HPsquared wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

USA pays engineers like 3x as much as those places. It's still global brain drain destination #1.

And what do you buy with your "triple" income? A boring mansion, with a boring lawn, in a boring, gated community? -- and all that while the other neighbourhoods are on fire. But at least you can buy $700 sneakers and leave the big garage in style, to work your ass off with a job pretending to "better the world" -- maybe have one or two weeks to fill your social media account with pictures already taken by the millio…

Its not even that, America pays so much more for food and rent and healthcare that the triple income just gets you "a VCR salesman from the 80s".

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

#203

Post by LiquidSky »

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.

Then look harder. The “blunder” was orchestrated by the man who owns one of those two companies.

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

#204

Post by chrisco255 »

johaugum wrote: post #144
aga98mtl wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Not really. Early rockets included multiple private contractors like Douglas, Boeing and NAA, but those were basically government projects top to bottom. Single vendor commercial rockets are a recent (2000s) invention.

Think of how wasteful and inefficient multi-vendor rockets are as a concept. What complex machine would you engineer in such a way? Would you have the government, rather than buy cars from Ford, GM, Tesla, etc, instead contract out the production to one company for the motor, one for the frame, and one for the interior and instrumentation?

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

#205

Post by mostlysimilar »

labster wrote: post #201
davidw wrote: post #31

Well, yes, that's the point. Authoritarians want to consolidate power and loot wealth, not improve things or make the world a better place.

Americans want looting and authoritarianism, so that’s what they’re getting. There’s no excuses here after a majority of people voted for Trump’s return, with his repeated promises that he wouldn’t be held back this time around. We got exactly what we voted for — worldwide tariffs, sending the military to round up migrants, a military parade with tanks in DC, antivax boards — all of these things he talked about befor…

It's not even remotely helpful to keep parroting "this is what Americans wanted." Not only do Trump voters not represent a majority of Americans, the media landscape is so fractured that many people did not know what they were voting for and just wanted cheaper groceries. Is that stupid and naive? Yes. But it's also stupid and naive to generalize and say "Americans want this."

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

#206

Post by matthewwolfe »

GuestFAUniverse wrote: post #158
HPsquared wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

USA pays engineers like 3x as much as those places. It's still global brain drain destination #1.

And what do you buy with your "triple" income? A boring mansion, with a boring lawn, in a boring, gated community? -- and all that while the other neighbourhoods are on fire. But at least you can buy $700 sneakers and leave the big garage in style, to work your ass off with a job pretending to "better the world" -- maybe have one or two weeks to fill your social media account with pictures already taken by the millio…

That’s certainly one way to live life, although certainly not the only way. Many people use tech as a path to financial independence. There’s a running joke/groan that the FIRE sub is filled with software engineers making 6 figures.

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

#207

Post by nathan_compton »

alistairSH wrote: post #47
hackyhacky wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a balanced budget is your goal, only two steps are required: reduce military spending, increase taxes. No need to cut research. In practice the current budget bill is wildly unbalanced and will vastly extend our debt, despite extensive cuts to important programs.

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.

> politically not viable

These three words are doing quite a lot of heavy lifting.

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

#208

Post by LiquidSky »

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #190

Leading with "Trump" just makes it political/ideological. People need to stop making "the personality" the center of these discussions, because people who like him will just like whatever he does, and immediately disagree with you. Focus on the issue instead and people have to debate on merits rather than ideology.

He’s the President of the United States and the one (officially) making these decisions. It’d be absurd not to include him in talking about these issues.

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

#209

Post by xedrac »

davidw wrote: post #101
Theodores wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is the art of the deal with Trump and I would say that he is a narcissist rather than authoritarian. Trump has a massive ego and I would have expected him to want the biggest rockets, and to pain them gold. If he did then I would denounce him for spending money on space when America has trillions of debt. I don't disagree with him on everything he says just because he said it. So, with space, my honest take is tha…

If you read about Maduro wanting to imprison the leader of a region of Venezuela, who belongs to the opposition party, you'd call it authoritarianism. If you read that the Secretary of Defense of Turkey declined to commit to obeying court orders, you'd call it authoritarianism. If you read about Viktor Orban sending actual troops rather than police to a city because of a flimsy pretext, you'd call it authoritarianism…

You're ignoring the massive elephant in the room. The previous administration let millions and millions of completely unvetted and undocumented immigrants into our county, creating an unprecedented crisis. I view Trump's actions as reclaiming our country from the brink. All of the instances you mentioned are simply fallout from the crises Trump was handed, and it astonishes me how liberals cannot see this simple fact.

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

#210

Post by blindriver »

piva00 wrote: post #165
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 m…

No, everyone's budget needs to get cut. EVERYONE.
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