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You can find NASA's 2025 Budget Request Summary here (PDF link: https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/fy-2025-budget-request-summary-updated.pdf?emrc=
by Jun8 2y ago
You can find NASA's 2025 Budget Request Summary here (PDF link: https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/fy-2025-budget-request-summary-updated.pdf?emrc=67b8cb43aba95 https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/fy-2025-budg...). It's a visually great deck that provides a lot info.
From Slide 26: "$317M supports the operation of Great Observatories including the James Webb Space Telescope, Hubble, and Chandra".
Can't some of the money that's been saved from other cutting channeled to NASA?
- rqtwteye 2y agoThey could stop with the Mars nonsense and cancel SLS.
- preisschild 2y agolol the Mars project is a prestige project for Musk now, no way that gets defunded.
- radicalbyte 2y agoIt's a distraction and likely a way to fund money to his companies.
- rockemsockem 2y agoI find people like you fascinating. Like it's so obvious that the guy is actually legitimately obsessed with going to Mars. You can question whether that's a good idea and everything else about him, but it's so obvious that this is legitimate. So I'm seriously so, so curious, because you are far from the only person to think this, why do you think Mars is actually a facade to funnel money to his companies?
- sdenton4 2y agoWell, at one time he was obsessed with going to Mars... Now he seems more obsessed with being the most based twitter user and wrecking people's lives for upboats from his cronies.
- brandonagr2 2y ago[flagged]
- slopeloaf 2y agoIf youre using the term “wokeness” seriously. You are not interested in a dialogue. You merely want to own the libs. Much of your comment history is defending Elon too and a lot of data driven replies to your past comments go seemingly unreplied by you I don’t think you have any interest in an actual discussion here. You just want to signal youre right and the other party is wrong. There are far more productive uses of your time then defending a stranger you’ll never meet. It’s a beautiful world out there. Please go enjoy it
- throwaway173738 2y agoThis might surprise you but you can’t always take what people say at face value. You also have to think about why they say they want something and what else they might want. Mars is a great example of something he could fund himself, and something he presumably has funded in the past. So if he’s going to take government funding now when he’s holding the strings, it stands to reason that he’s taking advantage of his position. And you can see that play out with the $400 million dollar purchase of Cybertrucks for example where there are tons of more cost-effective tools for the job. So it seems like whatever he says his real goal is to strip-mine certain agencies for profit while he does it. Why would we trust him?
- rockemsockem 2y agoI'm really not just looking at what he says, but his actions over the last 20+ years, combined with the fact that starting a rocket company is not a particularly great way to become richer. It certainly hasn't made Jeff Bezos more rich. I think what you're saying is that he is obsessed with Mars and is simply taking advantage of his position to fund this goal more and also massively profit. This I can understand and I think is a very real concern. I don't think it's what the poster I originally replied to is saying though.
- brandonagr2 2y agoThis might surprise you, but you have no idea what you are talking about. You don't have to believe anything Elon says, just look at what he has done for the past 22 years. SpaceX was founded on the singular purpose of getting to Mars. Elon originally tried to buy ICBMs from Russia to launch to Mars, when that fell through he started his own rocket company. The entire tech stack and rockets being built are to reduce the cost of mass to orbit by the orders of magnitude needed to colonize mars. There is no other reason to build something as huge as Starship. Elon IS funding getting to mars by himself, the Starship program is mostly self funded, with the Artemis HLS contract coming well after the program was started.
- cma 2y agoHe said his Tesla comp package was 100% to get to Mars for mankind then immediately bought Twitter when it hit the perf targets and he first got the package.
- cess11 2y agoIf he is "obsessed" with that, why is he so disinterested in making progress towards it?
- rockemsockem 2y agoCan you elaborate on that? What do you think SpaceX is and what do you think Starship is? Legitimately curious to hear your reply
- cess11 2y agoA way for him to suckle the udder of the tax payer and claim the glory of other people's labour and ability. He has no interest in being able to control himself for years at a time, nor is he interested in solving the difficult problems of such a long deep space endeavour. If he were, then he'd be cooperative and disciplined, and try to make progress in this area.
- rockemsockem 2y agoSo you're saying that SpaceX is all a government handout scheme, but that it also has produced glory? Furthermore you're saying that since SpaceX isn't working on problems of habitation and deep space survival that he's not serious about Mars? Is that right?
- scottLobster 2y agoIs he? Obsessed people are generally hyper-focused on their obsession by definition, Musk has pivoted to electric cars, "free speech" and now re-shaping government since announcing his Mars ambitions. He's definitely obsessed with being seen by others as the guy who's going to be the first to Mars, but I'd put it in the same camp as his obsession with being seen as an elite Path of Exile 2 player.
- kelnos 2y agoConsider it this way: it is absolutely a way to funnel money to his companies because he is (probably genuinely) obsessed with getting to Mars. More money for his companies means faster development of his technology, and the ability to do more in parallel. He knows this, of course. It doesn't matter if the reason for his greed is Mars, or just plain old greed. Musk's position as CEO of SpaceX and head of DOGE is the most conflict-y of conflicts of interest when it comes to deciding what happens to NASA. It 100% doesn't matter if he is the truest of true believers in the need to make a settlement on Mars. We should not be giving him the power to dismantle other space-related efforts to fuel his personal project. Even if he is right at how critical Mars is, it is incredibly dangerous to allow people with conflicts of interest to be responsible for decisions on this scale.
- rockemsockem 2y agoSee that position makes more sense to me, but I don't think that's what the post I originally replied to was saying. Maybe it is, but it didn't sound like it to me.
- rqtwteye 2y agoI think it’s the other way around. He is obsessed with Mars and now he has the influence to make it happen with the help of taxpayer money.
- rockemsockem 2y agoSee this I can understand and I also think is true. I'm curious about folks who think Elon is hyping Mars as some money-making strategy. It seems like a really ineffective way to make money.
- worik 2y agoThe SLS being a government funded competitor to SpaceX has little hope... That said I am unsure if that is that much of a blow. The government is very good at some things, it looks to me (I am a casual observer) that SpaceX has eaten their lunch in terms of a space programme. But the James Webb was exactly the sort of incredibly difficult, high risk project that NASA (and Government labs generally) excel at. No private company would ever do something like that. It is a huge achievement and is changing our view, again, of the Universe. So I guess it will be doomed now too. Noting so dangerous as a good example.
- SubjectToChange 2y agoThe SLS being a government funded competitor to SpaceX has little hope SLS was never about being the most practical and/or efficient launcher. It is a pork barrel project, but one with an important role. In particular, it is maintaining vital aerospace industrial capacity. If the US wants things like ICBMs then programs like SLS are a necessary evil.
- jandrese 2y agoOh man, Elon is going to propose a Falcon-9 based ICBM isn't he? Might as well go full Bond villain at this point.
- fooker 2y agoICBMs have usually been solid fuelled as they can be stored ready to launch. Typically when you have a situation warranting nukes you won't have time to fuel a falcon 9.
- ben_w 2y agoThere's lots of bad ideas currently becoming government policy, and that's not even a unique flaw of the USA or Trump or Musk. So, just because idea of using Falcon 9s as a delivery solution for a strategic nuclear deterrent may be as bad as ordering your chief designer to throw a big steel ball at the window of the new model of car you're currently in the middle of announcing even despite the guy's obvious reticence, doesn't mean it won't happen.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 2y agoSLS has been to the moon and back. Starship hasn't yet made it to orbit.
- nickff 2y agoSLS has been around the moon and back; that mission was equivalent to an unmanned Apollo VIII. Going around the moon is much easier than landing on it and coming back.
- kelnos 2y agoSure. And not-quite-getting-into-orbit is easier -- significantly easier -- than going around the moon. What's your point, really, aside from nitpicking, when "orbiting the moon" is a perfectly reasonable interpretation of the statement "been to the moon and back"?
- nickff 2y agoI think the difference between the US lunar exploration program and the Soviet one qualifies as more than mere nitpicking.
- bpodgursky 2y agoStarship has made orbit several times.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 2y agoNo it has not. Cite a source please.
- ben_w 2y agoKinda. They demonstrated orbital delta-v, but the perigee was always low enough to guarantee re-enter atmosphere after just half an orbit from launch, because of SpaceX's unreadiness to confidently perform a controlled de-orbit otherwise.
- 2y ago
- justinator 2y agoStop trying to use logic to make sense of these budget cuts. The budget cuts aren't about saving money. They're about destroying whole parts of the Government.
- sennalen 2y agoNot just the government. Destroying whole parts of the future and the potential of humanity, just to stoke the egos of two men.
- knightfall21 2y ago[flagged]
- dandanua 2y agoYou see, those are necessary steps since billionaires are tired of rules and regulations that don't let them grow and thus hold America back, so it can't be great again.
- jisnsm 2y ago[flagged]
- y33t 2y agoThey don't want to destroy it, just make it so useless they have pretext to privatize it.
- nickff 2y agoI don’t think anyone wants to privatize any of the space telescopes or NASA as a whole. Do you have any evidence that there is someone who does?
- ericmay 2y agoGenerally speaking the current administration is looking to cut some functions and programs from federal agencies and then pay private entities to perform those same functions because they believe that private industry can perform those same functions better more cheaply [1]. There is certainly some merit to that, however I think being dogmatic one way or the other is for simpletons. Specifically for privatizing space telescopes or privatizing NASA as a whole I don't think that has been on the table, but you can imagine a scenario in which eventually something like 20%, 40%, 90% or some other significant portion of NASA's "funding" is just a pass-through vehicle for private contracts. Honestly if you want to learn and understand more about some of these activities you can just read the news because a lot of analysis is being done, well-informed opinions are being written, and indisputable factual evidence including quotes, interviews, and detailed data are publicly available. Admittedly some reporting is behind paywalls, but that's easy to get around. I understand it's not very fair to tell someone to "go read the news", but if you can't keep up with current events or you aren't willing to that's kind of just your problem. There are plenty of websites across the political spectrum ranging from the Financial Times to the Economist, to the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, international journals, and more including locally focused websites that keep tabs with events going on at the federal, state, and local level. It's certainly a lot but it's your responsibility as a citizen (assuming you are American, apologies if not) to keep yourself informed and well read. [1] I'm being charitable here because I personally believe that the goal is to just funnel money from government agencies to specific private enterprises that have the favor of the current administration. Crony Capitalism is what that is called. The current administration has not yet earned my trust to believe otherwise.
- jandrese 2y agoI'd say at least the SLS program is in jeopardy. NASA has notably had some real scares recently about massive job cuts that have thus far not panned out. Since the administration revels in chaos this probably won't be resolved neatly or soon. IMHO if someone wanted to cut the James Webb the time to do it was 15 years ago. Now that it is actually flying and producing the best images of the cosmos to date it is too late. Those costs are fully sunk. The ongoing running costs are downright modest by government standards. Plus the project is visible enough that cuts are likely to result in public outcry.
- righthand 2y agoOnce the money is approved it is then the receiving agency/orgs money. Not the Executive branch’s money to redistribute. There is no money being “saved” or “cut”, there are only corrupt people halting payments of the budgeted money and illegally laying off workers.
- epolanski 2y ago> Can't some of the money that's been saved from other cutting channeled to NASA? What are you a socialist? /s
- micromacrofoot 2y agoMore likely to end up at Space X
- rurp 2y agoMany of the announced savings are fake. The actual savings are a paltry number that will be dwarfed by the 100s of billions that will be spent on border security theater, not to mention the trillions in upcoming tax cuts for the wealthy.
- kelnos 2y ago> Can't some of the money that's been saved from other cutting channeled to NASA? Why would they want to do that? This administration is hell-bent on reducing spending, period, not moving it around, as well as crippling the executive branch's ability to govern. And they don't care what useful initiatives die due to their actions. And I can't see Trump's supporters caring about this at all. He won the presidency in no small part because he acknowledged that people were facing financial strife, while Harris just kept repeating that the economy was great (implying that anyone with financial issues was either imagining it, or themselves at fault). Why would a Trump supporter care about some "elitist" scientist being able to look at celestial phenomena? They don't care about this stuff, sadly.
- postalrat 2y agoNo. Because the people in charge of NASA will make sure to make sure that every dollar cut will go to the most loved programs to keep awareness high.