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"Just handed the money", my ass. Did you ever work in science? How to you even think that money should be distributed in scientific institutions? Everyone gets
by choeger 5y ago
"Just handed the money", my ass. Did you ever work in science? How to you even think that money should be distributed in scientific institutions? Everyone gets a share based on ... what? Their degree? Number of publications? Consensus by committee?
And for comparison, look what the ISS has brought us commercially: We have a fully commercial manned spaceflight planned for next week. That is a massive achievement without even considering all the scientific work on the station.
- ncmncm 5y agoHanding 99% of the money to contractors for what will in short order be thousands of tons of radioactive slag contributes minimally to actual research. The developers of the overwhelmingly more practical FRC reactor are left to get by on scraps. Elsewhere in science, money is, in fact, being "granted" directly to scientists. This has gone on since long before you were born. All of the "scientific work on" ISS is done with crew literally pushing an "on" button on each bit of automated equipment running it. Experiments are forbidden to involve more interaction, and also forbidden to operate without that "on" button, so the crew has something, anything to do. Commercial manned spaceflight could better have been worked without ISS. ISS's role was nothing more than a place to take them. Plus, a huge money sink on its own. It will soon fall out of the sky, and with any luck not hurt anybody where it crashes down.
- Chris2048 5y ago> All of the "scientific work on" ISS is done with crew literally pushing an "on" button Why is this relevant?
- naasking 5y agoI assume he means that the crew was superfluous because the "on" button could be pushed remotely or automated at a fraction of the cost of sending people to space.