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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

#201

Post by Tadpole9181 »

naysunjr wrote: post #190
RALaBarge wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldnt bet against them either, but the material science aspect of it all just isnt there and wont be for a while. How many tons would we need to get into Earth orbit alone, let alone transfer to mars? I never hear anyone speak of the radiation outside of our atmosphere very often when it comes to 'moonshot' ideas like this, and how we would be incapable of preventing it or surviving it once we arrive, in our curr…

It will never happen. Zero evidence any organic as complex as a human can move planets. It’s not an emergent event that’s common enough for us to have observed so far it’s too unlikely. Some dried goo in a meteor or some poetic notion of consciousness being the innate physical interaction of electromagnetism and matter such that consciousness is everywhere and imagining the potential is as good as humans will ever ge…

We also didn't evolve to do math or science, a lot of our intelligence is incidental and born of the communication & strategy that we did evolve.

Given time and will, it is a guarantee that humans could colonize Mars. Heck, even terraforming is possible at large timescales and an enormous concerted effort.

But there's nothing for us there. The cost in both resources, opportunity, and human lives would be enormous and there's almost no payback at the end but saying "neat".

We're struggling politically to keep our own planet from boiling us alive, at even giving food and water and shelter and healthcare to the citizens within our country - let alone the planet - let alone another. THAT is why it will never happen, not because we didn't evolve for space travel.

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

#202

Post by SlightlyLeftPad »

naasking wrote: post #129
northlondoner wrote: post #65

Happy to hear about this. Actually, budget should be increased not reduced. From purely ROI terms, NASA has a stellar return on investment. Immense contribution to human civilisation beyond US. Just a reminder from 2012: [Neil deGrasse Tyson: Invest In NASA, Invest In U.S. Economy]( https://www.forbes.com/sites/chrisbarth/2012/03/13/neil-degr... )

These analyses are highly questionable. NASA has a long reputation of being highly inefficient for good reasons. SpaceX did a much better job at optimizing cost in a way that NASA never could have, so it raises the obvious point: how much better would ROI have been in a world where private spaceflight was incentivized earlier? The answer isn't obviously in NASA's favour.

It’s hard to say privatization earlier would have lead to better outcomes. The drawback of privatization is the constant search for profitability which puts undue pressure against safety (Boeing?). Historically, only nation states had the organizational structure and long-term thinking to fund the massive investment required to research space flight in the first place, often motivated by weapons development.

Obviously, this is no longer the case. However, It’s arguably because of these nation-sponsored programs that made companies like SpaceX commercializable in the first place since they’re piggybacking on a lot of the science done by the governments.

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

#203

Post by SlightlyLeftPad »

IAmBroom wrote: post #133
adastra22 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why?

IMO, because robots can replace humans in dangerous and highly undesirable jobs, while increasing overall productivity.

Robots completely replacing humans cannot occur in a capitalist system without complete economic collapse.

If robots are developed to be able to perform the most undesirable jobs, then they will also be developed to perform the most desirable jobs. If humans don’t work, they have no money. Humans without money cannot buy things. Humans can’t buy things, companies can’t exist.

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

#204

Post by insane_dreamer »

msgodel wrote: post #152
softwaredoug wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The viable alternative is pretty obvious. Don’t renew the tax cuts and cut entitlements and defense. That’s what you have to do to get a balanced budget. You don’t get a balanced budget trimming random measly costs that might look nice but are infinitesimal parts of the budget. But we tend to cut taxes, not substantive spending. Which is going to saddle my kids with a mess.

What do you think the tariffs are? We've just about maxed out domestic tax. Already we're probably past the peak of the laffer curve.

Tariffs are ultimately a federal sales tax on Americans (since it translates into price increases) - which is the worse kind of tax as it's not progressive

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

#205

Post by Iwan-Zotow »

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.

> The US can easily afford its obligations.

with interests payment reaching 1.2trln? And 5trln more to the debt pile? No

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

#206

Post by Iwan-Zotow »

Larrikin wrote: post #9
Iwan-Zotow wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

So why did Congress increase the deficit, they don't care so why should we cut back spending on actually good things.

interests and idiots are everywhere

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

#207

Post by Iwan-Zotow »

unethical_ban wrote: post #23
Iwan-Zotow wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

We could * Not cut taxes on the very wealthy by $4,000,000,000,000 over ten years * Not give $500,000,000,000 to military and police expansion in the immediate future * Not have one person dictating global trade policy with the US that impacts our relationships and competitiveness for the next 30 years NASA is not something we should skimp on.

Who are "we" kemosabe?

BBB was proposed by freshly elected president to a freshly elected Congress, and it was passed and signed. I don't like it much, but people (yes, millions of americans) had spoken

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

#208

Post by Iwan-Zotow »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #53
Iwan-Zotow wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

sure we can but instead we're giving a massive tax break to rich people and increasing the military budget by $150B

Who are "we" kemosabe? BBB was proposed by freshly elected president to a freshly elected Congress, and it was passed and signed. I don't like it much, but people (yes, millions of americans) had spoken

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

#209

Post by Iwan-Zotow »

mousethatroared wrote: post #12
mindslight wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the debt is a problem worth addressing, then why did the big ugly spending bill raise the debt by trillions of dollars?

Presumably the OP believes the BBB is stupid too?

I don't like it

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

#210

Post by naysunjr »

Tadpole9181 wrote: post #201
naysunjr wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will never happen. Zero evidence any organic as complex as a human can move planets. It’s not an emergent event that’s common enough for us to have observed so far it’s too unlikely. Some dried goo in a meteor or some poetic notion of consciousness being the innate physical interaction of electromagnetism and matter such that consciousness is everywhere and imagining the potential is as good as humans will ever ge…

We also didn't evolve to do math or science, a lot of our intelligence is incidental and born of the communication & strategy that we did evolve. Given time and will, it is a guarantee that humans could colonize Mars. Heck, even terraforming is possible at large timescales and an enormous concerted effort. But there's nothing for us there. The cost in both resources, opportunity, and human lives would be enormous and…

IMO those things you mention as being what really prevent us are emergent evidence we are not evolved enough for space travel though. Biologically or socially.
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