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Hooray, I finally have a new best example of congress interference in NASA's budget and planning. And it's simple enough for anyone to understand. A TLDR for t
by techdragon 12y ago
Hooray, I finally have a new best example of congress interference in NASA's budget and planning. And it's simple enough for anyone to understand.
A TLDR for the entire thing, "Local congressman urges congress to force NASA's to spend four years building something in his state for a rocket scrapped four years ago, demanding the agency waste taxpayer money."
- ssully 12y agoDon't forget 700,000 dollars per year for maintenance. Pure insanity.
- maaku 12y agoWell I wouldn't get upset about that. Now that it's built, $700k/yr is an insanely cheap price to maintain such a strcture. Now e.g. SpaceX can use their Space Act agreement with NASA to use the facility at cost for testing their own engines. $700k/yr of taxpayer money to enable SpaceX et al to build better rockets is a good ongoing investment imho. The article is a bit hyperbolic in that regard. The facility isn't closed down, it's just locked up because a locked door is cheaper than a security guard. No one is using it at the moment, but that doesn't mean it is not open for use. Doesn't detract from the insanity of building the thing in the first place though.
- p_eter_p 12y agoThe article actually says it's not ready for use, has no instruments and has not been tested under vacuum. It's a big steel shell.
- tempestn 12y agoTrue, but it could be made ready for use in a couple of years, or less with outside investment. While it certainly appears that spending four years finishing it was a waste of money, I tend to agree with the parent comment that $700k/year isn't much compared to NASA's $17B annual budget, and that it will likely be used for something eventually that will make that upkeep (if not the original building costs) worthwhile.
- lettergram 12y agoWell it's federal taxes, the local congressman brought jobs, and tax revenue to his state (rough guess would put the state tax revenue probably close to $10 million in taxes). Purely disgusting.
- kiba 12y agoThe local congressman is doing something for his voters. It's his job. It's also why Americans think dimly of congress as a whole.
- mcv 12y agoIs his job as a federal congressman to only think of his own state at a cost to the rest of the country? If that's the case, then maybe it's time that the US got a national parliament (with proportional representation) unencumbered by the district system.
- raldi 12y agoUnfortunately, this is literally the one thing that even a constitutional amendment can't do. The part of the US constitution that describes the process of amending specifically forbids any amendment from depriving any state of its equal senate representation.
- inclemnet 12y agoHonest question: is it legally impossible to first amend the constitution to remove that restriction?
- Zach_the_Lizard 12y agoYou might be able to do that, but the clause in Article Five itself doesn't say the Senate can't be killed; it says "no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate." You could abolish the Senate if all states agree to remove equal Senate suffrage.
- mathattack 12y agoThis is painful, because you can support and institution while hate what happens to it. The same happens in the military. You can support our soldiers, but be sickened by base closure being turned into a political tool.
- venomsnake 12y agoIf I was in NASA management I would have stick it to the congressman by importing all labor - even the janitors from out of state. Let him then explain how the huge project is creating zero jobs.