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Sad to see EOL coming up, but too bad NASA's budget has been cut so back over the years. We just had a smaller planetary alignment a few months ago. Would hav

by jmclnx 2y ago

Sad to see EOL coming up, but too bad NASA's budget has been cut so back over the years. We just had a smaller planetary alignment a few months ago. Would have been nice if NASA had the budget to send out a more robust craft a few years ago. But I guess science no longer means anything to the US. Especially now. Maybe China will take up the mantle, I heard they are about to send out a rather long term interesting craft, but I forgot the details.

loloquwowndueo 2y ago
A visual alignment like the one you mention wouldn’t have been useful for spacecraft to get to the planets more easily. An alignment in the scale of the one that enabled the Voyager flybys of the outer planets won’t happen until sometime in the 23rd century.
- Dylan16807 2y ago
  > An alignment in the scale of the one that enabled the Voyager flybys of the outer planets won’t happen until sometime in the 23rd century. Only if you're particularly concerned with using a single probe to visit all of them. Jupiter provides the main boost and launch windows from jupiter to anywhere come by every decade.
  - loloquwowndueo 2y ago
    Parent did mention a single craft. Of course NASA can’t even afford that these days so it’s all moot anyway.
- jmclnx 2y ago
  Ah, I did not know it was just visual. I thought it was odd and too quick for another alignment :) Thanks
rayiner 2y ago
NASA’s budget is larger today adjusted for inflation than during the Voyager program. https://images.app.goo.gl/qai42hiZ8RMtfViw6 https://images.app.goo.gl/qai42hiZ8RMtfViw6
- saagarjha 2y ago
  People usually measure this as percentage of GDP, not absolute dollars.
  - rayiner 2y ago
    No they don’t. Why would a budget scale with GDP?
    - saagarjha 2y ago
      A couple of reasons. One is that NASA is an arm of the United State's advanced research, and if you want to get compounding returns there the goal is that you allocate a proportion of your spending there rather than a fixed value, because every year some of that research will drive gains to your GDP. Another is that the services that NASA provides gradually expands as it provides more things to society: I expect that alongside space exploration there is an increasing budget allocated to dealing with civilian spaceflight. So if you keep the budget constant then you are necessarily prioritizing some things over others, which means a net decrease to specific programs. Of course, none of this means it should be pegged at a specific fraction of the GDP, it's just a helpful metric to compare against when we look at overall spending. I expect its budget to fluctuate naturally as our needs from it change, and there are certainly programs that have fixed budgets (or even need less money as time goes on) that we should still be looking at. But in general the spending for things like NASA should gradually increase because of its goals.
      - rayiner 2y ago
        I agree with that. But that’s different than saying “NASA's budget has been cut so back over the years.” The military budget has been shrinking as a share of GDP since the 1980s as well. It would be odd to say the military budget had been cut back though.
        rlpb 2y ago
        Arguably it makes more sense for military budget to reference GDP since military capability is relative to that of one’s adversaries. If their capability has increased, then so must ours to achieve a net zero difference. And their capability is proportional to their spending ability with everything else kept equal.

by jmclnx 2y ago

loloquwowndueo 2y ago

A visual alignment like the one you mention wouldn’t have been useful for spacecraft to get to the planets more easily. An alignment in the scale of the one that enabled the Voyager flybys of the outer planets won’t happen until sometime in the 23rd century.

Dylan16807 2y ago
> An alignment in the scale of the one that enabled the Voyager flybys of the outer planets won’t happen until sometime in the 23rd century. Only if you're particularly concerned with using a single probe to visit all of them. Jupiter provides the main boost and launch windows from jupiter to anywhere come by every decade.
- loloquwowndueo 2y ago
  Parent did mention a single craft. Of course NASA can’t even afford that these days so it’s all moot anyway.
jmclnx 2y ago
Ah, I did not know it was just visual. I thought it was odd and too quick for another alignment :) Thanks

rayiner 2y ago

NASA’s budget is larger today adjusted for inflation than during the Voyager program. https://images.app.goo.gl/qai42hiZ8RMtfViw6 https://images.app.goo.gl/qai42hiZ8RMtfViw6

saagarjha 2y ago
People usually measure this as percentage of GDP, not absolute dollars.
- rayiner 2y ago
  No they don’t. Why would a budget scale with GDP?
  - saagarjha 2y ago
    A couple of reasons. One is that NASA is an arm of the United State's advanced research, and if you want to get compounding returns there the goal is that you allocate a proportion of your spending there rather than a fixed value, because every year some of that research will drive gains to your GDP. Another is that the services that NASA provides gradually expands as it provides more things to society: I expect that alongside space exploration there is an increasing budget allocated to dealing with civilian spaceflight. So if you keep the budget constant then you are necessarily prioritizing some things over others, which means a net decrease to specific programs. Of course, none of this means it should be pegged at a specific fraction of the GDP, it's just a helpful metric to compare against when we look at overall spending. I expect its budget to fluctuate naturally as our needs from it change, and there are certainly programs that have fixed budgets (or even need less money as time goes on) that we should still be looking at. But in general the spending for things like NASA should gradually increase because of its goals.
    - rayiner 2y ago
      I agree with that. But that’s different than saying “NASA's budget has been cut so back over the years.” The military budget has been shrinking as a share of GDP since the 1980s as well. It would be odd to say the military budget had been cut back though.
      - rlpb 2y ago
        Arguably it makes more sense for military budget to reference GDP since military capability is relative to that of one’s adversaries. If their capability has increased, then so must ours to achieve a net zero difference. And their capability is proportional to their spending ability with everything else kept equal.