Re:NASA will pay $146M for each SLS rocket engine
by the_pwner224 on Sunday May 03, 2020 @09:16AM
(#23058802)
We can spend all the taxpayer money on creating 17k highly skilled jobs that actually do something.
NASA does some useful stuff, but we could be doing much more useful stuff with the same money, while still having 17k+ jobs and good military technology and weather satellites etc.
Re:NASA will pay $146M for each SLS rocket engine
by Traster on Sunday May 03, 2020 @11:13AM
(#23059454)
Can we though? Or have we demonstrated over time that any suitably large program sustained over a suitably long time will innevitably need to account for the enormous incentive there is to exploit that funding. What do you propoes to do? Ask the defence companies if they would stop exploiting the government contracts that only exist because of their lobbying in the first place?
it's also a military capability
it's also saved who knows how many lives with weather satellites and ambulance GPS and satphone rescues
it's also a meteor warning program
it's also a global warming monitoring program
it also begets companies like spacex and capabilities like GPS for all and inspires people to pursue science
sure there's fat, but we're employing highly skilled domestic tech and science people with that fat, would it be better if we left all those tax dollars to be spent on iphones and Starbucks? or the prison industrial complex? NASA and NOAA and the NIH and any pure science agency is super defensible