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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

#111

Post by birn559 »

jplusequalt wrote: post #110
javiramos wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sounds like cutting the budget will make things worse.

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

#112

Post by mousethatroared »

clipsy wrote: post #17
mousethatroared wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably the OP believes the BBB is stupid too?

Why are you speaking for him? Surely he's capable of denouncing the BBB himself if he chooses to.

Because "mindslight" didn't have an argument? He just threw a little non-sequitar tantrum assuming that OP was a Trumpist.

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

#113

Post by themgt »

Just do a quick skim of China's reusable rocket projects: https://www.reddit.com/r/space/comments/1lncgi8/status_of_ch...

There's over a dozen! They're blatantly ripping off SpaceX, which is very smart and what everyone else should have been doing. It's absolutely insane that the US is going to throw another $10 or $30 billion at SLS. Our leaders will go on TV with a straight face and say "China competes unfairly, everything is state run!" but China is probably doing FIFTEEN reusable rocket projects for less than the amount of gov't money we're lighting on fire with SLS rocket to nowhere.

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

#114

Post by mousethatroared »

mindslight wrote: post #20
mousethatroared wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably the OP believes the BBB is stupid too?

If that were the case, they wouldn't have contributed a narrative being used to support the fascist movement that gave us the big ugly spending bill. Sorry to anyone who was legitimately interested in actual fiscal conservatism (which includes myself), this is now just another lofty ideal Trump has burnt the credibility of in service of enriching himself. Maybe we can try again in 20 years, if we still have a country…

The conversation was about NASA, an agency that poured billions to Boeing and the United Alliance and was forced to accept SpaceX (way back during the Obama admin, I believe) whilst kicking and screaming.

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

#116

Post by mousethatroared »

lumost wrote: post #16
Iwan-Zotow wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it is not With level of debt and borrowing, cannot afford more spending

The US can easily afford its obligations. The problem is that the tax base has shifted into alternative forms of income such as dividends and cap gains which are taxed at lower rates. It’s a policy choice that these returns are not taxed at comparable rates to income. The trend of nation-wide capital returns vs income is telling.

I disagree.

Instead of looking at where the tax revenues can come from, which I don't necessarily disagree consider what proportion of the nations economic activity is government spending.

I consider govt spending/GDP a much better indicator of economic health. In fact, tertiary_sector/GDP is better still.

The US government has too much presence in the economy and can't even provide health care and free tuition.

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

#117

Post by sethammons »

blitzar wrote: post #73
fn-mote wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s funny but economically wrong to ban deficits. I agree we are spending too much now, but the solution should not be to stop all spending. The problem is deeper than just a deficit.

We should bring back surpluses in the good times. If you are the head of a country and you are proclaiming that the economy is "the greatest ever" then you should be running a balanced / surplus budget. If the economy is in the shitter you are perfectly entitled to run a deficit.

Can the down voters help me understand the downvotes? The argument seems cogent.

Doing good? Pay down debts. Need a boost? Invest and incur debt. Where is the flaw?

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

#118

Post by gessha »

somenameforme wrote: post #94
gonzobonzo wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Manned space flight in generally is a hugely wasteful money sink. It eats up about 50% of NASA's budget, and there's no real reason for it other than "we're putting people into space because we want to put people into space." People vigorously defend these boondoggles, then finally admit they were a huge waste years after the fact (as we've seen with the space shuttle, and as we're now starting to see with the SLS).

Putting a man on the Moon is something many view as humanity's greatest achievement, ever. Even if we ignore absolutely everything else, I think this alone makes it worth it. People need to be inspired. It's the spice of life. But if we look the future, the possibilities are even more enticing. Richard Nixon effectively cancelled human space flight after a series of Moon landings. Had he not, we could very well have…

> Putting a man on the Moon is something many view as humanity's greatest achievement, ever.

Because the Americans have such an amazing propaganda department and had to rub it in to the Soviets even after flunking every other “space race”.

As for canceling the space programs, if it wasn’t Nixon, it would’ve been done by any of the politicians following Hayek/Friedman economic policies - basically everyone after Nixon.

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

#119

Post by daveguy »

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.

Not everything is about productivity per dollar. It's also the source of a pipeline of well trained research scientists who go into cutting edge fields with good pay.

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

#120

Post by cube00 »

blitzar wrote: post #76
notfish wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My ex coworkers at spacex are pretty damn motivated to get to mars, many of them despite all the Musking happening. I wouldn’t bet against them.

We will be on Mars by the end of the year.

How many years have they been pushing that line now?
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