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back to article Despite proposed science cuts, NASA boss says 'We haven't canceled anything yet'

NASA administrator Jared Isaacman has appeared before the US House Appropriations Committee to explain the proposed Trump administration plan to cut $5.6 billion from the space agency's budget. asteroid ESA starts work on planetary defence mission, because Bruce Willis is retired READ MORE Rep. Hal Rogers (R-KY), the …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Trump and MAGA Republicans loathe science (after all, science is the search for truth)

    We're dealing with an anti-science administration and Congress which thinks that Covid is a hoax, vaccines kill people, climate change isn't real, Tylenol causes autism, and the world is 6000 years old.

    I can't tell whether this NASA administrator knows the game and is in on it (he's a friend of Musk, after all) or whether he's just a terribly naive nerd who didn't understand what he was getting into when Trump promised him power and gave him a ring.

    Of all the budgets which go up year after year after year, NASA is not one of them. This is not the mark of an advanced species. Humans should be ashamed.

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: Trump and MAGA Republicans loathe science (after all, science is the search for truth)

      It's science's fault for telling Trump what he doesn't want to hear. Facts, for instance.

    2. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
      Devil

      Re: Trump and MAGA Republicans loathe science (after all, science is the search for truth)

      I would like to point out that the Earth definitely is 6,000 years old.

      It's estimated to be 4.54 ± 0.05 billion years old. My personal calculations come to 4,540,006,000 years exactly. It was created on a Tuesday, if that helps? Just after teatime.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Trump and MAGA Republicans loathe science (after all, science is the search for truth)

        Obviously it was Tuesday. A loving God would make sure that Adam and Eve's first dinner together in Eden was tacos.

        1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
          Happy

          Re: Trump and MAGA Republicans loathe science (after all, science is the search for truth)

          Obviously it was Tuesday. A loving God would make sure that Adam and Eve's first dinner together in Eden was tacos.

          It is with a heavy heart that I'm forced to post this link to the Youtubes, in which there is a dramatisation of that very scene.

          1. Eclectic Man Silver badge
            Joke

            Re: Trump and MAGA Republicans loathe science (after all, science is the search for truth)

            In the beginning the Universe was created.

            This has made a lot of people very angry and widely been regarded as a bad move.

            HHGTTG by Douglas Adams

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Trump and MAGA Republicans loathe science (after all, science is the search for truth)

          Nah, clearly it was Thursday.

          Have you seen this place? Even God couldn't quite get the hang of Thursdays...

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Trump and MAGA Republicans loathe science (after all, science is the search for truth)

      Wondering which anti-science extremists are downvoting this.

      The Speaker of the US House, Mike Johnson, believes in literal young-earth creationism and, as an attorney, worked to advance creationism in public schools and also blamed school shootings on teaching evolution:

      "Johnson’s inerrant biblical truth leads him to reject science. Johnson was a “young earth creationist”, holding that a literal reading of Genesis means that the earth is only a few thousand years old and humans walked alongside dinosaurs. He has been the attorney for and partner in Kentucky’s Creation Museum and Ark amusement park, which present these beliefs as scientific fact, a familiar sleight of hand where the end (garnering more believers) justifies the means (lying about science). For them, the end always justifies the means. That’s why they don’t even blink when non-believers suffer for their dogma."

      and

      “People say, ‘How can a young person go into their schoolhouse and open fire on their classmates?’” Johnson asked the audience. “Because we’ve taught a whole generation — a couple generations now — of Americans, that there’s no right or wrong, that it’s about survival of the fittest, and [that] you evolve from the primordial slime. Why is that life of any sacred value? Because there’s nobody sacred to whom it’s owed. None of this should surprise us.”

      Anybody who thinks this guy supports science is a fool.

      1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

        Re: Trump and MAGA Republicans loathe science (after all, science is the search for truth)

        So long as these sort of people aren't given any sort of responsibility it's fine.

        They are just a sort of harmless amusing anachronism - like the Amish or Scottish Labour MPs

      2. Like a badger Silver badge

        Re: Trump and MAGA Republicans loathe science (after all, science is the search for truth)

        Wondering which anti-science extremists are downvoting this.

        Aggregated and adjusted, US polls (Nate Silver) indicate that the Orange Genius still has 39% approval rating across the entire sampled US population. There's a lot of low-intelligence anti-science religious fundamentalists in this world.

        1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

          Re: Trump and MAGA Republicans loathe science (after all, science is the search for truth)

          I blame the Democrats.

          All these bleeding-heart liberal health and safety warnings and OSHA rules. If nature was allowed to take its course many of these idiots would have been eliminated by now.

  2. IGotOut Silver badge

    "We haven't canceled anything yet"

    Well, except anything that celebrated black or female achievements in NASA.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: "We haven't canceled anything yet"

      Quite consistent with the regressive worldview.

      The same regressive worldview which robbed Chien-Shiung Wu of the Nobel Prize in physics for being a woman.

    2. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      Re: "We haven't canceled anything yet"

      Hopefully the new administration will correct the historical revisionism that removed any mention of the heroic contribution of national socialism to the US space program

      1. frankvw Silver badge

        Re: "We haven't canceled anything yet"

        I hope NASA will diplay some sense, cancel Artemis, and focus entirely on robot exploration of the solar system. The latter is what they excel at, and is what actually advances human understanding of the univere we inhabit. Artemis is little more than a giant leap for PR hyperbole. Granted, as a species we need to get back to the moon and explore the ins and outs of living in other places than on Earth, but China has that covered. Mankind doesn't need the US for that.

  3. retiredFool

    Disturbing statement

    "down to $3.9 billion. To put those figures in context, the first week of the US's war against Iran cost well over $10 billion"

    So one week of a illegal war gets more cash than a year of science. Really? And I guess we can just outsource education to the church to save some bucks for some more bombs too.

    1. Eclectic Man Silver badge

      Re: Disturbing statement

      The thing is that the US and Israeli military had already spent the money on the weapons, so it counted as 'sunk costs'. NASA's budget is future spending, so can be reduced to produce 'savings' in the next financial year's budgets, which will be constrained by having to pay for replacement ordnance and military vehicles (those aircraft destroyed when the downed US airmen were rescued are not, to my belief 'repairable').

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Disturbing statement

        Because of this stupid war of choice, weapons stocks are so depleted that Trump has proposed the single largest yearly increase in military spending since World War II.

        "WASHINGTON, April 21 (Reuters) - The Pentagon on ​Tuesday unveiled more details of President Donald Trump's $1.5 trillion defense budget request for fiscal year 2027, ‌by far the largest year-over-year increase in defense spending in the post-World War Two era."

        The US could have given NASA the singe largest increase in yearly spending, if the government cared about science, but it doesn't. Instead, budget increases prioritize blowing things up over scientific discovery.

        1. ChoHag Silver badge

          Re: Disturbing statement

          I don't think those girls or their teachers are considered as things.

          1. iron

            Re: Disturbing statement

            The occupant of the White House seems to disagree.

      2. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

        Re: Disturbing statement

        >The thing is that the US and Israeli military had already spent the money on the weapons, so it counted as 'sunk costs'

        I think even my dog understands that if they eat the treat now, the treat is gone.

        But it is a Border Collie, so compared to a US Senator.....

        1. retiredFool

          Re: Disturbing statement

          Ah border collie's, the genius of the dog breed. My hound is as dumb as a rock. I expect the congress critters are more like my hound. He eats deer poop and they eat trump shit.

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