US lawmakers fire back a response to Trump's NASA cuts While US President Donald Trump and his former best pal, Elon Musk, were having a very public spat, the US Senate fired back with its response to NASA's proposed budget cuts. Big rockets = good. Science = still bad. The detailed proposal from Trump's government slashed NASA's budget, cancelled programs such as the Gateway …
Is it a suprise to anyone that Trump and the republicans are all for cutting funding to science related government spending?
MAGA is full of people who believe that scientist are just scare mongering and believe that climate change isn't real, including Trump himself. Plus they put an anti vaccine conspiracy loon of Robert Kennedy Jnr as secretary of health.
Is it a suprise to anyone that Trump and the republicans are all for cutting funding to science related government spending?
They are only being realistic and preparing for the future. With the DOGE dismantling of the US Dept of Education, and the administration's attacks on higher education, we won't be producing citizens capable of doing the science, much less any form of critical thinking. And when you limit foreigners to white Europeans, the talent you can import gets pretty small. So might as well kill the science and save a few pennies. (we don't make them anymore)
The question is, how is his tiff with Elmo going to affect the ISS and moon projects? Maybe we just concede space to China as well.
"and the administration's attacks on higher education, we won't be producing citizens capable of doing the science, much less any form of critical thinking."
There will be the citizens capable of those things, but they might need to get their education abroad. The trouble with that is they might meet somebody nice and decide to make the move permanent. Those that return will demand a higher salary based on supply/demand criteria and it's not like the US government can quit science cold turkey. Industry can't either so it might wind up being simpler to relocate to regions where there are educated people to apply for open positions.
"it's not like the US government can quit science cold turkey. Industry can't either"
Yeah, here's a wild idea. Industry could move it's R&D and production to nearer to where the educated workforce is, ie outside the USA. Everyone left can go back to farming and panning for gold (Trump still needs his bling!)
The ONE good thing that could come out of slashing NASA is nuking SLS and its rancid bacon ilk of acronyms and Greek mythology. These aren't small savings on a yearly basis. And they really add up when the zombies have been shuffling along to little purpose as long as this lot.
This should serve as a reminder that, even if Big Orange hadn't gotten the nomination, there are plenty of other nutters in the modern Republican party.
Such as Ted no-abortion-allowed-in-case-of-rape Cruz.
SLS spending - 2011 - 2023 : $26B. Cost per launch $2.5B (on the plus side, there haven't been that many launches ...)
"The ONE good thing that could come out of slashing NASA is nuking SLS and its rancid bacon ilk of acronyms and Greek mythology. These aren't small savings on a yearly basis. And they really add up when the zombies have been shuffling along to little purpose as long as this lot."
Couldn't agree more.
Seems to me that there is still a need for a Shuttle replacement, sized somewhere between the original Shuttle and the Boeing X-37 and redesigned as needed to improve its performance while making it fully reusable and human-rated.
* fully reusable should, done properly, should make it nearly as reusable as SpaceX/s smaller rockets and nearly as cheap to operate too.
* this would also make the current fleet of non-reusable spacecraft needed to maintain manned Low Earth Orbit satellites obsolete.
* their existence would most likely help drive the development of future Low Earth Orbit satellites as well as simplifying the design of Lunar and Mars transport vehicles.
"The ONE good thing that could come out of slashing NASA is nuking SLS and its rancid bacon ilk of acronyms and Greek mythology. "
SLS is a Senate program that NASA is being forced to do. It's never been something they've wanted themselves so the funding for it will keep being required and NASA will have to delete other things to balance the books. Hopes of it being slashed aren't reasonable unless there's a change in congressional desires and so far, it's been a fat jobs program for senior member's states.
In normal times, yes, you'd be correct. But DOGE was supposed to be all about ripping up the rule book and getting rid of waste. It's precisely the kind of circumstances where SLS ought to have been on the chopping block.
Seems to me that in a well-run country, dropping SLS would come before dropping the Dept. of Education. But, awww, shucks, what do I know?
"Seems to me that in a well-run country, dropping SLS would come before dropping the Dept. of Education. But, awww, shucks, what do I know?"
No SLS would mean no Artemis program and no need for Starship HLS. That's been pure gravy for Elon to work on getting his giant Starlink Pez dispenser developed.
From what I saw on the WAI Youtube channel, it may be that SpaceX revenue (don't think he said profits) is on trajectory to exceed NASAs budget and is currently mostly from Starlink. I doubt the figures are accurate or detailed since SpaceX is private, but they suggested that SpaceX profits are well in excess of what's needed to fund Starship. It'd be interesting to see just how accurate that is and whether grants from US.gov are really needed other than as diversions or assistance in the direction of Musks real goals[*]. Of course, a lot of SpaceX profit comes from US.gov contracts, but it's also shown in the video that those are contracts delivering services cheaper than anyone else and still raking in profits. Cancelling all of SpaceX Gov contracts as Trump mooted, would mean abandoning ISS as SpaceX is the only US manned transport (and the cheapest by far) as well as the cheapest supply truck, also by far. Without SpaceX, the US would have to spend more or abandon ship.
* Government money spent developing in-orbit refuelling and a Ship with landing capability on the Moon is obviously also supporting his Mars plans although I don't know how much NASA is giving for that, or if, like Dragon/Crew Dragon, they have been given a price and need to meet it and if that price is low in relation to if Boeing or the other "usual suspects" had been contracted to do it.
NASA is the world’s leading provider of climate data. The Department of Interior, NASA, USDA, and NOAA have been subjected to repurposing by oil industry executives recruited by Musk’s shadow government.
They’re not just trying to hobble environmental regulations, they’re trying to hobble the environmental movement for the next few generations.
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