Why NASA's Budget "Victory" Is Anything But 267
StartsWithABang (3485481) writes 'Earlier this week, attempts to cut NASA's budget were defeated, and it looks like the largest space agency in the world will actually be getting nearly a 2% budget increase overall. While common news outlets are touting this as a great budget victory, the reality is that this is shaping up to be just another year of pathetic funding levels, putting our greatest dreams of exploring and understanding the Universe on hold. A sobering read for anyone who hasn't realized what we could be doing.'
Re:Government fails again (Score:5, Informative)
No, you are proving his point. It's people like you that are the reason for government being weakened so much that these corporations are allowed to influence it to such a great degree.
Back when patriotism was a thing just a few decades ago, companies didn't wield even a fraction of political power they have today.
Re:NASA vs SpaceX (Score:5, Informative)
Sigh. It's not NASA vs SpaceX. It's NASA and SpaceX/Bigelow/etc, versus NASA and LM/ATK/etc.
It's a crew capsule built for NASA for around a billion dollars total, versus a crew capsule built for NASA for around a billion dollars per year.
It's a launcher that will cost NASA less than $100m per launch for 50 tonnes to LEO, versus a launcher that costs NASA $2 billion per year every year for one launch of 70 tonnes to LEO once every year or two.
It's commercial space stations that cost $100-150m/yr each for NASA to lease, versus a space station that costs NASA $3 billion/yr to operate and is dependent on Russian modules and Russian crew capsules (costing an extra $75m per seat.)
It's about the most cost effective way for US taxpayers to achieve the things they apparently want to do, versus repeating the same costly mistakes over and over.
Re:Government fails again (Score:4, Informative)
Great. So go live in an ideal world without those people so that you can implement a society without rules, where people just play nicely with each other.
The fact is; on every street in every town in every country there is at least one arse who will take full advantage of their freedom to fuck you over. You have a lovely sea view? The arse will build a massive garage blocking your view. Or opposite, you have a lovely old three hundred year old oak tree in your garden... when you come home one day that tree is lying across your lawn because the arse wanted a better view. Lots and lots of people care about nothing but themselves and their own. The only reason it is even remotely possible for us to live together in cities in relative peace is government and laws describing the limits to our freedom to fuck people over for our own benefit. Try going to cities where government and law enforcement has broken down.
Re:Government fails again (Score:3, Informative)
That's because there were not as many regulations then as there are now. It got to the point where instead of the government and businesses working together, it was a war. Business won it and "big business" gets a stronger foothold against small business every time the liberal anti-corp "do-gooders" create new regulation.