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This is a Jobs program, not a Space program. It's working as intended! Most politicians don't care about Space, but Jobs programs are great for re-election and
by _ah 6y ago
This is a Jobs program, not a Space program. It's working as intended! Most politicians don't care about Space, but Jobs programs are great for re-election and basically unkillable.
Think of it this way: the Jobs spend was going to happen anyway. But instead of high-speed trains to nowhere (hello California!) we get rovers on Mars. Wasteful, but not a total waste.
- conistonwater 6y agoThis doesn't sound right: according to Wikipedia, the cost of the Perseverance rover is $2.7e9 total over 10 years, whereas the cost of SLS is $2.5e9/year (figure for 2020). I agree that it's a jobs program, but the rovers on Mars could be too small to be relevant to the calculation. Maybe it should be "instead of high-speed trains to nowhere it's rockets to nowhere". You don't get rovers on Mars because of the spending on SLS, you get them despite the wasteful spending.
- adolph 6y agoAlternative hypothesis: SLS funding supports some other program that cannot be acknowledged and actual amount spent on SLS is very small.