Trump to scrap Nasa research

[Skroe]

Pretty cool. Thanks for the info. It hadn't crossed my mind that the timelines involved would force NASA to run a decades long insurgency against whomever is occupying the White House at any given time. I do hope the exploration tribe wins out in NASA's internal struggles. I've found the international space station to be rather uninspiring, and The whole climate change emphasis is pure yawn. Things like that can be handed off to the EPA. NASA is about "boldly going where no man has gone before."

Well I'll just replace my refrain about NASA. What they need, everybody knows. And Congress has gradually moved to make it happen. Most of it isn't in place, but much of it is pending.

-They need a NASA Administrator who is apolitical and appointed to a 10 year fixed term. It must be akin to the FBI Director or the Federal Reserve Director. It can't be, like Carlie Bolden turned out to be "The President's Man At NASA", meaning the effective agency head from a professional standpoint is the deputy director. It needs to be an industry / leader figure who can serve between administrations to carry out Congress' space agenda, not the President's.

-The above administrator needs to rule with an iron fist. Right now, the most powerful people at NASA are the heads of the Centers (such as NASA Ames, or JPL, or JSC) who ally with their Senators and Congressmen to bring money to their states/districts/NASA centers. NASA centers need to be consolidated and Center directors brought under control of a powerful administrator.

- They need to entirely change how they do budgeting. Some programs need locked in and predictable multi-year appropriations. Congress already occasioanlly allocates NASA programs money in 2 year chunks (the duration of a Congress), but it needs to go to 5 for some programs. Predictable funding is essential and a huge problem over the last 20 years has been year-to-year funding changes disrupting program progress.

- NASA needs to not be so parochial and be willing to work with other government agencies. A little know fact, I love sharing, is that the Hubble Space Telescope is largely a KH-12 Hexagon Spy Sattelite. The US has launched about 20 KH-12s since the late 1970s, but only one Hubble. Hubble has a different optics package, but is identical in many ways. The NRO has incrementally improved the KH-12 design over the years according to experts, and the four above us right now are far more advanced than ones from twenty years ago. NASA, by contrast, as been developing an overdesigned Hubble successor called the James Webb Space Telescope, for about that long. And while a groundbreaking design, is too complex and too costly ever to be used again. And about five years ago, when NASA was handed 2.5 spare KH-12s from the NRO for free, they basically acted like they had been handed a turd. The controversy of the SLS using legacy shuttle hardware reinforces a very negative mindset for NASA: cleanshit, aggressively advanced design is ALWAYS preferible to incrimental improvements and refining existing designs.

Fortunately in the past 10 years, in minor ways (specific instruments on probes for example) this has changed. But not nearly enough.



The US is in a VERY good spot in Space right now. The SLS is making aggressive progress and even if China or Russia started today on something comparable (and it's well beyond their technical means), it would be at least another decade before it flew. The SLS will fulfill the "super heavy lift" niche and be large enough to build infrastructure in space. The Falcon 9 / Falcon Heavy will enable highly economical launching of payloads and people to support space efforts at a far lower cost than the SLS (which is only good for some payloads). The tandem public-private approach gives the US a huge number of capability-driven options

Need medium lift (14,000kg)? Falcon 9
Need medium-heavy lift (28,000kg)? Delta IV Heavy
Need Heavy lift (54,000kg)? Falcon Heavy
Need Superheavy lift (70,000kg - 105,000kg - 130,000kg)? SLS.

The best thing the US can do right now is "no harm". Let NASA build the SLS. Let SpaceX evolve the Falcon. No new vision. No new speeches. Just pay the bill every year, and we'll wake up some time in May 2022 to American Astronauts orbiting the moon again.

I'm very optimistic. A low profile NASA protected by congressmen and senators will get more done than a high profile NASA that is politically tainted by the Administration du jour, whoever that may be. That is the real lesson of Apollo, because the dirty secret of Apollo is that while it was Kennedy's vision and Johnson's public effort, it was a handful of Congressmen and Senators who made sure everything was paid for, even when Nixon tried to kill it the first time.

[Hammerfest]

No, but it does mean they're beholden to their own research objectives, not someone else's.

Hardly. There's still just as great a potential for corruption. You're deluding yourself if you think there isn't... in addition to being in denial.

[Endus]

Hardly. There's still just as great a potential for corruption. You're deluding yourself if you think there isn't... in addition to being in denial.

Because I don't accept your wild claims about a global shadow conspiracy among tens of thousands of scientists employed by thousands of different employers in every country around the world all collaborating in some giant manipulation for absolutely no identifiable gain or benefit?

One of us is deluding themselves, and it ain't me.

[Hammerfest]

Because I don't accept your wild claims...

*snip*

My "wild claims" that scientists are human beings and therefore just as subject to corruption as any other human being? This is the core of what I've been talking about in this thread and this is what you've been attempting to counter. This is also where you become incapable of being taken seriously. Again.

[May90]

*snip*

My "wild claims" that scientists are human beings and therefore just as subject to corruption as any other human being? This is the core of what I've been talking about in this thread and this is what you've been attempting to counter. This is also where you become incapable of being taken seriously. Again.

"Scientists are a subject to corruption, hence their claims are wrong and mine are right" logic doesn't make much sense. I don't fully agree with Endus on this either, but your argument is pretty weak.

[Sierra85]

Probably high time NASA was privatized fully. Companies like Space X are the future.

nasa is the past

[Thoughtful Trolli]

TIL we can get infractions for conspiracy theories by reading a first page post's green text.

/sigh

[Deleted]

Probably high time NASA was privatized fully. Companies like Space X are the future.

nasa is the past

I agree that space exploration, colonization and exploitation will likely be in corporate hands.

A bit like in the Alien movies, with he Weyland-Yutani Corporation. Only possibly with companies like Space X and Google (and who knows what commercial powerhouses will stand up thsi century).

[Afrospinach]

Probably high time NASA was privatized fully. Companies like Space X are the future.

nasa is the past

You gotta remember that NASA is Space x biggest customer, in fact I think their only significant customer? No NASA no spacex. Privatization could be a real shock to the sytem so probably not a good idea just yet.

[Viking]

Considering the vast majority of these "experts" have been making failed predictions for decades, can't say I give a single solitary fuck about this at all. The only politicized science going on is between these aforementioned experts, and the greedy politicians that want to tax you for your personal carbon footprint. Fuck all of these hoaxing shits.

[Ulmita]

Space exploration can't be private. It needs to be contacted by governments around the world in a massive centralized scale and priority. The fate of humanity depends on that.

NASA needs to merge with ESA under w/e management (either is USA or EU doesn't matter) and funnel to them 100's of billions.

[Hammerfest]

"Scientists are a subject to corruption, hence their claims are wrong and mine are right" logic doesn't make much sense.

I guess it's a good thing that I didn't say that then. Here's what I said:

And yet the global warming fanboys never stop to consider that the "scientists" who support man-accelerated climate change might be lobbyists themselves on the Left's take. Fascinating.

Scientists are human beings and therefore fallible and corruptible like anybody else. That's why I don't automatically trust them the way some of you do.

[Endus]

I guess it's a good thing that I didn't say that then. Here's what I said:



Scientists are human beings and therefore fallible and corruptible like anybody else. That's why I don't automatically trust them the way some of you do.

Nobody "automatically trusts" anyone, here. Their data and methodologies are open for review by anyone. And if you bother to, you'll find why we trust them; because their arguments are supported by the evidence that we have.

Your refusal to do so is nothing more than willful ignorance.

[Hammerfest]

Nobody "automatically trusts" anyone, here.

Sure seems like it.

Their data and methodologies are open for review by anyone.

Yeah, no. They're not. Particularly when it comes to climate change. That hoax was exposed years ago now and while Scientism fanboys would like us all to forget about that, I'm afraid not even CERN can Mandela-effect that exposure away. Sorry.

Your refusal to do so is nothing more than willful ignorance.

That's precisely how I feel about yourself and your adherence to Scientism's ideas. You don't want to leave your comfort zone. I, in contrast, live mostly outside of mine.

[Ghazan Julio]

There can be no solutions where the problem itself is all but a mystery.

Yeah it's a real mystery...

[Endus]

Sure seems like it.

Then you're not paying attention. More willful ignorance.

Yeah, no. They're not. Particularly when it comes to climate change. That hoax was exposed years ago now and while Scientism fanboys would like us all to forget about that, I'm afraid not even CERN can Mandela-effect that exposure away. Sorry.

This is all a straight-up lie. You may as well be trying to sell us on the magic of healing crystals or something.

That's precisely how I feel about yourself and your adherence to Scientism's ideas. You don't want to leave your comfort zone. I, in contrast, live mostly outside of mine.

Well, at least you've dropped the veneer of being reasonable and declared all of science to be bunk, for some reason.

[Garnier Fructis]

Considering the vast majority of these "experts" have been making failed predictions for decades, can't say I give a single solitary fuck about this at all. The only politicized science going on is between these aforementioned experts, and the greedy politicians that want to tax you for your personal carbon footprint. Fuck all of these hoaxing shits.

For people who generally distrust the media, you sure do love to trust the media to accurately report scientific predictions.

Every time someone complains about politicized science and points the finger at scientists, the irony crushes a kitten.

[Ghazan Julio]

Nobody "automatically trusts" anyone, here. Their data and methodologies are open for review by anyone. And if you bother to, you'll find why we trust them; because their arguments are supported by the evidence that we have.

Your refusal to do so is nothing more than willful ignorance.

Your expectations are too high.

[Hammerfest]

Then you're not paying attention. More willful ignorance.

It's called "denial" ... on your part.

This is all a straight-up lie.

I know you'd certainly prefer it to be a lie. I'm afraid that doesn't make it so.

Well, at least you've dropped the veneer of being reasonable and declared all of science to be bunk, for some reason.

"Scientism" is a term you're not familiar with because you haven't bothered to educate yourself. Once again, leave your comfort zone.

[Garnier Fructis]

Sure seems like it.

Because it appears that you're conflating 'not automatically trust' with 'deny.'

I'm going to explain from a different field, but the essential idea is the same. Let's look at Cantor's infinities. From the point of view of cranks, it looks like mathematicians accept without question that Cantor's ideas are correct. They contend that if the mathematicians questioned it and looked carefully, they would see the errors in Cantor's arguments.

So why is it that every mathematician accepts Cantor's theories? Because we have looked at it, and there are no errors. The cranks simply have no idea how logic works.