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Congress moves to reject bulk of White House's proposed NASA cuts

arstechnica.com

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Re: Congress moves to reject bulk of White House's proposed NASA cuts

#101

Post by sandworm101 »

somenameforme wrote: post #10
geuis wrote: post #2

It's refreshing that given everything else happening, Congress is still at least functional at this level. Should be noted that many of NASA's programs are situated in predominantly conservative areas of the country. Brings lots of jobs and resources to the local economies.

Except SLS/Orion should be cancelled. The SLS is pejoratively called the Senate Launch System, because it has no real place in the market yet is continuing to consume tens of billions of dollars. It was mostly obsoleted by Falcon Heavy years ago (SLS has been a black hole of funding since 2011), and its costs are completely ridiculous. You're looking at billions of dollars per launch if it ever is confidently flight…

>> Senate Launch System

A name also thrown around for shuttle. Do a little digging and a surprising number of shuttle crews had ties to the US congress, either as relatives or who themselves would later become representatives. They even flew a handful of serving reps (ie John Glenn, aged 77). Nasa has always known how to foster relations with political power families.

Re: Congress moves to reject bulk of White House's proposed NASA cuts

#102

Post by elzbardico »

saulpw wrote: post #43
somenameforme wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's difficult to imagine any scenario where this happens. The only real possibilities are SpaceX going bankrupt or leaving the country. In either case, the government has substantial capacity to nationalize companies for the sake of national security during times of crises. It's also likely impossible for SpaceX to leave the US owing to ITAR and other regulations.

Well, I mean it's unlikely but hear me out, what if SpaceX were actually run by a rogue trillionaire and the country were run by another rogue billionaire and they didn't get along?

At the stroke of a pen, a rogue billionaire could nationalize SpaceX citing some vague concerns about national security.

Money is powerful, but never under-estimate the power of having the coercive apparatus of state at someone's hand.

Re: Congress moves to reject bulk of White House's proposed NASA cuts

#103

Post by pfdietz »

rsynnott wrote: post #100
somenameforme wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except SLS/Orion should be cancelled. The SLS is pejoratively called the Senate Launch System, because it has no real place in the market yet is continuing to consume tens of billions of dollars. It was mostly obsoleted by Falcon Heavy years ago (SLS has been a black hole of funding since 2011), and its costs are completely ridiculous. You're looking at billions of dollars per launch if it ever is confidently flight…

> It was mostly obsoleted by Falcon Heavy years ago (SLS has been a black hole of funding since 2011), and its costs are completely ridiculous Falcon Heavy: Claimed payload to LEO (though it has never done anything like this): 63 tonnes. SLS: 95t, 105t or 130t depending on version. These are quite different capabilities.

The need for such large payloads is highly disputable, especially for propellant (which is most of the mass of any space mission).

This is why the congressional porkmeisters have been so adamant about NASA not developing in-space propellant storage and transfer.

Re: Congress moves to reject bulk of White House's proposed NASA cuts

#104

Post by pfdietz »

esseph wrote: post #95
gonzobonzo wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Idk, absolutely does fucking not at all look wasteful It does if you actually look into at the facts instead of just taking a PR listicle at face value. For instance, the very first thing mentioned on that list is Alzheimer's. Go ahead and look into what the ISS actually did with regards to Alzheimer's, and you see a lot of "this has the potential to teach us more about the disease," without any evidence that anyth…

So many of the things we use today on a daily basis came from having a manned space program. It used to be that in the 1960s we were spending about 4.4% of the total federal budget on the space program. Since the 1970s, it's gone down to around 0.71%. Since the 2010s, it's gone down even further to 0.3% - 0.4%. We've also not pushed much for talent in the federal government by way of salary and perks. Despite these c…

> So many of the things we use today on a daily basis came from having a manned space program.

What are these? If you say "integrated circuits" I'll point out that's largely a lie, unless by "space program" you mean "Minuteman II ICBMs".

"Comes from NASA" ends up meaning "NASA was tagentially involved early on". And really, how could it ever be concluded NASA was essential? You'd need to argue the counterfactual that a technology would not have been developed otherwise, and how can one do that?

Re: Congress moves to reject bulk of White House's proposed NASA cuts

#106

Post by trhway »

dogtimeimmortal wrote: post #99
somenameforme wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely but it never should have been greenlit, allowed to simply skip tests (in flight abort) after essentially failing the pad abort test where only 2 out of 3 parachutes deployed + propellant leak in beyond optimal conditions, and so on. That craft was not even remotely fit for humans and there was far too high a chance that their 'test pilots' lost their lives in something that never should have been allowed t…

[flagged]

> spaceX? It's already practically a monopoly.

it is like saying that Michael Phelps had a monopoly in Olympic Golden medals.

Re: Congress moves to reject bulk of White House's proposed NASA cuts

#107

Post by javiramos »

musicale wrote: post #38
trostaft wrote: post #5

I hope they manage to do something similar for the NSF. The proposed cuts there are crushing. The NSF funds great science in all parts of the country, and subsequently tons of jobs to the area.

NSF funds tons of underpaid grad students who are the source of US research productivity per dollar.

Different perspective... As an NSF grad student I didn't feel underpaid -- I felt extremely lucky that I got to do cutting-edge research while being paid a low but decent, livable salary. Of course, I could have made more money going into industry -- but at least we have a choice with institutions like the NSF willing to support risky projects that move humanity forward.

Re: Congress moves to reject bulk of White House's proposed NASA cuts

#108

Post by ethbr1 »

elzbardico wrote: post #102
saulpw wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I mean it's unlikely but hear me out, what if SpaceX were actually run by a rogue trillionaire and the country were run by another rogue billionaire and they didn't get along?

At the stroke of a pen, a rogue billionaire could nationalize SpaceX citing some vague concerns about national security. Money is powerful, but never under-estimate the power of having the coercive apparatus of state at someone's hand.

This is drastically under-appreciating the blowback nationalizing SpaceX would generate.

Both from the Republican base, to whom government is anathema and private industry the best.

And to corporate interests supporting the Republican Party.

Want to see where the real power is? Follow the political money.

Re: Congress moves to reject bulk of White House's proposed NASA cuts

#109

Post by erghjunk »

We're counting down the days to August 30 in our house as my spouse is a NASA contractor who works at a program with a current expected budget cut of 40%, IIRC. I sure hope these bills pass and the cuts don't happen, but it's abundantly clear at this point that optimism is pretty foolish.

Re: Congress moves to reject bulk of White House's proposed NASA cuts

#110

Post by jplusequalt »

javiramos wrote: post #107
musicale wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NSF funds tons of underpaid grad students who are the source of US research productivity per dollar.

Different perspective... As an NSF grad student I didn't feel underpaid -- I felt extremely lucky that I got to do cutting-edge research while being paid a low but decent, livable salary. Of course, I could have made more money going into industry -- but at least we have a choice with institutions like the NSF willing to support risky projects that move humanity forward.

As someone who's friends with multiple grad students who are funded by the NSF ... this is not the opinion I've heard from them. They're all working on awesome research that could actually help people, and yet they struggle to get by.
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