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U.S. science is in chaos

scientificamerican.com

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Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#41

Post by IsTom »

gignico wrote: post #7
embedding-shape wrote: post #4

> When the shutdown ended in mid-November, Reynolds’s team had just two weeks to get on budget. It failed. The plan the group submitted would cost too much and take too long. “Our last hope was that NASA headquarters would understand what had gone on and give us some leeway,” Reynolds says. NASA did not. After nearly 10 years of work, AXIS was dead. If the scientists haven't left science behind after an experience li…

We all should feel sad and angry. That said, this was never about saving money. This is about keeping scientists under tight control by the government, in order to suppress research on climate change and other controversial topics. If the government can cut your grant at any time without notice or appeal you will think twice before publishing results that go against their ideology, or even before publishing a critici…

I just want to vent: climate change is not a controversial topic, it's an inconvenient topic for people making a lot of money.

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#42

Post by MemoryHoleHQ »

qnpnpmqppnp wrote: post #35
MemoryHoleHQ wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, unfortunately, this is completely normal in science and it happened, basically forever. Scientific projects, especially the massive ones, go through several cycles, and they get completely stopped or even canceled during their life, and then later, sometimes decades later, they do restart. This happened with the LHC, ISS, James Webb telescope, the Hubble telescope, ITER, etc, etc, etc Now, I know that in certai…

Quoting the article: > Applying for highly competitive grants with limited funding is what scientists have always had to do to carry out the science—a flawed process with few alternatives. But arbitrary cancellations and delayed disbursements are unprecedented. And justifying them on the basis of politics—prohibiting, for instance, grants that include language referencing diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI)—was unh…

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Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#43

Post by dluan »

timr wrote: post #30
embedding-shape wrote: post #4

> When the shutdown ended in mid-November, Reynolds’s team had just two weeks to get on budget. It failed. The plan the group submitted would cost too much and take too long. “Our last hope was that NASA headquarters would understand what had gone on and give us some leeway,” Reynolds says. NASA did not. After nearly 10 years of work, AXIS was dead. If the scientists haven't left science behind after an experience li…

> If the scientists haven't left science behind after an experience like this, probably nothing will....I think I should feel angry, but I just feel sad for all the humans involved here, I hope they manage to come out with a more positive perspective than I'm able to here. As someone who spent far too much of my life pursuing that goal, I have an unpopular opinion: US science needs some cuts. The first project (the s…

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Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#45

Post by marcyb5st »

collinmcnulty wrote: post #23
api wrote: post #16

After the election my very first thought was that this is the start of the Chinese century, since America has voted to step down. Seems to be playing out.

Unfortunately there is another possibility: a return to great power competition.

I don't see that happening. The US debt will hinder any big expense that could keep it in any game long term.

Take AI for instance. The US grid is struggling to keep up with demand, while Chinese one has a lot of headway [1]. Usually, this could be solved by an increase in spending lasting a few years which would make the debt tick up, but that would've been an absolutely fine use of debt since it buys some shiny new infra that will pay dividends for the next 20ish years.

Now? Not possible. The US is already drowning in debt and the usual buyers are not showing up to buy it because of the Iran fiasco. With oil so expensive everyone was using their USD reserves to buy oil, not debt. Which mades interest rates go up considerably, and for a country with already ~130% of debt/gdp ratio these are terrible news.

So, I don't think there will be a great power race. Europe is fucked by both high debt, and lack of innovation. Russia is struggling already to finance a war of conquest they started. China is the only one that can run if it comes down to it (unless of course the numbers coming out of China are mega bogus, but for that I don't know enough to have an opinion).

[1] https://fortune.com/2025/08/14/data-centers-china-grid-us-in...

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#46

Post by timr »

dluan wrote: post #43
timr wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the scientists haven't left science behind after an experience like this, probably nothing will....I think I should feel angry, but I just feel sad for all the humans involved here, I hope they manage to come out with a more positive perspective than I'm able to here. As someone who spent far too much of my life pursuing that goal, I have an unpopular opinion: US science needs some cuts. The first project (the s…

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Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#47

Post by raincole »

timr wrote: post #30
embedding-shape wrote: post #4

> When the shutdown ended in mid-November, Reynolds’s team had just two weeks to get on budget. It failed. The plan the group submitted would cost too much and take too long. “Our last hope was that NASA headquarters would understand what had gone on and give us some leeway,” Reynolds says. NASA did not. After nearly 10 years of work, AXIS was dead. If the scientists haven't left science behind after an experience li…

> If the scientists haven't left science behind after an experience like this, probably nothing will....I think I should feel angry, but I just feel sad for all the humans involved here, I hope they manage to come out with a more positive perspective than I'm able to here. As someone who spent far too much of my life pursuing that goal, I have an unpopular opinion: US science needs some cuts. The first project (the s…

Thank you for providing your perspective. I really hope HN has a 'pre-vouch' button as I know your comment will be flagged in no time, even though it's quite articulated.

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#48

Post by jdw64 »

raincole wrote: post #38
jdw64 wrote: post #20

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First of all, NASA is the main client of SpaceX. They pay SpaceX money. Sabotaging NASA is sabotaging SpaceX. If NASA can (or want to) compete against SpaceX directly it probably wouldn't have fund half the R&D cost of Falcon 9. The rest of your comment is just nice fiction.

What DOGE has actually struck is not the procurement budget for launch vehicles, but the destruction of the internal engineering capability to design them. The benefit of destroying that capability, in turn, greatly favors SpaceX. SpaceX doesn't want NASA to be a smart partner that builds its own rockets; it wants NASA to be nothing more than a giant wallet that just pays money.

This is a classic monopoly strategy that cloud companies used to employ all the time: destroying the customer's internal capabilities[1]

[1]https://www.medianama.com/2024/09/223-google-files-antitrust...

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#49

Post by johnp314 »

nkrisc wrote: post #21

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Science is partisan, at least the 'science' being addressed in this article, because the funding for this science comes from a finite source and there are competing demands placed on this finite source. As any competent scientist knows, taking something from a finite source leaves less in the source. There are differing ideas and beliefs, some partisan (including those of the esteemed Mr. Colbert), on how best to divide up this finite source.

Re: U.S. science is in chaos

#50

Post by jdw64 »

raincole wrote: post #38
jdw64 wrote: post #20

[flagged]

First of all, NASA is the main client of SpaceX. They pay SpaceX money. Sabotaging NASA is sabotaging SpaceX. If NASA can (or want to) compete against SpaceX directly it probably wouldn't have fund half the R&D cost of Falcon 9. The rest of your comment is just nice fiction.

To be clear, DOGE's strategy is not actually for America.

The bigger issue is that NIH, NSF, NASA, and public health agencies are no longer perceived by the US right as neutral expert institutions. They see these institutions as strongholds of left wing elites. So this is less about fiscal policy and more about cultural policy retribution.

That's why from the perspective of an outsider like me, it looks like 'they are killing their own country's science,' while someone like you might see it as 'smashing the power institutions of the opposing camp.' I think this is simply a difference between an external and internal perspective.

Honestly, just looking at the ban on international cooperation mentioned in the article, it comes across as nothing more than a desire for control.

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