The White House further plans to cancel upcoming plans for new telescopes to study the cosmos.
  • Lovable Sidekick@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    6 days ago

    Just repeating the past

    Even non-MAGAs probably remember Trump as being heavily pro-NASA last time around, but all he wanted then was a splashy moon landing mission to recapture the PR magic of the 1960s space race. When it came to science that wouldn’t dazzle his fans, he was the same as he is now.

  • Spacehooks@reddthat.comEnglish
    0·
    6 days ago

    You see gene stealer cultist goal is to weaken a planet for the star gods. Also they don’t want anyone to see them come. Cause if you see nids coming everyone is going to arm up.

        • Pennomi@lemmy.worldEnglish
          0·
          6 days ago

          Falcon 9 is one of the most reliable rockets of all time. Yeah, their prototypes blow up way too often, but those never had cargo aboard because they’re in testing anyway.

            • Pennomi@lemmy.worldEnglish
              0·
              6 days ago

              I also tend to think Starship is a terrible architecture. They should just put a traditional second stage on top of Superheavy and get on with it already. It may not even be possible to re-enter such the ship from orbital speeds safely.

                • Pennomi@lemmy.worldEnglish
                  0·
                  5 days ago

                  It could but the Crew Dragon likely wouldn’t have the delta-v to land and return. That being said, I don’t think it’s crazy to do an “assemble in orbit” architecture consisting of multiple preparatory launches.

                  Hell, Starship is supposed to require like 10 refueling launches to go to the Moon. Couldn’t we just launch 10 Falcon 9s and assemble a badass landing system in orbit?

          • the_q@lemm.eeEnglish
            0·
            6 days ago

            A Musk property can do nothing good while doing so much bad, my dude.

            • Pennomi@lemmy.worldEnglish
              0·
              6 days ago

              Musk is truly the worst of humanity, but just because he is vile scum doesn’t imply that everything he’s ever touched is bad.

              Humans infuriatingly tend to assume that because a person is distasteful that everything associated with them must be stupid, broken, or unethical. This is not true, and is a logical fallacy called the “genetic fallacy” — judging something as good or bad based on its source rather than its actual merit.

              Falcon 9 is excellent and gives NASA launch capabilities it doesn’t have, for a fraction of the price it was paying before for launch services.

              But like, let’s take the Cybertruck as an opposite example. I wouldn’t care if Bernie Sanders himself invented it, it’s a piece shit vehicle.

              • Burninator05@lemmy.worldEnglish
                0·
                6 days ago

                I like SpaceX. They have done and continue to do some truly amazing things but I can’t get excited for their successes any more because of their association with Musk.

              • the_q@lemm.eeEnglish
                0·
                6 days ago

                If he we’re just a shitty business man I’d get it and would just choose not to buy his products, but he’s inserted himself into the workings of our government and our everyday lives. He’s actively participating in tearing apart our democracy. Cool rocket, bro doesn’t fucking cut it. It’s like saying Hitler was a bad guy, yes, but he really helped revolutionize vapor transfer technology.

                It’s fine to continue to downvote me on this. I may be wrong, but the merit of what I said is what matters, right?

      • Cataphract@lemmy.ml
        0·
        6 days ago

        Is this a semantics argument? Like you’re arguing over the proper use of “scam”? or do you not see how the word scam could be implied in this context?

        I ask because I was about to present a big thing with links and timelines showing how this has all played out since the early 2000’s, but I’m not gonna go to all the trouble if you’re just upset that a better word should be used besides “scam” since there is some sort of measurable output being performed.

        (I still think scam is apt when you start breaking down the terminology though, it’s still fraudulent practices which have been performed for the companies benefit, i.e. funding away from NASA)

        • Pennomi@lemmy.worldEnglish
          0·
          6 days ago

          Mmm, probably. If you focus only on the missed deadlines and failed research projects, it could be considered a scam. But in spaceflight that’s more the matter of fact for a project than the exception. I can’t think of even ONE rocket that launched on time or on budget. I mean, look at SLS (a project that actually IS managed by NASA). Now THAT is a mismanaged fiasco that makes SpaceX look mighty responsible in comparison.

          But if you also include SpaceX’s successes, you see that they are simply the best rocketry company in the world. They STILL have the only reusable booster, and one of, if not the highest reliability rating of any ride to space. There’s nothing scammy about a product that provides you exactly the service you requested, with less risk and cost.

          Sure, call Starship a scam if you want to. It’s unproven and the project could still fail. But SpaceX as a whole absolutely is not.

          • petrol_sniff_king@lemmy.blahaj.zone
            0·
            6 days ago

            There’s nothing scammy about a product that provides you exactly the service you requested, with less risk and cost.

            …

            Without reading or verifying anything, I’m just going to assume this is an Elon alt.

            • Pennomi@lemmy.worldEnglish
              0·
              6 days ago

              I am highly critical of Elon Musk, who is not only a vile human, but is doing more damage to the world than anybody else, except maybe Donald Trump.

              But I also understand the launch services industry and know that NASA doesn’t have a viable launcher right now if they stop purchasing Falcon 9, and the only people capable of launching at that cadence right now is probably China.

  • NJSpradlin@lemmy.world
    0·
    8 days ago

    Now we lost the space information and science race. Now, there won’t be sharing globally about scientific space breakthroughs. Now, those countries that do make those breakthroughs will sell us the information once it’s no longer relevant.

  • Asafum@feddit.nl
    0·
    8 days ago

    The only thing in life that I’m actually really passionate about… Cool stuff.

    This administration finds new ways for me to wish for their death every day.

  • NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world
    0·
    8 days ago

    I work on one of these telescopes. Got the news today thay they’re trying to close Goddard, and the Nancy Grace Roman Telescope, and basically all Earth observing satellite work. It would completely upend our ability to predict 7 day weather, extreme weather events like hurricanes, and make science basically inaccessible from space. I’m surprised they aren’t moving the funding over to SpaceX entirely.

      • Ledericas@lemm.eeEnglish
        0·
        7 days ago

        The anti science and intellectualism attacks has gotten worse. And stem was already teetering into abyss before, in terms of funding and stem majors finding jobs

    • gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      0·
      8 days ago

      It’s fucking heartbreaking to see, as an astronomy and astrophysics enthusiast.

      At the same time, I hope that the loss in weather prediction capabilities leads to catastrophic damage to Mar a Lago and as many other of his properties as possible. And I admit that there’s a part of me that’s quite gleeful at the prospect of the maga-leaning parts of the country getting absolutely fucked by unexpected weather phenomena that will escalate in frequency and severity. Maybe it’ll render a bunch of those voters… unable to vote going forward, if you get my drift.

      • NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world
        0·
        8 days ago

        It really sucks. I legit feel like I might get kicked out of the space industry bcz of the dumbass administration. I will end up in the private sector making rockets for space tourism, which isn’t inspiring at all bcz, let’s face it. Going into space and being a billionaire isn’t all that special. But doing science for humankind, that’s something to aspire too, and they’re trying to take that away from us.

        • burble@lemmy.dbzer0.com
          0·
          7 days ago

          There’s so much more to the private sector than tourism rockets! Consider:

          • Cheap components that don’t work

          • Cheap satellites that don’t work

          • Cheap lunar landers that don’t work

          • Pump-and-dump get-rich-quick schemes

        • Ledericas@lemm.eeEnglish
          0·
          7 days ago

          It was pure cringe how all these rich people just got back from space, like they think it’s an achievement, it’s nothing more than a rich person going to Everest . Shatner was quite disappointed

        • gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          0·
          7 days ago

          For whatever it’s worth, I am quite sad that people like you are having their career motivations crushed by this idiocy. I wish I could help or move the needle in some way, because I think space exploration and pure science is fucking rad, but nobody gives a shit what engineers think anymore. They just plug us in to solve the problem just enough so that it’s an MVP and then don’t let us address any of the fucking tech debt. And I’m probably going off on a tangent here, but whatever. It’s Friday and I’m 4 beers deep.

      • Ledericas@lemm.eeEnglish
        0·
        7 days ago

        Aren’t they already getting fucked, their were quite a few storms that devastated the south recently, but MSM refuses to cover then