Defund NASA

[AC400KICK]

There are problems down here to be dealt with. Let's take care of them first before we play Buck Rodgers.

[ksm32]

yeah that'll fix it

[GravitySucks]

yeah that'll fix it

As the soon to be annointed Secretary of Space and Admiral of the Galactic Navy, I must denounce this heresy.

[Hog]

There are problems down here to be dealt with. Let's take care of them first before we play Buck Rodgers.

There are MUCH better ways to save money.  NASA gets around 1/2 a cent of every federal tax dollar.
NASA in the last 62 years, since its inception in 1958 has received less money over those 62 years, than the USA spends on the military IN A SINGLE YEAR.

'People think that NASA gets a large portion of federal funding, but it just isn't so.
NASA's budget as percentage of federal total, from 1958 to 2017, look at that "bulge" in the 60's. Around 4.5% of Federal spending or around 4.5 cents of every Federal budget dollar.


peace
Hog

[Uncle Duke]

There are problems down here to be dealt with. Let's take care of them first before we play Buck Rodgers.

I'm with you.  Let's defund NASA and give the money to the Space Force.

[Ciardelo]

People act like we are just shooting bundles of money into space. NASA money is spent here on Earth and goes into Earth people's wallets.

[GravitySucks]

There are MUCH better ways to save money.  NASA gets around 1/2 a cent of every federal tax dollar.
NASA in the last 62 years, since its inception in 1958 has received less money over those 62 years, than the USA spends on the military IN A SINGLE YEAR.

'People think that NASA gets a large portion of federal funding, but it just isn't so.
NASA's budget as percentage of federal total, from 1958 to 2017, look at that "bulge" in the 60's. Around 4.5% of Federal spending or around 4.5 cents of every Federal budget dollar.


peace
Hog

In 2008, between the election and the inauguration, Obama sent an advanced team to see exactly how many billions of dollars could be stripped from JSC’s budget to pay for more worthwhile programs and projects.  One of them commented something along the line of “Shit, there isn’t anything we can really cut.  There isn’t much here.” 

Well they did end up canceling the Constellation program because that was a Bush idea to go back to the moon. But congress ended up funding the SLS rocket and Orion capsule anyway.  Of course they didn’t have a reference mission or a destination. They just spent the last 12 years building both.  Neither has flown an actual mission.  There was one pad abort test of the Orion capsule. And since the SLS uses 4 refurbished Shuttle SSME’s and they don’t return for reuse like the Shuttle, only 4 launches of the SLS are on the books.  This has been the worst investment that NASA has ever made - maybe. It may rival JWST.  But it kept a lot of engineers and civil servants working at Marshall and Stennis.  I worked on Orion from January, 2007 until about May, 2015 through numerous stops and starts.  In 2015, they still didn’t know how many astronauts it was supposed to accommodate. 

The other program that is an embarrassment to NASA is the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). I work on the from 2003 until I went to Orion in 2007. Work on it really began in 1996 as the Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST) with a proposed budget of $500 million and a planned launch date in 2007. It still hasn’t launched and won’t launch until at least 2021.  The budget right now is up over $10 billion.  But it kept a bunch of engineers and civil servants at Goddard working.

What did they use the money for?  Well, it is not directly traceable but if you look at how the money from the TARP stimulus bill was spent, you will see 100’s, maybe thousands, of Pell grants to cosmetology and beautician schools in Sheila Jackson Lee’s district. 

[whoozit]

Defund the defunders!

[Dr. MD MD]

Defund the defunders!

+1

...I mean -1

[albrecht]

Defund it.

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-to-reexamine-nicknames-for-cosmic-objects/ 

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/space/7875584/Barack-Obama-Nasa-must-try-to-make-Muslims-feel-good.html

https://observer.com/2020/08/nasa-racist-star-name-changes-hq-name/

https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/25/us/mary-w-jackson-hidden-figures-nasa-building-trnd/index.html

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/charles-bolden-nasas-fore_n_637854 

[Ciardelo]

As a Heather Wade aficionado, I object to the nickname "the Horsehead Nebula" 

[pate]

In 2008, between the election and the inauguration, Obama sent an advanced team to see exactly how many billions of dollars could be stripped from JSC’s budget to pay for more worthwhile programs and projects.  One of them commented something along the line of “Shit, there isn’t anything we can really cut.  There isn’t much here.” 

Well they did end up canceling the Constellation program because that was a Bush idea to go back to the moon. But congress ended up funding the SLS rocket and Orion capsule anyway.  Of course they didn’t have a reference mission or a destination. They just spent the last 12 years building both.  Neither has flown an actual mission.  There was one pad abort test of the Orion capsule. And since the SLS uses 4 refurbished Shuttle SSME’s and they don’t return for reuse like the Shuttle, only 4 launches of the SLS are on the books.  This has been the worst investment that NASA has ever made - maybe. It may rival JWST.  But it kept a lot of engineers and civil servants working at Marshall and Stennis.  I worked on Orion from January, 2007 until about May, 2015 through numerous stops and starts.  In 2015, they still didn’t know how many astronauts it was supposed to accommodate. 

The other program that is an embarrassment to NASA is the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). I work on the from 2003 until I went to Orion in 2007. Work on it really began in 1996 as the Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST) with a proposed budget of $500 million and a planned launch date in 2007. It still hasn’t launched and won’t launch until at least 2021.  The budget right now is up over $10 billion.  But it kept a bunch of engineers and civil servants at Goddard working.

What did they use the money for?  Well, it is not directly traceable but if you look at how the money from the TARP stimulus bill was spent, you will see 100’s, maybe thousands, of Pell grants to cosmetology and beautician schools in Sheila Jackson Lee’s district.

I particularly enjoyed being served by local "NASA" contractors in the DFAC during my lovely stay in Afghanistan circa 2011-12.  They all had nice "NASA" baseball caps and mostly crisp and white chef's coats...  Many laughs were had about that, I am not sure they can be catalogued in the Book of Laughter due to sunset clauses on FOI requests.  We did enjoy this particular site:

Code Select Expand

ilovebagram.com

Man, there was this legendary red-head that was a "Bagrhram 10{11? 9?}" who had both matching curtains and drapes...  Whoa!

I think she was Russian and I bumped into her at a CONEX that had a mistakenly "lost" serial number...

Nautical Shore, but them Russian/Ukrainian contractors were an interesting bunch.

Talk about the Wild West.

I will say that the obvious Russian designed helicopters that were used by contractors were interesting;  instead of a horizontal ramp for cargo they utilized a vertical rear clam shell.  Weird looking, add in the odd number of rotor blades...

Well, they operated on the other side of the main run-way quite close to the Tower.  It was always fun to watch their operations on a slow day, just looked plain weird whatever the actual fuck they were doing over there.

It seemed like the "hajj" did not like them;  most of the rockets seemed to hit the "Russian contractor" areas.  Maybe they were terrible shots?

Nautical Shore!

Hah, g-u-d thymes.

-p

[pate]

There are problems down here to be dealt with. Let's take care of them first before we play Buck Rodgers.

I agree, this ridiculous JWST thing is doing absolutely horrible things to the Settled Science™.

The data is probably faked like that famous "Hockey Stick Graph" strait-outta East Anglia...

-p

[Hog]

SLS is hopefully to launch this Saturday afternoon.  Yee haw!

peace
Hog

[Radio Activity]

I'm a big space fan but NASA is off the rails. Defund it! That Artemis launch was scrubbed because of an engine that last flew on the Space Shuttle Atlantis in 1999. They're using old hardware and technology. Can someone please tell me why the Artemis program is estimated to cost $93 BILLION?

The Space Shuttle cost between $1B and $1.5B for each launch. The program was canceled for being too expensive. The Artemis program, using Shuttle-era technology and hardware will cost $4B to $4.5B per launch. At least with the Shuttle, the orbiter and Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs) were actually reusable. Not so with Artemis.

Something else that isn't talked about much. The Artemis capsule will NOT take people to the surface of the moon. It only takes them to the Lunar Gateway, a small space station that will someday orbit the moon. Astronauts transfer from Artemis to the Lunar Gateway. Then they transfer again to a SpaceX Starship for the trip down to the moon's surface and back. Unbelievable. You can't make this stuff up.

[albrecht]

I'm a big space fan but NASA is off the rails. Defund it! That Artemis launch was scrubbed because of an engine that last flew on the Space Shuttle Atlantis in 1999. They're using old hardware and technology. Can someone please tell me why the Artemis program is estimated to cost $93 BILLION?

The Space Shuttle cost between $1B and $1.5B for each launch. The program was canceled for being too expensive. The Artemis program, using Shuttle-era technology and hardware will cost $4B to $4.5B per launch. At least with the Shuttle, the orbiter and Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs) were actually reusable. Not so with Artemis.

Something else that isn't talked about much. The Artemis capsule will NOT take people to the surface of the moon. It only takes them to the Lunar Gateway, a small space station that will someday orbit the moon. Astronauts transfer from Artemis to the Lunar Gateway. Then they transfer again to a SpaceX Starship for the trip down to the moon's surface and back. Unbelievable. You can't make this stuff up.

RCH would likely agree!

Inflation, a WuFlu, supplychain issues, it is nearing election time and we need to spread the wealth in key districts. Who knows? But there will be some justifications. Maybe the so-called black budget stuff also siphoning some off the top. But as our leaders like to say "a billion isn't what it used to be" and budgets are so high that they confound the mind so the people just shrug and say "what's a another trillion."