Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Trump's NASA cuts would destroy decades of science and wipe out its future

latimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

291–300 of 420 posts

Re: Trump's NASA cuts would destroy decades of science and wipe out its future

#291

Post by dakr »

palmfacehn wrote: post #15

Wherever budget cuts are proposed, you can rely upon detractors to present the issue in apocalyptic terms. If we believed all of these claims, then it would be impossible to cut the scope of government spending. Furthermore, if we accepted the premise promoted by some commenters here, then research, which is presented as incredibly valuable - would be unable to be funded or valued in the private market. For these rea…

If it were cutting back, I can see your point. This, however, is a gutting. The proposal is a nearly 25% cut in one year to a funding level not seen since 1961. Talent will leave, institutional knowledge will leave, and rapidly. Knowledge transfer will not happen and projects beyond those explicitly cut may falter (people work on multiple projects).

Keep in mind, NASA accounts for ~0.4% of the national budget. We're not saving a ton of money here, just killing expertise and ceding space excellence to other countries

Re: Trump's NASA cuts would destroy decades of science and wipe out its future

#292

Post by piva00 »

blindriver wrote: post #210
piva00 wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> EDIT: I don't support the tax cuts in the BBB, I think that's counteracting all the efforts to drop spending. But in talking about cuts in general, I think we do need to make painful cuts across the board. NASA's budget in 2024 was ~24b USD, for the overall debt this is less than a drop in the bucket, for an agency doing cutting-edge R&D which has trickle down technological effects into the rest of society making m…

No, everyone's budget needs to get cut. EVERYONE.

Perhaps there are more structural elements to be tackled where cuts won't be enough to balance the budget.

Starting with Medicaid/Medicare since it's a huge expenditure: why even bother running a system that has worse outcomes and is more expensive than a single-payer/socialised system?

There are many models to follow from successful countries, almost all of them would be cheaper than the current one, the population already pays for healthcare insurance, turn it into a tax to spread the insurance pool over the whole population, it's been proven to work.

Why not expand tax income instead of giving tax cuts to corporations and rich folks? It seems like the current arrangement is bankrupting the country, less public investment will cripple potential revenues of undiscovered technology, it's rare that a major new advancement comes straight out of private industry, they're usually pretty good at monetising public research (such as NASA, DARPA, etc.), why continuously give them tax cuts to then defund the whole foundation that actually enables them to even exist?

Re: Trump's NASA cuts would destroy decades of science and wipe out its future

#293

Post by jeremyjh »

Ray20 wrote: post #273
redczar wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Authoritarianism means oppressing the masses, having an undemocratic government and acting against the will of the people. It happens in Venezuela. It happens in Turkey. It happens in Hungary. It doesn't happen in the US. We have an undemocrstic government. Thousands of polling stations have shut down since the gutting of the Voting Rights Act. Voter rolls have been purged in key swing states. As a result of these th…

>As a result of these things millions of people were unable to vote. By similizing the American electoral system to those in authoritarian countries, you trivialize the suffering of people oppressed and often physically exterminated by authoritarian regimes around the world. Millions? Seriously? Try talking to any refugee from an authoritarian country about this. Just please be as polite as possible and choose a smal…

What do you call it when people are rounded up and sent to a gulag in El Salvador without due process? What do you call it when monies appropriated by Congress that literally kept starving people alive in other parts of the world, are unilaterally rescinded by an executive with no legal power to do so? The richest man in the world caused the deaths of some of the poorest in the world, and fulfilled not one of the benefits he promised.

Re: Trump's NASA cuts would destroy decades of science and wipe out its future

#294

Post by Whoppertime »

yesfitz wrote: post #180
blindriver wrote: post #109

[flagged]

Can you elaborate on how the country would be hamstrung with unaffordable debt? Like, what effects would that have on the country/citizens?

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/commentary/2025/05/22/japan/gre... Japan would be a classic example of a developed country hamstrung by unaffordable debt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt-trap_diplomacy While Chinese Debt Trap Diplomacy is a classic example of the trap poorer countries can fall into with unaffordable debt

Re: Trump's NASA cuts would destroy decades of science and wipe out its future

#295

Post by ryandrake »

Ray20 wrote: post #218
davidw wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you read about Maduro wanting to imprison the leader of a region of Venezuela, who belongs to the opposition party, you'd call it authoritarianism. If you read that the Secretary of Defense of Turkey declined to commit to obeying court orders, you'd call it authoritarianism. If you read about Viktor Orban sending actual troops rather than police to a city because of a flimsy pretext, you'd call it authoritarianism…

I am not an American and may not understand what is going on inside, but from the outside it appears that you are simply engaging in political smears. Authoritarianism means oppressing the masses, having an undemocratic government and acting against the will of the people. It happens in Venezuela. It happens in Turkey. It happens in Hungary. It doesn't happen in the US. If anything, what is happening in the US is exa…

> If anything, what is happening in the US is exactly the opposite: Trump, who won the popular vote, therefore a representative of the oppressed majority, is waging a war against their oppression (as masses seems it) by the authoritarian deep state.

This is an absolutely wild way of framing what's happening. The oppressors trying to paint themselves as the oppressed. Who exactly are "the right" oppressed by, and how exactly are they being oppressed? Immigrants? Gays and Transsexuals? Science researchers? DEI HR departments? Because that's who they seem to be going after. These guys historically have not been oppressors.

What's happening in the US may not be authoritarianism, but it is definitely a powerful group, now that they are in power, inflicting cruelty against many smaller, weaker groups who cannot fight back.

Re: Trump's NASA cuts would destroy decades of science and wipe out its future

#296

Post by vlod »

dakr wrote: post #278
vlod wrote: post #188

The All-In-Podcast recently interviewed (1-1) Jared Isaacman (NASA admin nominee) about the bloat. Worth watching the whole interview ~1 hour. [0] Jared Isaacman: What went wrong at NASA | The All-In Interview https://youtu.be/6YdOjoaQTOQ?si=FUeL8mJ6LwHwO_B4&t=1275

The interview where several billionaires floated the idea of getting rid of congress so that private industry can then somehow operate unfettered.

At 25m20s [0] mark he talks about senators protecting the jobs (and the money they get from NASA) in their state, which impedes the general direction of NASA:

[0] https://youtu.be/6YdOjoaQTOQ?si=5DsRju_8qdwU29SO&t=1521

Re: Trump's NASA cuts would destroy decades of science and wipe out its future

#297

Post by aaomidi »

potato3732842 wrote: post #54
aaomidi wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, let’s start having Californians not have to pay federal taxes. I genuinely am not joking, if the govt wants to go this direction then let’s welcome states rights to keep their money within their borders.

It wouldn't actually be a big deal. Some states would win a little and some would lose a little but it wouldn't be life changing for anyone. The cents on the dollar in and out flows fluctuate a lot year to year. The bigger problem is that damn near every state bureaucracy has forgotten how to actually write and evaluate their own damn rules for all sorts of expenditures that are currently spec'd out on a "follow fed…

This is why I want it to happen.

Re: Trump's NASA cuts would destroy decades of science and wipe out its future

#298

Post by FuriouslyAdrift »

bruce511 wrote: post #267
FuriouslyAdrift wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Administrative court rulings is due process for immigration... that's the law. Admin court is part of the Executive branch. That's how the law is set up. Comprehensive immigration reform (which is sorely needed) can only come from the Congress (who have no incentive to act because everyone is so focused on the Presidency). Without the laws changing, the only choice is to enforce the laws as they are. Something that h…

Congress had an immigration reform act about to pass in 2024. It was killed because the Don first want it to happen under a Democratic president. Its important to understand that congress explicitly enables this current behavior. In 18 months the people will have the opportunity to express their will. If your congress people are enabling this, then it's your responsibility.

well... sure. I hope we get a Congress that is more balanced and can compromise on things, but I am way too cynical to believe it will happen.

Best case might be a strong Republican majority in both houses that can just say 'no' to Trump or at least stiffle certain agendas. Politics is a blood sport, after all.

Re: Trump's NASA cuts would destroy decades of science and wipe out its future

#299

Post by AnimalMuppet »

FuriouslyAdrift wrote: post #298
bruce511 wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Congress had an immigration reform act about to pass in 2024. It was killed because the Don first want it to happen under a Democratic president. Its important to understand that congress explicitly enables this current behavior. In 18 months the people will have the opportunity to express their will. If your congress people are enabling this, then it's your responsibility.

well... sure. I hope we get a Congress that is more balanced and can compromise on things, but I am way too cynical to believe it will happen. Best case might be a strong Republican majority in both houses that can just say 'no' to Trump or at least stiffle certain agendas. Politics is a blood sport, after all.

Why would you think that a strong Republican majority would say "no" to Trump?

Re: Trump's NASA cuts would destroy decades of science and wipe out its future

#300

Post by nielsbot »

noworriesnate wrote: post #102
nielsbot wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have an ideal version of the US government? Just wondering what you think should be cut vs kept.

The way I think about it is this: the bureaucracy of the federal government has accumulated so much tech debt over the years that a rewrite is in order. What that means is that we get rid of everything not immediately essential, then slowly rebuild to meet our needs. This isn’t the same as a full revolution, where you rewrite the entire government, not just the bureaucracy (I.e. get rid of Congress, Supreme Court, ex…

The government is not software, so not sure what you mean by "tech debt" here. Maybe you're conflating the complexity of our laws with the amount of bureaucracy we have.

If the problem you your thinking is the amount of bureaucracy, what's your specific complaint? It costs too much? Nothing gets done? There's wasteful spending?

Post reply on HN