NASA finally admits what everyone already knows: SLS is unaffordable • Hacker News Board

Re: NASA finally admits what everyone already knows: SLS is unaffordable

#221

Post by inglor_cz » Fri, Sep 08, 2023, 4:45 PM UTC

4gotunameagain wrote: post #171

tryauuum wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Calling invading a neighbor country "defending Russia's interests" sounds weird

When viewed from afar, war is just an extension of diplomacy. I am against any invasion whatsoever, but using any means necessary to ensure Ukraine does not join NATO (something that the US fought for), is indeed a defence of Russian interests.

Living much closer than you do ... you are speaking of Russian interests, while you probably mean Russian imperial interests.

This is not a subtle difference. Japanese imperial interests led to a massively destructive war that wasn't really in the interest of the Japanese population. Same with Russia. Plenty of Buryats, Tuvans, Dagestanis and other peripheral nations of the Russian Federation died as cannon fodder for an imperial idea that doesn't even consider them equal to white Slavic Russians.

I would argue that it is in the best interests of Russia as such that their imperial dreams collapse and never arise again. Other nations managed to shake off that backward worldview. Russians can perhaps, too, one day.

Re: NASA finally admits what everyone already knows: SLS is unaffordable

#222

Post by tjalfi » Fri, Sep 08, 2023, 4:45 PM UTC

nebula8804 wrote: post #179

animitronix wrote: post #131

Yup, this is what happens when you subsidize states like Alabama with government contracts...

Would a Democratic president have any way to put the screws to this program and the people in Alabama seeing as they don't ever vote Democratic anyway?

There's substantial bipartisan support for SLS and it has suppliers in all 50 states[0].

[0] https://www.planetary.org/articles/why-we-have-the-sls

Re: NASA finally admits what everyone already knows: SLS is unaffordable

#223

Post by Stranger43 » Fri, Sep 08, 2023, 4:56 PM UTC

mannerheim wrote: post #206

Stranger43 wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's probably not that simple as they could do what the EU does and create those jobs in purely civilian industries. It's more about the political economy where funneling through certain well connected companies generate a lot of goodwill among the middlemen who then funds pac's and pay for advertisements then it's about a direct relationship between the senate and the employment status of their workers.

It is exactly that simple. Closing down a tank factory to build something in another state isn't going to help the representative in that district get elected.

But running that tank factory is probably the least effective way of converting tax dollars into employment.

And thats one senator in one district it takes 50% of both senate and congress to pass a bill and not everytone gets contracts that big assigned to their district so the system is not individual senators all trying to secure the biggest employment gain for their district, it's much less rational.

Re: NASA finally admits what everyone already knows: SLS is unaffordable

#224

Post by troyvit » Fri, Sep 08, 2023, 5:05 PM UTC

plandis wrote: post #119

troyvit wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Taliban is a good example. IMO they're evil, but not as corrupt as the US. They did a pretty good job running us out of Afghanistan.

> but not as corrupt as the US I’m wondering how you determined this?

Honestly I just felt like they got more done with fewer people and less money, which is a good indicator of a level of focus that can you can only accomplish if you don't have to worry about the friction of dealing with corrupt layers of an organization or a crapload of waste.

I'd read a long time ago about how the Taliban basically formed a shadow government in parts of Afghanistan that provided justice, schools, roads, and other services because the current government couldn't do it. Just found a good article about it:

https://odi.org/en/publications/life-under-the-taliban-shado...

Here's the PDF it references:

https://cdn.odi.org/media/documents/12269.pdf

People flocked to the Taliban's shadow government precisely because it was (at least seen as) less corrupt and more efficient than the services propped up by U.S. and its allies. In the PDF above if you search for corrupt you find the word 7 times in the body of the article, and 6 of those are in regards to how the Taliban fought it.

The article is old (2018) but I think that's the point. They were very organized in how they built their network and we saw the results of it as they ran circles around the U.S. in negotiations both with Trump and Biden administrations.[1]

To me it's a crystal clear example of a less corrupt, less wasteful force completely schooling one with exponentially more resources.

[1] https://www.factcheck.org/2021/08/timeline-of-u-s-withdrawal...

Re: NASA finally admits what everyone already knows: SLS is unaffordable

#225

Post by jfengel » Fri, Sep 08, 2023, 5:07 PM UTC

nebula8804 wrote: post #179

animitronix wrote: post #131

Yup, this is what happens when you subsidize states like Alabama with government contracts...

Would a Democratic president have any way to put the screws to this program and the people in Alabama seeing as they don't ever vote Democratic anyway?

Not really.

The budget is written by Congress, and the President doesn't have any direct power in Congress. They often have friends there, especially if they used to be legislators. They have some carrots and sticks, but those are actually weak and indirect tools.

If the President's party controls a house, they can usually invoke party discipline (the general sense that doing something will be good for the party and a whole and therefore good for the individual members), perhaps with some of those carrots-and-sticks for recalcitrant allies. But it's rare for the President's party to control both houses, especially considering the filibuster.

If a President made it their top priority and it were something that the party got behind them on, they could perhaps make an all-out push, calling in favors and making deals. It would come with a lot of ill will, from their own party as well as the opposition, because that's not how Congress likes to work. They see themselves as a deliberative body and don't like outside interference -- especially when it upsets the balance of their own dealmaking.

So the short answer is no, the President doesn't have that kind of power. Even if they wanted to, which they generally don't. Nobody is going to jump up and down to say, "Yay, look how efficient this President is, saving .01% of the overall budget". And while they might score a few political points off of hurting somebody that their allies don't like, it's generally not something Democratic presidents are into.

(I'm afraid there's no non-partisan way to say that the culture war is asymmetric.)

Re: NASA finally admits what everyone already knows: SLS is unaffordable

#226

Post by inglor_cz » Fri, Sep 08, 2023, 5:07 PM UTC

kjkjadksj wrote: post #203

unethical_ban wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see this argument enough that I will need to make a form response. Humans should gain the ability to live off this planet sustainably. If we don't work on that now, then when? We gain understanding of the human body and of numerous technologies through the novelties and challenges of human spaceflight. The idea of pushing out civilization forward physically through space is an inspiration for engineers and explorer…

Surgery is important but was the work of the medieval surgeon experimenting on corpses really relevant to the modern understanding of medicine? Probably not when they were concerned with the source of the four humors or whatever it was, and had zero concept of germ theory much less cellular biology. We are spending too much money and effort on process that will no doubt be obviated with a future technology. We are st…

"Surgery is important but was the work of the medieval surgeon experimenting on corpses really relevant to the modern understanding of medicine?"

It actually sort-of was, because slow aggregation of knowledge about anatomy helped undermine a lot of the old Galenic dogmas.

Re: NASA finally admits what everyone already knows: SLS is unaffordable

#227

Post by dotancohen » Fri, Sep 08, 2023, 5:16 PM UTC

wkat4242 wrote: post #149

woooooo wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SpaceX is on record with not wanting to use hydrogen for the "pain in the ass factor". It boils at a lower point than oxygen, so you have to insulate the tanks from each other, it's very.. undense (sparse?) per volume so you need bigger tanks, and it's the smallest molecule that exists and makes leaks and shipping harder. Methane is slightly less efficient but way easier logistically.

Yeah I bet if they could do without the LOX they'd do it too. But for the oxidiser there is no choice but to use a compressed gas, obviously.

There are some alternatives to O2, various molecules that contain oxygen which react readily. But those same properties that make them good oxidizers (namely, reactivity) also make them toxic and difficult to handle.

Re: NASA finally admits what everyone already knows: SLS is unaffordable

#228

Post by simonh » Fri, Sep 08, 2023, 5:23 PM UTC

nebula8804 wrote: post #175

simonh wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few issues there. For an invasion of Taiwan numbers are important, sure, but it's a wide channel and amphibious assaults are absolutely the hardest kind of operation an army can attempt. Technical competence, and I would also argue operational flexibility at every level, are absolutely crucial. In terms of supply chains, that matters for an extended conflict, as we can see in Ukraine. However an invasion of Taiwan…

This is word for word regurgitated from Peter Zeihan. Is he your source?

Ive come across Zeihan and I know he talks about this stuff, but there are plenty of alternative sources for the same info.

He's too absolutist for my tastes, he talks about China 'going away' due to demographics. That's just silly, they'll suffer for sure but 1.4 billion people don't just disappear. Also his line about Russia needing to control geographic access points or 'they're finished' is equally silly. They have nukes.

Re: NASA finally admits what everyone already knows: SLS is unaffordable

#229

Post by dotancohen » Fri, Sep 08, 2023, 5:30 PM UTC

cratermoon wrote: post #55

hypercube33 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Possibility of corruption aside, these are clones of the Saturn 5 rocket engines and tech just scaled up - the whole thing is built for hydrogen which is clean burning (water is the byproduct) but you'd think SpaceX could take the design and make something for 20mil

The RS-25 is related to the J-2 used in S-II and S-IVB upper stages - a very successful engine. The STS program came up a new design based on a high-pressure combustion chamber running at 3,000 psi (21,000 kPa) for higher performance. The first SLS flights will use available Block II RS-25D engines left over from the shuttle program, and when those run out (and if SLS is still flying) the rocket will switch over to t…

  > The RS-25 is related to the J-2

How so? Other than sharing a fuel type, and thus surely things learned during J-2 development and operation influenced the RS-25 development and operation, so far as I know the two engines are completely different. Different cycles, different power packs (e.g. turbopump), wildly different packaging, different head pressure, different chamber pressure, throat, etc etc etc. I'm pretty sure that the J-2 did not cool the bell with the fuel, though I could be mistaken. Are the combustion chambers similar? What makes the two engines related, other than the fuel type and of course manufacturer?

Re: NASA finally admits what everyone already knows: SLS is unaffordable

#230

Post by hinkley » Fri, Sep 08, 2023, 5:32 PM UTC

archgoon wrote: post #65

Sharlin wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, that's like asking for a source for the fact that people need oxygen to live. Fuck, they weren't even allowed to finally correct the design flaw in the solid rocket boosters that was the direct cause of the Challenger disaster – namely the fact that they were made of several segments not for any engineering reason but simply because they were manufactured in Utah (due to pork barrel) and could not be transp…

> Honestly, that's like asking for a source for the fact that people need oxygen to live. I find this attitude "It's just obvious" to be generally unhelpful. Your sibling comments do a much better job at helping the grandparent get up to speed with context about the SLS program, and associated Senate Legislation. Being able to cite documents in support of your position is a valuable skill and both helps your own unde…

The attitude of "I've never heard of this before" has been a common internet troll for at least 25 years. At some point it's not on me to educate you about things that are widely common knowledge, and there's an art to asking for citations without sounding like you're being dismissive, or shifting all of the effort onto the other person.

The top level comment did not achieve this art, but I've seen worse.