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Meanwhile JPL has laid off 570 people this week thanks to a failure to properly pass a budget in congress. [1] I’ve been watching For All Mankind this month an

Meanwhile JPL has laid off 570 people this week thanks to a failure to properly pass a budget in congress. [1] I’ve been watching For All Mankind this month and it’s remarkable how different things could be, but we can’t muster the will to really move things forward. [1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/congressional-budget-gridlock-leads-to-stunning-nasa-layoffs/ar-BB1hW4r7 https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/congressional-budg...

phh 3y ago
> I’ve been watching For All Mankind this month and it’s remarkable how different things could be, but we can’t muster the will to really move things forward. I love that show, but I think it's completely unrealistic. We couldn't have kept the pace, going to Mars would probably have cost 80% of the GDP, and a station simply impossible. It's now much easier to go to space because we had time to integrate/scale up the production we were using for space into the "normal" productions. (note that I'm not saying we didn't live a space winter that hindered space discovery)
- simmerup 3y ago
  Wasn’t the lynchpin of For all Mankind was that there was some type of material on the moon we could mine for energy like oil and that funded future endeavours
  - ghaff 3y ago
    The "unobtainium" thing was at least a handwave that this is all less outlandish than it seems. Still, the earlier seasons seemed more natural extrapolations of this timeline with relatively few changes.
  - BuyMyBitcoins 3y ago
    The show also hand waived the invention of fusion in the 1980’s.
    - ghaff 3y ago
      Yeah, they sort of had a maximum timeline set by what they could reasonably do with some makeup for the cast and them not being unreasonably old for their roles. But telling the story they wanted probably required an unnatural rate of technology advance over that period of time.
    - TaylorAlexander 3y ago
      It's interesting because there is broad agreement that we could have had fusion power if we had actually invested in it, which could have more plausibly happened if we were also investing in a space race (and so society was more science and engineering focused). In the show they claim that the invention of fusion was the product of one smart guy, which isn't how it would have gone, but the actual presence of fusion seems plausible to me.
  - Symmetry 3y ago
    It was Helium-3. Potentially useful for certain types of fusion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aneutronic_fusion#Candidate_fuels https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aneutronic_fusion#Candidate_fu... And maybe cooling certain types of quantum computer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilution_refrigerator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilution_refrigerator
    - jauntywundrkind 3y ago
      Moonshine (2010) remains the definitive write-up on (against) Helium-3 for me, from sci-fi notable Charles Stross. > He 3 is not magic high-energy pixie dust. And in the context of the space colonization debate it should be seen for what it is — a placeholder for the alchemist's stone that will turn the money-hole of a lunar colony into a profit centre: an extractable natural resource that can't be found on earth and is valuable enough to mine elsewhere. https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/08/moonshine.html https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/08/moonshi...
- abecedarius 3y ago
  When SpaceX was new almost everyone said the same about what was "realistic". I don't think it's about time to scale up so much as about finding and executing on better approaches. I agree it would have had to be done differently and not just by spending more (if that's how you take "muster the will").
  - abecedarius 3y ago
    Added: John Walker (RIP) wrote in 1993 about such an alternate strategy and against this conventional wisdom that space launch is just inherently astronomically expensive per kg to orbit: https://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/rocketaday.html https://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/rocketaday.html That wisdom was still conventional 1-2 decades later.
- TaylorAlexander 3y ago
  The inflation adjusted cost of the moon program for 13 years was $19.76 billion per year in 2020 dollars.[1] At the time it was 4.4% of the federal budget. I see absolutely no reason why, if they had not continued, they would have somehow needed 80% of GDP to set up a permanent base. It seems they got the entire moon program done for way, way less and indeed we ended up eventually building and keeping occupied the international space station. The additional effort to do the same thing on the moon would not somehow swallow all government expenditures. I mean hell consider what we have spent on unnecessary wars and our inflated military budget. There absolutely could have been an alternate timeline where we were focused on space expansion and not purely military expansion. [1] https://www.planetary.org/space-policy/cost-of-apollo https://www.planetary.org/space-policy/cost-of-apollo [2] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/apollo-11-moon-landing-how-much-did-it-cost/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/apollo-11-moon-landing-how-much...
lp4vn 3y ago
The space exploration, which was once considered inspiring and noble, now is seen primarily as an investment diversification strategy of a bored billionaire with a very questionable character. Unfortunately it's inevitable the conclusion that the humanity's road to the future is not monotonic in terms of progress and that looking at the past as better than today is not always a kind of nostalgic bias.
tullianus 3y ago
Only partly thanks to overall budget inaction in Congress. The bigger cause in my opinion is Congress proposing huge reductions in Mars Sample Return program funding or outright cancellation [1], which is currently supporting a lot of people at JPL. This coincides with a scathing review of the program [2]. I think the vitriol is justified, especially after the two-decade-long shitshow that was JWST. [1] https://arstechnica.com/space/2023/07/the-senate-just-lobbed-a-tactical-nuke-at-nasas-mars-sample-return-program/ https://arstechnica.com/space/2023/07/the-senate-just-lobbed... [2] https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/mars-sample-return-independent-review-board-report.pdf https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/mars-sample-...
mbfg 3y ago
If only the russians planned some mission to mimas, we'd have a budget in days.

phh 3y ago

> I’ve been watching For All Mankind this month and it’s remarkable how different things could be, but we can’t muster the will to really move things forward. I love that show, but I think it's completely unrealistic. We couldn't have kept the pace, going to Mars would probably have cost 80% of the GDP, and a station simply impossible. It's now much easier to go to space because we had time to integrate/scale up the production we were using for space into the "normal" productions. (note that I'm not saying we didn't live a space winter that hindered space discovery)

simmerup 3y ago
Wasn’t the lynchpin of For all Mankind was that there was some type of material on the moon we could mine for energy like oil and that funded future endeavours
- ghaff 3y ago
  The "unobtainium" thing was at least a handwave that this is all less outlandish than it seems. Still, the earlier seasons seemed more natural extrapolations of this timeline with relatively few changes.
- BuyMyBitcoins 3y ago
  The show also hand waived the invention of fusion in the 1980’s.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    Yeah, they sort of had a maximum timeline set by what they could reasonably do with some makeup for the cast and them not being unreasonably old for their roles. But telling the story they wanted probably required an unnatural rate of technology advance over that period of time.
  - TaylorAlexander 3y ago
    It's interesting because there is broad agreement that we could have had fusion power if we had actually invested in it, which could have more plausibly happened if we were also investing in a space race (and so society was more science and engineering focused). In the show they claim that the invention of fusion was the product of one smart guy, which isn't how it would have gone, but the actual presence of fusion seems plausible to me.
- Symmetry 3y ago
  It was Helium-3. Potentially useful for certain types of fusion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aneutronic_fusion#Candidate_fuels https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aneutronic_fusion#Candidate_fu... And maybe cooling certain types of quantum computer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilution_refrigerator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilution_refrigerator
  - jauntywundrkind 3y ago
    Moonshine (2010) remains the definitive write-up on (against) Helium-3 for me, from sci-fi notable Charles Stross. > He 3 is not magic high-energy pixie dust. And in the context of the space colonization debate it should be seen for what it is — a placeholder for the alchemist's stone that will turn the money-hole of a lunar colony into a profit centre: an extractable natural resource that can't be found on earth and is valuable enough to mine elsewhere. https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/08/moonshine.html https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/08/moonshi...
abecedarius 3y ago
When SpaceX was new almost everyone said the same about what was "realistic". I don't think it's about time to scale up so much as about finding and executing on better approaches. I agree it would have had to be done differently and not just by spending more (if that's how you take "muster the will").
- abecedarius 3y ago
  Added: John Walker (RIP) wrote in 1993 about such an alternate strategy and against this conventional wisdom that space launch is just inherently astronomically expensive per kg to orbit: https://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/rocketaday.html https://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/rocketaday.html That wisdom was still conventional 1-2 decades later.
TaylorAlexander 3y ago
The inflation adjusted cost of the moon program for 13 years was $19.76 billion per year in 2020 dollars.[1] At the time it was 4.4% of the federal budget. I see absolutely no reason why, if they had not continued, they would have somehow needed 80% of GDP to set up a permanent base. It seems they got the entire moon program done for way, way less and indeed we ended up eventually building and keeping occupied the international space station. The additional effort to do the same thing on the moon would not somehow swallow all government expenditures. I mean hell consider what we have spent on unnecessary wars and our inflated military budget. There absolutely could have been an alternate timeline where we were focused on space expansion and not purely military expansion. [1] https://www.planetary.org/space-policy/cost-of-apollo https://www.planetary.org/space-policy/cost-of-apollo [2] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/apollo-11-moon-landing-how-much-did-it-cost/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/apollo-11-moon-landing-how-much...

lp4vn 3y ago

The space exploration, which was once considered inspiring and noble, now is seen primarily as an investment diversification strategy of a bored billionaire with a very questionable character. Unfortunately it's inevitable the conclusion that the humanity's road to the future is not monotonic in terms of progress and that looking at the past as better than today is not always a kind of nostalgic bias.

tullianus 3y ago

Only partly thanks to overall budget inaction in Congress. The bigger cause in my opinion is Congress proposing huge reductions in Mars Sample Return program funding or outright cancellation [1], which is currently supporting a lot of people at JPL. This coincides with a scathing review of the program [2]. I think the vitriol is justified, especially after the two-decade-long shitshow that was JWST. [1] https://arstechnica.com/space/2023/07/the-senate-just-lobbed-a-tactical-nuke-at-nasas-mars-sample-return-program/ https://arstechnica.com/space/2023/07/the-senate-just-lobbed... [2] https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/mars-sample-return-independent-review-board-report.pdf https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/mars-sample-...

mbfg 3y ago

If only the russians planned some mission to mimas, we'd have a budget in days.