I do my best to block any news regarding the new administration, so this comes at quite a surprise that it was even considered. Always thought NASA was one of the great prides of the country, but it seems like those days are long gone.
In a last-minute decision, White House decides not to terminate NASA employees
Submitted 4 months ago by fossilesque@mander.xyz to astronomy@mander.xyz
Comments
onlinepersona@programming.dev 4 months ago
ruk_n_rul@monyet.cc 4 months ago
NASA peaked during the Apollo project, after which budget plummeted and never reach 1% of the national budget again
clay_pidgin@sh.itjust.works 4 months ago
In the mass firing they lake of the people who maintain nuclear weapons and the people working on bird flu. Once they realized they need those people they started trying to rehire them.
TachyonTele@lemm.ee 4 months ago
Who was the one person that down voted this, and why?
jatone@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 months ago
Me, what now?
ohYouKnow@lemmynsfw.com 4 months ago
I can’t believe you’ve done this.
deFrisselle@lemmy.sdf.org 4 months ago
Best thing would be to terminate Artemis
RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Yeah, shit idea. And exactly why NASA gets shit on for consuming money with less to show for it.
Spend billions on a program set up by one administration, then some tool comes along and wants to cut costs because they want to look effective and cuts NASA’s programs. NASA, being by default a scientific endeavor thar doesn’t need to return an profit other than exportation and research data, is an easy target. Billions invested and nothing to show for it. WhY iS NaSA So iNeFfeCtIve!?! Repeat for another program later.
dukeofdummies@lemmy.world 4 months ago
… I mean that would’ve been the clearest conflict of interest you could’ve possibly summoned.
BedSharkPal@lemmy.ca 4 months ago
SpaceX gets most of their money from NASA contracts no?
PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat 4 months ago
I think that is probably the actual reason. Musk probably fired most of NASA, and then realized that the absolute carnage would in this case impact him personally, and it suddenly became an important and issue and he needs to have them all rehired so that they can keep paying him his contracts. He still doesn’t give a shit about other people’s contracts / medications / intelligence operations / statutorily enforced payments / whatever.
corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 4 months ago
The problem is that so many other companies also get their money from NASA. Cutting out NASA makes it a clear pipe from gov to spaceX.
Of course, so many other projects NASA is running will also just die, but those don’t even help Elon anyway so they’re pointless. Or so.
keepthepace@slrpnk.net 4 months ago
Thing is, I don’t think NASA and SpaceX compete. NASA is not a for-profit company and was happy to see successful private companies in the sector. They’ll happily be a SpaceX client so that they can focus on actual research and do things that are not profitable (yet)
dukeofdummies@lemmy.world 4 months ago
In practice, you’re probably right.
But in terms of “I wanna cut waste, and make the government lean! So I am gonna delete the space part of the government and replace it with my own!”
Just sounds bad, like really bad. Even worse than the armored Teslas. I can’t imagine NASA is the top of people’s lists of “utter wastes of time” It’s not a regulator, it’s not in the “known enemies” list unless you’re a flat earther. I dunno how you spin it to be palatable.
someguy3@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Really doubt that was it.