3 ms·
People forget that NASA's portion of the federal budget during Apollo was more than an order of magnitude higher than today. NASA does the most ambitious thing
by philipwhiuk 2y ago
People forget that NASA's portion of the federal budget during Apollo was more than an order of magnitude higher than today.
NASA does the most ambitious thing it can get funding from Congress for.
- ssijak 2y agoIf this article was correct, then what you said is not true. Seems like NASA went with a bad plan from the start to refurbish the old tech and made a costly, inefficient and risky tech-franken-zilla.
- philipwhiuk 2y agoThey were required, by Congress, to use Shuttle engines and SRBs to build a vehicle capable of deep space transportation.
- seastarer 2y agoThey should have refused
- ikeashark 2y agoCongress: Use Shuttle engines and SRBs to build a vehicle capable of deep space transportation. Nasa: No that's too costly. Congress: lol ok we'll slash funding + you legally can't refuse.
- pfdietz 2y agoIf the customer demands it they'll sell their integrity, and damn the taxpayers. I have little sympathy for this. If this sort of continued honesty-free space program is what Congress + NASA are going to give us, we'd be better off without a manned space program.
- neuronexmachina 2y agoYep. For reference regarding the budget stipulations: https://www.planetary.org/articles/why-we-have-the-sls https://www.planetary.org/articles/why-we-have-the-sls
- gibolt 2y agoNASA does the most ambitious thing modern, bureaucratic NASA can do with the funding, considering that each previously approved project is 4x over budget and 5-10 years late, eating into the feasibility of new projects. Old NASA could do 5-10x as much, with the same amount of inflation-adjusted money and people. The motivation was to fail+learn and achieve a shared goal. SpaceX is the closest analog today, with a long term mission and the drive to make it happen.
- p_l 2y agoNASA could do the same, but it's tied up by Congress and jockeying for any money, with funds allocated by Congress on a per-project basis.