The Trump administration’s planned cuts would end 53 planned or ongoing NASA Science missions
The Artemis II mission and its successful return to Earth have, for now, brought the American public’s attention back to NASA and its aspirational mission to push the boundaries of humanity into space.
Achieving those goals costs billions, but the Office of Management and Budget under Donald Trump’s administration is planning deep cuts to NASA’s budget.
Famed science communicator and teacher Bill Nye has described Trump’s planned cuts as “surprising, illogical, and very troubling” in a new op-ed for MS NOW.
“These cuts would be an insult to our astronauts and entire NASA workforce. Astronauts and their colleagues are civil servants who work hard, accomplish nearly impossible things and represent our country to the world,” he wrote.
Weird how this would probably benefit Space X, eh?
The Republicans want to turn this place into a shithole country with crumbling infrastructure, and science and education set back decades, while they use our tax money to build monuments to their golden Jesus.
You know, “makin’ America great again”.
‘Surprising, illogical and very troubling’
We have a rhetoric problem in the US. Trump does something dumber than a bag of rocks, and smart people react with statements like this that actually elevate what he did even while they are trying to lambaste him.
It’s not “surprising,” it’s dumb as fuck.
It’s not “illogical,” it’s dumb as fuck.
It’s not “very troubling,” it’s dumb as fuck.
Call it what it is, guys. Your polite high road responses to this lunatic serve to dignify him.
Considering where this money is going to end up instead I think any kind of criticism towards the work NASA is doing is truly misplaced.
It was a waste of money 50 years ago and a waste of money now. Nothing but a dumb, authoritarian dick measuring contest
The Moon is the only readily available source of truly ancient Earth rocks. If we want to know more about our planet, we have to go to The Moon, and do science.
Thus far exactly one scientist has ever set foot on The Moon. We’re going back with a team of scientists and one pilot, rather than the inverse ratio that the Apollo missions had.
Nah it was an authoritarian dick measuring contest that we managed to get a lot of useful science funding from. Neil DeGrasse Tyson is clear on this point at least. Once the Soviets lost interest in the moon, we dropped it.
The complaint is that we shouldn’t need a dick measuring contest to do science. We’ve even had the chance to see what science funding like NASA’s can do now, yet still we can’t bring ourselves to fund it without a dick measuring contest to motivate us. So we’re outsourcing it to the billionaires, who have a dick measuring contest between them that fits the bill.
What’s the next dick measuring contest that this idiotic species will need to latch onto to keep space exploration going?
There are scientific discoveries regarding both the moon and our own planet that only happened because of the apollo missions. The space race was also the catalyst that led to advanced technologies we use every day, like GPS, water filtration systems, and insulin pumps. It also contributed to electrical engineering and material science advancement for miniaturizing electronics, solar cells, digital thermometers and mammograms, digitial imaging sensors, cordless power tools, smoke detectors, fire-resistant material, durable parachute materials, scratch resistant coatings, memory foam, etc.
Even if you’re a cynic that has no respect for exploration or scientific endeavor, or minimizes the space race to a “dumb, authoritarian dick measuring contest” (which don’t get me wrong, it was also that, at first), the real world advancements that we spawned from these endeavors is pretty crazy. Turns out, when you let scientists and engineers push beyond what people have done before, beyond where they have gone before, and then let them iterate on that process to do it better next time, they can do some pretty amazing things.
And we did that with the technology of the 60’s - 80’s. We have had 40+ years of advancement now to push our endeavors further, and new challenges in mind for long term settlement, orbital launches, geological research, etc. We can only guess what advancements will come from having the challenges of space exploration pushing tech advancements again instead of the exclusively consumer-driven and military-driven shit we’ve seen over the last few decades.
That’s not true, when we invest in NASA we get those funds back as technological advancements. Velcro for example. Funding the Artemis missions would enable us to build a permanent moon base, providing a new environment for conducting scientific research and preparing us to expand humanity to other worlds.
All those hundreds of billions spent and Velcro is all we have to show for it.
It’s better than spending it on war I suppose.
NASA literally invented single crystal solar cells. If we didn’t have that, we’d have even less hope of beating the climate crisis.
The climate is just fine
Oh yeah, you’re a special kind of special.
I guess even Lemmy has dumbass conservatives and climate change deniers. Let me guess…you also are anti-vax, too?
I could show you a video clip of Netanyahu during the last 30some years claiming Iran is weeks away from nuclear bomb
I can also show you a video of politicians from the last 30 or so years claiming the climate is a disaster and ice caps will melt and ocean levels will flood Florida and so on
Both are bullshit
The scientist has spoken, everyone.
So all of those stronger hurricanes in the US in the Golf of Mexico, stronger winter storms in the Midwest and northeast, droughts in the west, actual data showing ice shelves receding, higher average temperatures in Europe, record breaking temperatures in the Middle East and India…
All of that is bullshit, huh?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spin-off_technologies
A bit more than Velcro. Memory foam, for example.
“Ha you went to the moon? So 55 years ago loser”
Vs the government subsidies to private companies like SpaceX and company for… space tourism.
