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For those complaining about the spending: some countries spent TRILLIONS on war and and nation building. It's developments like these we should be focusing our

by gvv 5y ago

For those complaining about the spending: some countries spent TRILLIONS on war and and nation building. It's developments like these we should be focusing our energy and intelect.

cogman10 5y ago
$11 billion for a 10 year mission is peanuts in modern government operating expenses. It's not even $11 billion for 10 years, but already spent money over something like 15 years. So, roughly $11 billion over 25 years. Something that many nations could afford.
- throwoutway 5y ago
  Well not 25 years of use though
- wmeredith 5y ago
  For perspective, the United States was spending $11 billion dollars every 90 days fighting the Afghan war from ~2001-2020.
bregma 5y ago
But I'm sure this project will have many technological spinoffs that could, with only a little additional funding, be used either to kill a lot of people or to generate personal wealth for at least a few select individuals (and those are not mutually exclusive). It's a bargain at twice the price.
justajot 5y ago
Just for reference, the total U.S. Department of Defense budget for 2021 was $705 billion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_...
systemvoltage 5y ago
This is a poor argument and poor reasoning. This way, instead of improving, we continue to regress (“Look there! They’re doing it too!” argument). We should be halving expense on all fronts while demanding the same output - whether it’s military or space spending. Look at ISRO’s budget, high efficiency is key. Just because DoD budget is $750b, doesn’t mean that we should have a free pass to waste money. I’d like to see DoD spending cut in half while holding vendors accountable. Same with space industry. Another way to think about this if it helps is for $11b, we should have gotten more done. Imagine James Webb Telescope + 5 more projects for the same $11b. Wouldn’t that be awesome?
- gifnamething 5y ago
  That's barely enough for a negative revenue electric vehicle startup these days
- kdmccormick 5y ago
  I think GP's parent is a fair argument against criticisms that start and end at "$11B is a lot of money!". It is valid to point out that $11B pales in comparison to the US's defense budget as a means of providing context for how big these really big numbers are. If someone were to point to specific ways in which the project wasted money, that'd be different. But I haven't seen such detailed criticisms. Nobody is arguing that wasting money is a good thing.
- scrubs 5y ago
  Totally agree. Since when would it kill us to manage money better regardless of the node on the organizational chart to which it belongs? Never.
- dotnet00 5y ago
  An ISRO comparison seems a bit absurd given the hugely different scales of science and technology development being done. Much of the technology used in the JWST was practically invented for it. Not to imply that ISRO isn't doing important work, but simply looking to cut costs for the sake of cutting costs is just as bad as the waste you're complaining about. It'd be like comparing whatever it cost TSMC to switch to 3nm to what it cost to setup 20nm fabs. What we should be pushing for is more accurate cost estimates. It isn't a problem that the latest and greatest in space telescopes cost $11B, technological progress is often expensive, it's a problem that initially we were told it would cost $2B. If we have a better cost estimate from the start, we can better control our expectations.
  - systemvoltage 5y ago
    You're being uncharitable. It was just to make a point about efficiency, not to compare technological aspects of it. I could have used paper-clip manufacturer instead of ISRO for that matter.
deltree7 5y ago
or you can let a country have multiple billionaires so that they can fund these projects with their own money and compete within themselves, take more risks and compress the timelines of frontier-conquering and innovation. But, we want a large bureaucratic organization (by design), extremely risk-averse(by design), extremely slow(by design), having only one shots (by design) to do this for us
panick21_ 5y ago
While true, its also a huge problem when contractors promise something for 2B$ and then it costs 10-15B$ without the contractors suffering any consequences. What stops them from doing that for every single contract? There is a reason recently NASA has started to focus on Fixed Price contracts. We need a shift to more missions, building these things more often and more on price. Putting absurd amount of money into 1 mission compared to 20 missions for 500M$ likely doesn't make sense. The Webb telescope has been so long in development that lots of subsystems could have evolved considerably since then.
- scrubs 5y ago
  Agreed: there must be consequences. And this human management problem is not specific to science nor cosmology. The total dollars sunk into research is small compared to revenues spent elsewhere. Heck, in the US Government, it is still not yet using its check book leverage to reduce drug prices.
- nexuist 5y ago
  > We need a shift to more missions, building these things more often and more on price This only very recently became financially reasonable with SpaceX. It would have been impossible for NASA to know at that time that private industry would manage to lower the cost of launch by magnitudes. Cost didn't matter back then because you only got one shot to launch anyways. If the rocket blew up and took the satellite with it you're never getting approval to launch again. It would be better to let the project overrun than to worry about financials and contractual obligations when the risk of cancellation or failure is already so high. But now, with launches being relatively cheap, it is actually possible to envision a backup plan where a second satellite goes up with a second rocket. Again, this only very recently (maybe ~5 years ago?) became possible. I agree with you now though - NASA ought to be reconsidering overhauling its procurement process now that Falcon 9 exists.
  - panick21_ 5y ago
    Disagree. Even with Atlas 5 this was not totally unreasonable. > If the rocket blew up and took the satellite with it you're never getting approval to launch again. That's not accurate.

by gvv 5y ago

For those complaining about the spending: some countries spent TRILLIONS on war and and nation building. It's developments like these we should be focusing our energy and intelect.

cogman10 5y ago

$11 billion for a 10 year mission is peanuts in modern government operating expenses. It's not even $11 billion for 10 years, but already spent money over something like 15 years. So, roughly $11 billion over 25 years. Something that many nations could afford.

throwoutway 5y ago
Well not 25 years of use though
wmeredith 5y ago
For perspective, the United States was spending $11 billion dollars every 90 days fighting the Afghan war from ~2001-2020.

bregma 5y ago

But I'm sure this project will have many technological spinoffs that could, with only a little additional funding, be used either to kill a lot of people or to generate personal wealth for at least a few select individuals (and those are not mutually exclusive). It's a bargain at twice the price.

justajot 5y ago

Just for reference, the total U.S. Department of Defense budget for 2021 was $705 billion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_...

systemvoltage 5y ago

This is a poor argument and poor reasoning. This way, instead of improving, we continue to regress (“Look there! They’re doing it too!” argument). We should be halving expense on all fronts while demanding the same output - whether it’s military or space spending. Look at ISRO’s budget, high efficiency is key. Just because DoD budget is $750b, doesn’t mean that we should have a free pass to waste money. I’d like to see DoD spending cut in half while holding vendors accountable. Same with space industry. Another way to think about this if it helps is for $11b, we should have gotten more done. Imagine James Webb Telescope + 5 more projects for the same $11b. Wouldn’t that be awesome?

gifnamething 5y ago
That's barely enough for a negative revenue electric vehicle startup these days
kdmccormick 5y ago
I think GP's parent is a fair argument against criticisms that start and end at "$11B is a lot of money!". It is valid to point out that $11B pales in comparison to the US's defense budget as a means of providing context for how big these really big numbers are. If someone were to point to specific ways in which the project wasted money, that'd be different. But I haven't seen such detailed criticisms. Nobody is arguing that wasting money is a good thing.
scrubs 5y ago
Totally agree. Since when would it kill us to manage money better regardless of the node on the organizational chart to which it belongs? Never.
dotnet00 5y ago
An ISRO comparison seems a bit absurd given the hugely different scales of science and technology development being done. Much of the technology used in the JWST was practically invented for it. Not to imply that ISRO isn't doing important work, but simply looking to cut costs for the sake of cutting costs is just as bad as the waste you're complaining about. It'd be like comparing whatever it cost TSMC to switch to 3nm to what it cost to setup 20nm fabs. What we should be pushing for is more accurate cost estimates. It isn't a problem that the latest and greatest in space telescopes cost $11B, technological progress is often expensive, it's a problem that initially we were told it would cost $2B. If we have a better cost estimate from the start, we can better control our expectations.
- systemvoltage 5y ago
  You're being uncharitable. It was just to make a point about efficiency, not to compare technological aspects of it. I could have used paper-clip manufacturer instead of ISRO for that matter.

deltree7 5y ago

or you can let a country have multiple billionaires so that they can fund these projects with their own money and compete within themselves, take more risks and compress the timelines of frontier-conquering and innovation. But, we want a large bureaucratic organization (by design), extremely risk-averse(by design), extremely slow(by design), having only one shots (by design) to do this for us

panick21_ 5y ago

While true, its also a huge problem when contractors promise something for 2B$ and then it costs 10-15B$ without the contractors suffering any consequences. What stops them from doing that for every single contract? There is a reason recently NASA has started to focus on Fixed Price contracts. We need a shift to more missions, building these things more often and more on price. Putting absurd amount of money into 1 mission compared to 20 missions for 500M$ likely doesn't make sense. The Webb telescope has been so long in development that lots of subsystems could have evolved considerably since then.

scrubs 5y ago
Agreed: there must be consequences. And this human management problem is not specific to science nor cosmology. The total dollars sunk into research is small compared to revenues spent elsewhere. Heck, in the US Government, it is still not yet using its check book leverage to reduce drug prices.
nexuist 5y ago
> We need a shift to more missions, building these things more often and more on price This only very recently became financially reasonable with SpaceX. It would have been impossible for NASA to know at that time that private industry would manage to lower the cost of launch by magnitudes. Cost didn't matter back then because you only got one shot to launch anyways. If the rocket blew up and took the satellite with it you're never getting approval to launch again. It would be better to let the project overrun than to worry about financials and contractual obligations when the risk of cancellation or failure is already so high. But now, with launches being relatively cheap, it is actually possible to envision a backup plan where a second satellite goes up with a second rocket. Again, this only very recently (maybe ~5 years ago?) became possible. I agree with you now though - NASA ought to be reconsidering overhauling its procurement process now that Falcon 9 exists.
- panick21_ 5y ago
  Disagree. Even with Atlas 5 this was not totally unreasonable. > If the rocket blew up and took the satellite with it you're never getting approval to launch again. That's not accurate.