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I don't understand how NASA's manned space program has become such a mess and basically a political football while their unmanned scientific missions seem to go

I don't understand how NASA's manned space program has become such a mess and basically a political football while their unmanned scientific missions seem to go pretty well. Whenever I hear something about SLS I feel sad for the people working on it. Although the James Webb also seems to be a disaster.

konjin 6y ago
Today's NASA is what happens when you give people who don't believe in government control of government. Unlike other areas of government, like say education, where failure is difficult to see a rocket that fails does so with a handy fireball that lets you know just how badly you've fucked up.
- spijdar 6y ago
  I think this is a jab at some or a group of politicians, but I genuinely don't know who -- it seems NASA's problems go far enough back that several different parties/groups have held control of the government and NASA has mostly stayed the same, for better or worse.
  - konjin 6y ago
    >I think this is a jab at some or a group of politicians Yes, all of them. The last politician that matter who believed in government was Nixon. Everyone since then has done their best to weaken it, with the result being a country that is unable to build any engineering project larger than a football stadium without cost and time overruns larger than the original projections. The US right now is in the position of the barbarian tribes squatting in the former Roman Empire. Using the infrastructure build before them, wearing togas and pretending to be Romans, constantly sniping each other over who is more virtuous, while everything rots and falls apart, only it's happening slowly enough that no one notices. We didn't need those baths anyway: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ruin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ruin
    - spijdar 6y ago
      Ah, fair enough. That's far before my time, so my frame of reference was much shorter. Can't say I haven't thought the same about where we are as a civilization, and how eerily similar it really is in some regards to the "End Game Roman Empire". I guess we had a good run while it lasted?
      - konjin 6y ago
        >Can't say I haven't thought the same about where we are as a civilization, and how eerily similar it really is in some regards to the "End Game Roman Empire". I guess we had a good run while it lasted? The Romans managed to avert disaster for two centuries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crisis_of_the_Third_Century https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crisis_of_the_Third_Century There is no reason why we can't do the same. It doesn't help that we expected Obama to be Augustine, but we got a Julian the Apostate wannabe instead.
      - edgyquant 6y ago
        There are almost zero similarities between the current US and the late Roman Empire. You could make a case that there are similarities to the late republic, but even that is a fools errand
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      > The last politician that believed in government was Nixon. If your definition of “politician” is “US President from the GOP”, that's maybe true (George H. W. Bush might make even that wrong, though.) If it's any broader, then, just, no, not even close.
      - konjin 6y ago
        >If it's any broader, then, just, no, not even close. Apart from Sanders name one Democratic president or major presidential candidate that wanted to re-nationalize anything since the 70s. That isn't some sort of radical socialism, it was policy under the New Deal.
    - nickik 6y ago
mumblemumble 6y ago
Human spaceflight has always been, first and foremost, a political thing. The only thing that's changed since the mid 20th century is that the politicians can no longer agree on where to move the football and how for more than 4 consecutive years at a time.
- avmich 6y ago
  It's worth mentioning, that manned spaceflight isn't only a political thing. Counterexamples include huge inspirational value - to the tune of a generation of scientists and engineers. Also there was a period when automatic satellites couldn't be used for even rather simple, by today's standards, tasks, like space telescope on e.g. Skylab. Also at some scale involving human presence into a space project (Apollo) turns out to be more beneficial, science-per-dollar-wise, than doing everything with robots only. And there are other reasons.

konjin 6y ago

Today's NASA is what happens when you give people who don't believe in government control of government. Unlike other areas of government, like say education, where failure is difficult to see a rocket that fails does so with a handy fireball that lets you know just how badly you've fucked up.

spijdar 6y ago
I think this is a jab at some or a group of politicians, but I genuinely don't know who -- it seems NASA's problems go far enough back that several different parties/groups have held control of the government and NASA has mostly stayed the same, for better or worse.
- konjin 6y ago
  >I think this is a jab at some or a group of politicians Yes, all of them. The last politician that matter who believed in government was Nixon. Everyone since then has done their best to weaken it, with the result being a country that is unable to build any engineering project larger than a football stadium without cost and time overruns larger than the original projections. The US right now is in the position of the barbarian tribes squatting in the former Roman Empire. Using the infrastructure build before them, wearing togas and pretending to be Romans, constantly sniping each other over who is more virtuous, while everything rots and falls apart, only it's happening slowly enough that no one notices. We didn't need those baths anyway: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ruin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ruin
  - spijdar 6y ago
    Ah, fair enough. That's far before my time, so my frame of reference was much shorter. Can't say I haven't thought the same about where we are as a civilization, and how eerily similar it really is in some regards to the "End Game Roman Empire". I guess we had a good run while it lasted?
    - konjin 6y ago
      >Can't say I haven't thought the same about where we are as a civilization, and how eerily similar it really is in some regards to the "End Game Roman Empire". I guess we had a good run while it lasted? The Romans managed to avert disaster for two centuries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crisis_of_the_Third_Century https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crisis_of_the_Third_Century There is no reason why we can't do the same. It doesn't help that we expected Obama to be Augustine, but we got a Julian the Apostate wannabe instead.
    - edgyquant 6y ago
      There are almost zero similarities between the current US and the late Roman Empire. You could make a case that there are similarities to the late republic, but even that is a fools errand
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > The last politician that believed in government was Nixon. If your definition of “politician” is “US President from the GOP”, that's maybe true (George H. W. Bush might make even that wrong, though.) If it's any broader, then, just, no, not even close.
    - konjin 6y ago
      >If it's any broader, then, just, no, not even close. Apart from Sanders name one Democratic president or major presidential candidate that wanted to re-nationalize anything since the 70s. That isn't some sort of radical socialism, it was policy under the New Deal.
  - nickik 6y ago

mumblemumble 6y ago

Human spaceflight has always been, first and foremost, a political thing. The only thing that's changed since the mid 20th century is that the politicians can no longer agree on where to move the football and how for more than 4 consecutive years at a time.

avmich 6y ago
It's worth mentioning, that manned spaceflight isn't only a political thing. Counterexamples include huge inspirational value - to the tune of a generation of scientists and engineers. Also there was a period when automatic satellites couldn't be used for even rather simple, by today's standards, tasks, like space telescope on e.g. Skylab. Also at some scale involving human presence into a space project (Apollo) turns out to be more beneficial, science-per-dollar-wise, than doing everything with robots only. And there are other reasons.