551–560 of 774 posts
I’m trying to think how I feel about this. I’ve been obsessed with space for a long time, remember traveling to see my first rocket launch of the shuttle in 2006. Follow the commercial development closely since then. Their science missions are inspiring, but not as inspiring as they ought to be. NASA needs an overhaul. This isn’t how I would do it, but that’s not how things work in the real world. SLS is the elephant…
Comments about SLS miss what’s happening. SLS is inefficient and wasteful, but human spaceflight is not what’s getting cut at NASA. Instead, very productive current and future science missions are getting killed, in defiance of Congress [1]. Until this year, NASA was the world leader in space science. We’re pushing out the experts who build and operate astrophysics missions like Hubble, Chandra, JWST, Kepler, TESS, S…
These cuts are absolutely not the ones I would make, but the reality is not as it is being portrayed. The claim that SpaceX does not do science is false. Not only do they launch most of NASA's science missions, which counts, they also do independent science, including the Polaris Dawn and FRAM 2. Along with Axiom, they put science missions on the ISS, and all the NASA science done on ISS is facilitated by SpaceX putt…
Exactly. Like if I am an uber driver and I bring a surgeon to a hospital, it counts as me doing surgery since the most important part of surgery is the process of driving to the place where it happens
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> the world leader in space science. I also want to add that science is a critical investment area for anyone interested in engineering. There is this common belief of "I just want to make things work" and that science is really unimportant here and are concerned with things that don't matter. The truth is that science builds the foundation for that other stuff. It is the very ground you stand on. Engineering without…
> The truth is that science builds the foundation for that other stuff. It is the very ground you stand on. Engineering without science is like trying to run without ground. That doesn't mean that government investment in science is necessarily a good idea. > I'd be willing to wager that the economic impact of Newton and Leibniz's invention of Calculus[0] is larger than the economic impact of any engineering product,…
> That doesn't mean that government investment in science is necessarily a good idea.
> Where they financed by the government?
> Btw, I can also look at winning lottery tickets
You're not making an argument, you're just intentionally misunderstanding. Sorry, I'm not going to respond if all you want to do is troll
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The truth is that science builds the foundation for that other stuff. It is the very ground you stand on. Engineering without science is like trying to run without ground. That doesn't mean that government investment in science is necessarily a good idea. > I'd be willing to wager that the economic impact of Newton and Leibniz's invention of Calculus[0] is larger than the economic impact of any engineering product,…
> That doesn't mean that government investment in science is necessarily a good idea. Sure, only a Sith deals in absolutes. What's your point? If you inferred from my comment that I think we should just fund everything all willy nilly I'm curious how you think I would resolve this with the lack of infinite money. I'd have to assume we have infinite money if I was suggesting to fund everything, right? And I'd have to…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> a way of hitting back at "the elites" who have the temerity to call GOP politicians and donors out for their lies and bad behavior True for academic institutions. No evidence this is the motivation at NASA. Simpler: science costs money and leadership believes that money is better spent giving folks like me a tax cut than paying for poor folks' healthcare or basic research. Fortunately, it looks like Beijing is read…
>that money is better spent giving folks like me a tax cut The federal government now accepts donations if you don't want the money.
NASA has been downsizing a lot. Friend of mine is a contractor for NASA who has been trained as a parts engineer for sourcing and testing electronic components that go into satellites and spacecrafts will be out of a job in a few months as her entire branch is eliminating all contractor positions. Now she has a specialized skillset that isn't very readily transferable to other local companies and industries. Sucks. C…
The satellite industry in the US is larger than ever, FWIW. Between Starlink, OneWeb, Kuiper, plus a gazillion startups like Astranis, K2 Space, etc, not to mention defense satellites, there has never been a time when more satellites have been launched by the U.S. I think your friend will be fine. The real issue is the capability loss for NASA.
NASA has been downsizing a lot. Friend of mine is a contractor for NASA who has been trained as a parts engineer for sourcing and testing electronic components that go into satellites and spacecrafts will be out of a job in a few months as her entire branch is eliminating all contractor positions. Now she has a specialized skillset that isn't very readily transferable to other local companies and industries. Sucks. C…
Why won’t the skillset be transferable to places like space x, Amazon kuiper, blue origin, or any of the big defense tech or start ups (eg anduril)?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> the world leader in space science. I also want to add that science is a critical investment area for anyone interested in engineering. There is this common belief of "I just want to make things work" and that science is really unimportant here and are concerned with things that don't matter. The truth is that science builds the foundation for that other stuff. It is the very ground you stand on. Engineering without…
> The truth is that science builds the foundation for that other stuff. It is the very ground you stand on. Engineering without science is like trying to run without ground. That doesn't mean that government investment in science is necessarily a good idea. > I'd be willing to wager that the economic impact of Newton and Leibniz's invention of Calculus[0] is larger than the economic impact of any engineering product,…
A lot of his work occurred while he was what we'd now call a tenured professor of mathematics, again at a universe with an impressive amount of money being donated directly by the British government.
In general, the history of higher learning is the history of governments (or the wealthy people who constitute them) funding research and facilities. You may not like it, but you shouldn't misrepresent history just to make your preferences sound more normal.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is nonsense. Of course we want to be richer tomorrow than we are today, but we're plenty rich today. We -- the United States -- do not have a cashflow issue. We can meet all of our current obligations -- or could if there were any effort at efficient redistribution at all. The US federal government is maybe the least cashflow-constrained organization in human history. We want the $10 tomorrow, without any questi…
I'm failing to see what you're arguing against from my comment. What did you think I was arguing?
> The cuts to NASA as well as NOAA, NIH, USGS, USDA, FWS, DOE, etc. are not really saving that much money, but are destroying literally trillions of dollars of future economic value
You, in reply, wrote:
> The real issue is essentially: which would you rather have, $1 now or $10 tomorrow?[1]
I'm saying you're wrong. There is not a choice to be made. We want the $10 tomorrow. No rational person can disagree with this if the person making the choice is the US federal government, who can spend money into existence. If we have some use for $1 now, just spend that $1 into existence too! Then, tomorrow, we'll have the $10 too!
If you agree with the cuts, you must logically agree that they are a bad investment: that $1 today will net us 75 cents tomorrow.