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

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

#231

Post by mannerheim » Fri, Sep 08, 2023, 5:55 PM UTC

Stranger43 wrote: post #223

mannerheim wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

You'd be surprised. See, e.g., steel tariffs costing $900,000 per job saved. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/05/07/trumps-st...

> 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.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logrolling

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

#232

Post by justrealist » Fri, Sep 08, 2023, 6:42 PM UTC

herewulf wrote: post #145

danpalmer wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah it seems like there's a lot of fair criticism of the politics of the program, how work was allocated and bid for, etc. I know very little about it, but it doesn't sound great. However I think a lot of the criticism focuses on things that aren't really true. The price is one aspect, where the amortisation is now paying off and it's no more expensive than alternatives. Another is the capabilities of the plane – it…

> built for how war works in the 2020s So it's a pilotless drone?

It's meant to act as a low-observability information platform / data hub that can coordinate pilotless drones.

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

#233

Post by mnky9800n » Fri, Sep 08, 2023, 7:30 PM UTC

jacobwilliamroy wrote: post #193

mnky9800n wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is very naive to the history of the soviet union at that time period, how gorbachev's new policies failed, how chernobyl effected everything, and how much of an internal failure this was. the usa likes to claim they ended the cold war and reagan did so by blah blah blah, however, the soviet union would have collapsed given gorbachev's policies failing no matter what the usa did.

God I wish we could go back and do 1991 again. Unfortunately time travel is impossible so I need to stop ruminating on it.

1999 my friend. That's when Boris Yeltsin gave up democracy to Putin. Think of the Russia that could have come from before that decision.

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

#234

Post by themadturk » Fri, Sep 08, 2023, 8:10 PM UTC

kjkjadksj wrote: post #198

klooney wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure it makes much sense to worry about carriers for the war in Taiwan that everyone expects- their aircraft can use their airfields. Peacetime armies are generally bad, but turnover tends to be high when the fighting starts, and the second or third set of generals is often much better. The most important advantages China has are pretty overwhelming- a giant population, and they own the global supply chain fo…

The state of the peacetime supply chain hardly matters. In a major conflict it should be expected that western democracies revert to the centrally planned economic system they used to win the second world war.

America doesn't have the manufacturing base it had in WWII. Then, it took months or even years to ramp up the existing manufacturing to wartime capacity. Now a lot of America's manufacturing has been outsourced to China and other far eastern/southern Asian countries. A modern war between superpowers is likely to be won or lost in a week or two at most even without involving nukes, long before major resupply of equipment is even needed.

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

#235

Post by themadturk » Fri, Sep 08, 2023, 8:20 PM UTC

dirtyid wrote: post #148

simonh wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s no real way to evaluate the effectiveness of the Chinese military because they’ve not seen significant action in several generations. However that itself is not a good sign. As for their kit, Myanmar bought some of their planes but none of them are operational. The planes were a joint project by China and Pakistan, but 8 years after the deal was signed apparently have persistent unsolved technical and structu…

>Myanmar Pretty much all negative coverage of JF17 (joint PRC+PK manufacturing but so far SOLD by PK) are sourced from Indian tabloid rags with no credibility. Myanmar airforce has 100+ PRC airframes, variety of models in the last 30 years with little issue. Pretty much the only useful piece of info so far is Myanmar doesn't have adequate experience operating tech in 4th gen fighters, most of their fleet is 3rd gen.…

I wonder if PRC really sees using a navy as a means of force projection as important. They could have a world-spanning navy like the U.S. has, but haven't made it a priority. No one has done it as well for as long as the U.S., but it's also something that could be erased in a few minutes by some well-placed Long Swords.

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

#236

Post by tim333 » Fri, Sep 08, 2023, 8:23 PM UTC

credit_guy wrote: post #172

SLS is actually very affordable if seen from the correct angle: a know-how preservation program. After the end of the Cold War, the US reduced drastically its military expenditure. The danger was that some day will come (like, you know, the 2020's) when the US will need to restart the missile assembly lines. How do you keep enough people trained at an affordable cost? Well, you keep them busy building a rocket that n…

Missile assembly lines are still there. The HIMARS ammo plant is going full out. Minuteman and Trident are still things, indeed in the UK we ordered some not long ago. There's also moon landing type tech at SpaceX and some other startups are working on interesting stuff - Stoke Space is quite an interesting one.

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

#237

Post by themadturk » Fri, Sep 08, 2023, 8:25 PM UTC

wkat4242 wrote: post #141

kristofferR wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not like the money spent just disappears, though, someone gets it. The SLS is a huge jobs program. Me and GPT had a good discussion about it: https://chat.openai.com/share/828cb390-dac0-4f3b-a556-f02972...

But how much of that ends up in the hands of shareholders and execs? If you want to provide jobs it's better to provide them directly. The shareholders have enough money as it is.

So what would it take to give NASA the manufacturing infrastructure and expertise to start building its own rockets? Such programs have always been done by contractors, non-government industrial partners. That's part of working in a capitalist economy.

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

#238

Post by bnralt » Fri, Sep 08, 2023, 8:35 PM UTC

kjkjadksj wrote: post #200

GMoromisato wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a common sentiment, but I don't share it. Crewed spaceflight is no worse and no different than spending money on Hubble, JWST, or the Voyager missions. We pay for those missions because they inspire us. For many, gaining knowledge about the universe is its own reward, even if it doesn't lead to cancer cures or longer-lasting batteries. In the same way, sending people into space connects us to all those namele…

We conducted crewed spaceflight in the 1960s because of the state of robotics at the time. To continue with crewed spaceflight today with the present state of robotics is honestly pretty crass in terms of the risk put on human lives. Not to mention the additional resource drain having to build and transport life support systems.

This is a good point. The government started investing in spaceflight because it was seen as important to defense. In the early 1960's, the best plan for spy satellites were manned space stations (see the planned Manned Orbital Laboratory). But as time progressed, we saw that we were much better off using automated systems for space. Yet we had already started manned missions, so those just kept shambling on, even long after the reason for them no longer existed.

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

#239

Post by Sharlin » Fri, Sep 08, 2023, 10:02 PM UTC

hinkley wrote: post #230

archgoon wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Yeah, something like "Where could I read more about this?" or "Could you point me to some discussion on this?" would have been a much more polite way to ask.

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

#240

Post by nradov » Fri, Sep 08, 2023, 10:54 PM UTC

simonh wrote: post #163

nradov wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first few Chinese aircraft carriers were probably never intended to be fully combat effective and are mainly intended to develop an experienced cadre of naval aviators. The carriers lack catapults, which means they can't really launch tankers (or any heavy aircraft at all). US Navy carriers almost always have at least one tanker up while conducting flight operations. This makes a huge difference in safety because…

I'm surprised they don't have them working yet. An Australian carrier was decommed a few decades ago and went to China for scrap. The Australians stripped most of it but left the steam catapults intact, and I know the Chinese were using them for land based experiments.

The Chinese probably intend to skip steam catapults and go straight to electromagnetic (like on the new Ford class carriers). I don't think they want to deal with steam generation and plumbing.