Anything related to the NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration); the latest news, events, current and future missions, and more.
Note: This community is an unofficial forum and is unaffiliated with NASA or the U.S. government.
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It’s insane, because NASA has one of the most insanely high ROIs of any agency in the US government, in terms of impact on the GDP in the long term.
But everyone in charge only gives a shit about quarter-over-quarter performance at this point, so fuck all that noise I guess.
Not that insane. The ROI you mention is diffuse and global. That means vested interest can't easily extract this surplus value for shareholders; it just kind of benefits everyone.
And that might as well be communism for them.
Well it's easy to have a high ROI if your I is low! Imagine if we give them more money and they produce the same R!
What are you talking about. It’s a matter of public record. Check the numbers from back in the Apollo era.
It always blows my mind when someone suggests cutting funding for NASA, because it takes very little research into the space shuttle program, (which was designed literally because they needed a cheaper way to get into space) to understand that they were literally sending people up in giant metal sarcophagi practically held together by duct tape and ear wax. Then you had the fucking higher ups (cough cough Reagan Administration) who pushed for the launch of these actual fucking deathtraps under conditions that everyone involved knew were reckless and put the lives of the crew at risk.
And that, kids, is why you saw a space shuttle break apart on National television.
Kinda strayed away from my point, but this subject really pisses me off and it's even worse to know that the situation has not improved in the slightest.
I know, right? Could they not reduce the military budget a tiny bit, and double NASA's budget?
Worked on a few project’s funded by the defense department, honestly the government’s getting ripped off 80% of the time by inflated prices from defense contractors. It’s like contracting the mafia for a construction project, they know they’re getting ripped off by the contractors for subpar work. But, they don’t care because they went to college together. They could take less than 1% from the defense budget and easily update the NASA facilities. Instead they continue to pay a human turd of a traitor, Dollar Store Tony Stark.
they continue to pay a human turd of a traitor, Dollar Store Tony Stark
Not to defend Elon Musk (the human), but hasn't SpaceX (the company) saved NASA money compared to the Space Shuttle program? The Shuttle was famously expensive to operate (~1.5B$ per launch), while Crew Dragon costs only ~200M$ per launch.
Battered agency syndrome. "This (underfunded) agency isn't efficient enough! Time to privatize, hurray for the economy, I guess!"
Should never have gotten to this point.