Earlier quoted context omitted.
What is a typical annual stipend? $37K? Sounds barely livable depending on the location, roommate situation, your stage in life, etc.
https://csstipendrankings.org/
Lot of red on that chart.
Congress moves to reject bulk of White House's proposed NASA cuts
231–240 of 248 posts
Re: Congress moves to reject bulk of White House's proposed NASA cuts
#232Earlier quoted context omitted.
And they are the underpaid workforce that keeps the undergrad industrial complex so profitable.
Speaking as someone who's seen a university budget: - Undergrad education breaks even - Research operates at a loss - Master's and professional programs makes a modest profit because most students pay full tuition. - Interest income off the endowment barely covers operating expenses - The remaining balance comes from donations. YMMV, but at the end of the day, what keeps many universities afloat is providing good exp…
1. Undergraduate education benefits from low-paid lecturers and teaching assistants.
2. NSF's operating model is based on low-paid graduate students and postdocs.
3. Universities (at least until recently?) took a significant cut (for example 50%) off the top of NSF (and other) grants as overhead, but their overhead rate is significantly lower than typical government contractors in industry.
4. If you are a grad student and ever want to become (more) depressed (for both present and future prospects), read an NSF (or similar) grant for the project you are doing all the work for, and see how the funds are allocated.
5. Universities also underpay their professional athletes in "money" sports such as football and basketball.
6. Administration growth has outpaced enrollment growth (and faculty expansion etc.) for decades. So undergraduate education may "break even", but it's still paying an army of non-teaching administrators.[1] (Universities defend themselves by saying that regulatory compliance is more expensive now, etc.)
[1] https://stanforddaily.com/2024/03/13/behind-stanfords-double...
Re: Congress moves to reject bulk of White House's proposed NASA cuts
#233Earlier 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.
I always felt the same way while I was in grad school. The fact that my tuition was covered by working as either a teaching assistant or as a research assistant on a grant, AND that I actually got a paycheck that was mostly-enough to survive on, was something that I was very grateful for. It was not something one could live on long-term (no chance to save money whatsoever, could never buy a home or decent car, etc).…
Opportunity cost is real, and it's probably one reason why fewer US students (who can work in the US without worrying about visa or related issues) seem to be going into graduate programs. Graduate indenture is an unappealing prospect, even more so when you are looking at being worse off than your parents' generation.
Tuition coverage for grad students is a way for universities to take money from grants and pay it to themselves. (And for undergrads they often limit the amount that external scholarships can reduce the expected student and parental contribution, in order to pocket as much money as possible.)
It's still important to realize that grad students are cheap labor for research (e.g. from NSF's perspective if they are the funding agency) and teaching purposes (e.g. from the university's perspective.)
Re: Congress moves to reject bulk of White House's proposed NASA cuts
#234Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just FYI, my copy's 1500 miles away from me at the moment, so I can't give you page numbers and can only rely on my recollection of the book. Your scenario would indeed be a "backup" for the species, but only in the very, very long term. It only works if we have a self-sustaining off-planet presence large enough to survive a complete separation from Earth. Most of the book goes into detail about what we still need to…
You're jumping from the start to the end. For instance you do not start with large scale agriculture on Mars - that will be a decades long project that will start with simple greenhouses. The first missions will be bringing 200% of the food they need with themselves, and then working to establish and ensure (as there will be unmanned deployments ahead of time) domestic life support systems. And the first habs will be…
We might have issues with bone loss in low-g environments, we might not. The point is that we don't know. These are human beings we'll be sending. Taking a chance on "it'll probably be all right" just isn't acceptable.
And that's just one single issue out of thousands that needs to be resolved before we can start having people live off-Earth. Most of it is stuff we just don't know how to do. You're trying to build a rail network with iron-age know-how. We can't even get to the moon right now, much less build a Mars outpost.
And while it's true that testing stuff on Mars would be ideal, Mars is too far away. You can't respond to emergencies. You can't quickly iterate designs for systems. You can't easily commercialize tourism. If we build bases on the moon first, we can be much better prepared to take that larger step to Mars. Sure, send a couple Apollo-style "plant a flag, take pictures, hit a golf ball, go home" missions using professional astronauts, then maybe a few missions where you have a lab on the ground and you stay for a month. But if you're sending people to stay, you need to be very sure they aren't going to die on you. Dead astronauts are heroes. Dead colonists are a tragedy, and an excuse that will be used to justify never going there again. If we can keep a permanent settlement alive on the moon, Mars will be that much easier.
Either way, there's still a lot that needs figured out first. The book outlines just a small fraction of what needs to be done. A good chunk of that will happen here on Earth. Some will happen in orbit. Some will happen on the moon. And eventually, some will happen on Mars. And it'll be fucking cool! Seriously, space stuff is fun to geek out on. Lots of interesting problems to solve. If it was easy, it'd be boring.
Re: Congress moves to reject bulk of White House's proposed NASA cuts
#235Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're jumping from the start to the end. For instance you do not start with large scale agriculture on Mars - that will be a decades long project that will start with simple greenhouses. The first missions will be bringing 200% of the food they need with themselves, and then working to establish and ensure (as there will be unmanned deployments ahead of time) domestic life support systems. And the first habs will be…
We might have issues with bone loss in low-g environments, we might not. The point is that we don't know. These are human beings we'll be sending. Taking a chance on "it'll probably be all right" just isn't acceptable. And that's just one single issue out of thousands that needs to be resolved before we can start having people live off-Earth. Most of it is stuff we just don't know how to do. You're trying to build a…
Hitting on the most general issue first - you could spend the next million years trying to simulate every possible contingency and issue with Mars, but at the end of the day you're still going to have many things with a high level of uncertainty, let alone the unknown unknowns. This means that going with an acceptably high risk is simply a prerequisite - period. It worked during Apollo and it will work for Mars, simply because there is no other option. So yes, "it'll probably be alright" is absolutely going to be a norm.
And the Moon is a complete hell hole that shares essentially nothing in common with Mars. You're looking at 2 week long day/night cycles that oscillate between absurd extremes of temperature of something like -300f at night to +200f during the day. And there's also no atmosphere which is why the Moon's surface looks like a teen with chronic acne. Even the smallest pebble will pound into the surface and often at quite a high level of energy. Similarly this is a big part of the reason that Moon dust is some seriously nasty stuff. Mars has a similar issue, but orders of magnitude less severe owing to the nature of where its dust came from, which is more similar to terrestrial dust sans composition.
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As for the specific issue you mentioned - bone/muscle loss is not some unsolved mystery as the book implies. Your bones/muscles strengthen in accordance to the stresses they're under. In space there are 0 stresses so they deteriorate. The normal solution to this is weights, but in 0g that obviously doesn't work so astronauts are left doing largely ineffective and awkward elastic based exercises, which they have to spend 2+ hours a day doing. None of these are issues in low g where weights do work, and the bone/muscle loss will already be far less. These sort of arguments are like saying "Ok, we know this ship floats in 20 ft deep water, but how do we know it'll float in 50 ft deep?" Technically you don't, and you won't until you try it in 50ft of water, but ultimately there's no reason to think it won't.
Re: Congress moves to reject bulk of White House's proposed NASA cuts
#236We'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.
Good luck to your spouse and to NASA. If the American congress is blocking this, it’s a glimmer of hope for the US and the rest of the planet.
thank you.
Re: Congress moves to reject bulk of White House's proposed NASA cuts
#237Earlier quoted context omitted.
THE OP IS AGAINST BBB TOO The one who lacks nuance is not the one who thinks NASA could stand to shave a couple billions but the one who's making everything a partisan fight.
That's just the standard postmodern cognitive dissonance of supporting terrible politicians. "I don't like what they did, but not enough to stop supporting them". It's a defense mechanism against the obvious hypocrisy. Find me where they're completely condemning Trump, like say calling for impeachment, and then you'll have a point. And no, the comment I responded to had absolutely no specific criticism about what fro…
Did you condemn Obama when he droned an American child and laughed that the kid had chosen bad parents? Did you call for his impeachment then or now? How about when he sicced the IRS on conservatives?
Did you call for Biden's impeachment when he coordinated with social media companies to violate American 1A rights?
Did you vociferously condemn what Biden enabled in Gaza?
Unless you too add these boiler plates on your messages you are full of it.
Re: Congress moves to reject bulk of White House's proposed NASA cuts
#238Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
> The need for such large payloads is highly disputable
Getting mass to orbit is one thing. The real game is "get masses into orbit and back to Earth", with the "mass" in question being either some sort of explosive, troops, ammunition or tanks.
When you don't need to have troops and vehicles distributed across the globe (which is very expensive to maintain) but can just go and ship them off with heavy rockets, the math on warfare shifts drastically.
Re: Congress moves to reject bulk of White House's proposed NASA cuts
#239Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's just the standard postmodern cognitive dissonance of supporting terrible politicians. "I don't like what they did, but not enough to stop supporting them". It's a defense mechanism against the obvious hypocrisy. Find me where they're completely condemning Trump, like say calling for impeachment, and then you'll have a point. And no, the comment I responded to had absolutely no specific criticism about what fro…
Did you condemn Obama when he droned an American child and laughed that the kid had chosen bad parents? Did you call for his impeachment then or now? How about when he sicced the IRS on conservatives? Did you call for Biden's impeachment when he coordinated with social media companies to violate American 1A rights? Did you vociferously condemn what Biden enabled in Gaza? Unless you too add these boiler plates on your…
> Did you condemn Obama when he droned an American child and laughed that the kid had chosen bad parents?
Yes, unequivocally.
> Did you call for his impeachment then or now?
I didn't call for his impeachment because it didn't seem like a political possibility to effect change. I did not vote for him in the first place, and there did not appear to be a differing alternative in the cards.
> Did you call for Biden's impeachment when he coordinated with social media companies to violate American 1A rights?
My view is I do not see what is significant about "Biden" or the government here, apart from people trying to tenuously connect the palpable infringement upon their freedom to the 1st amendment as written. The larger topic, advocating for the right of free speech with the rise of corporate government is one of my pet issues. But yet again, there has been no political option on the table to actually change anything about this.
> Did you vociferously condemn what Biden enabled in Gaza?
Honestly, it seemed like Biden was doing the best he could given the Israel lobby. But I'll admit to not really being invested in that situation any longer.
... but what I most certainly did not do is post on any of these topics cheerleading for power. Especially with paltry appeals to values that when scrutinized, are being hypocritically used by power as justifications. It's not a matter of "boilerplate", it's a matter of expressing enough nuance to make it so that your opinion isn't simply contributing to the chorus cheerleading for power. There's a time and a place to call for good-faith reform of American institutions, but it's decidedly not when fascists are at the helm.
Re: Congress moves to reject bulk of White House's proposed NASA cuts
#240Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
> The need for such large payloads is highly disputable Getting mass to orbit is one thing. The real game is "get masses into orbit and back to Earth", with the "mass" in question being either some sort of explosive, troops, ammunition or tanks. When you don't need to have troops and vehicles distributed across the globe (which is very expensive to maintain) but can just go and ship them off with heavy rockets, the m…
Let me express great skepticism here as to the economics of this. Shipping things by air is expensive enough; shipping them by rocket will be even more expensive. And shipping troops by SLS? Utterly demented. So this cannot be an argument for SLS.