[HN Gopher] NASA's James Webb Space Telescope faces potential 20...
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NASA's James Webb Space Telescope faces potential 20% budget cut
Author : consumer451
Score : 114 points
Date : 2025-02-21 18:25 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.space.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.space.com)
| Jun8 wrote:
| You can find NASA's 2025 Budget Request Summary here (PDF link:
| https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/fy-2025-budg...).
| It's a visually great deck that provides a lot info.
|
| From Slide 26: "$317M supports the operation of Great
| Observatories including the James Webb Space Telescope, Hubble,
| and Chandra".
|
| Can't some of the money that's been saved from other cutting
| channeled to NASA?
| rqtwteye wrote:
| They could stop with the Mars nonsense and cancel SLS.
| preisschild wrote:
| lol the Mars project is a prestige project for Musk now, no
| way that gets defunded.
| radicalbyte wrote:
| It's a distraction and likely a way to fund money to his
| companies.
| rockemsockem wrote:
| I find people like you fascinating. Like it's so obvious
| that the guy is actually legitimately obsessed with going
| to Mars. You can question whether that's a good idea and
| everything else about him, but it's so obvious that this
| is legitimate.
|
| So I'm seriously so, so curious, because you are far from
| the only person to think this, why do you think Mars is
| actually a facade to funnel money to his companies?
| sdenton4 wrote:
| Well, at one time he was obsessed with going to Mars...
| Now he seems more obsessed with being the most based
| twitter user and wrecking people's lives for upboats from
| his cronies.
| throwaway173738 wrote:
| This might surprise you but you can't always take what
| people say at face value. You also have to think about
| why they say they want something and what else they might
| want. Mars is a great example of something he could fund
| himself, and something he presumably has funded in the
| past. So if he's going to take government funding now
| when he's holding the strings, it stands to reason that
| he's taking advantage of his position. And you can see
| that play out with the $400 million dollar purchase of
| Cybertrucks for example where there are tons of more
| cost-effective tools for the job. So it seems like
| whatever he says his real goal is to strip-mine certain
| agencies for profit while he does it. Why would we trust
| him?
| brandonagr2 wrote:
| This might surprise you, but you have no idea what you
| are talking about.
|
| You don't have to believe anything Elon says, just look
| at what he has done for the past 22 years. SpaceX was
| founded on the singular purpose of getting to Mars. Elon
| originally tried to buy ICBMs from Russia to launch to
| Mars, when that fell through he started his own rocket
| company. The entire tech stack and rockets being built
| are to reduce the cost of mass to orbit by the orders of
| magnitude needed to colonize mars. There is no other
| reason to build something as huge as Starship. Elon IS
| funding getting to mars by himself, the Starship program
| is mostly self funded, with the Artemis HLS contract
| coming well after the program was started.
| cma wrote:
| He said his Tesla comp package was 100% to get to Mars
| for mankind then immediately bought Twitter when it hit
| the perf targets and he first got the package.
| cess11 wrote:
| If he is "obsessed" with that, why is he so disinterested
| in making progress towards it?
| scottLobster wrote:
| Is he? Obsessed people are generally hyper-focused on
| their obsession by definition, Musk has pivoted to
| electric cars, "free speech" and now re-shaping
| government since announcing his Mars ambitions.
|
| He's definitely obsessed with being seen by others as the
| guy who's going to be the first to Mars, but I'd put it
| in the same camp as his obsession with being seen as an
| elite Path of Exile 2 player.
| kelnos wrote:
| Consider it this way: it is absolutely a way to funnel
| money to his companies _because_ he is (probably
| genuinely) obsessed with getting to Mars. More money for
| his companies means faster development of his technology,
| and the ability to do more in parallel. He knows this, of
| course. It doesn 't matter if the reason for his greed is
| Mars, or just plain old greed.
|
| Musk's position as CEO of SpaceX and head of DOGE is the
| most conflict-y of conflicts of interest when it comes to
| deciding what happens to NASA. It 100% doesn't matter if
| he is the truest of true believers in the need to make a
| settlement on Mars. We should not be giving him the power
| to dismantle other space-related efforts to fuel his
| personal project. Even if he is right at how critical
| Mars is, it is incredibly dangerous to allow people with
| conflicts of interest to be responsible for decisions on
| this scale.
| rqtwteye wrote:
| I think it's the other way around. He is obsessed with
| Mars and now he has the influence to make it happen with
| the help of taxpayer money.
| worik wrote:
| The SLS being a government funded competitor to SpaceX has
| little hope...
|
| That said I am unsure if that is that much of a blow. The
| government is very good at some things, it looks to me (I am
| a casual observer) that SpaceX has eaten their lunch in terms
| of a space programme.
|
| But the James Webb was exactly the sort of incredibly
| difficult, high risk project that NASA (and Government labs
| generally) excel at. No private company would ever do
| something like that. It is a huge achievement and is changing
| our view, again, of the Universe.
|
| So I guess it will be doomed now too. Noting so dangerous as
| a good example.
| SubjectToChange wrote:
| _The SLS being a government funded competitor to SpaceX has
| little hope_
|
| SLS was never about being the most practical and/or
| efficient launcher. It is a pork barrel project, but one
| with an important role. In particular, it is maintaining
| vital aerospace industrial capacity. If the US wants things
| like ICBMs then programs like SLS are a necessary evil.
| jandrese wrote:
| Oh man, Elon is going to propose a Falcon-9 based ICBM
| isn't he? Might as well go full Bond villain at this
| point.
| fooker wrote:
| ICBMs have usually been solid fuelled as they can be
| stored ready to launch.
|
| Typically when you have a situation warranting nukes you
| won't have time to fuel a falcon 9.
| ben_w wrote:
| There's lots of bad ideas currently becoming government
| policy, and that's not even a unique flaw of the USA or
| Trump or Musk.
|
| So, just because idea of using Falcon 9s as a delivery
| solution for a strategic nuclear deterrent may be as bad
| as ordering your chief designer to throw a big steel ball
| at the window of the new model of car you're currently in
| the middle of announcing even despite the guy's obvious
| reticence, doesn't mean it won't happen.
| b59831 wrote:
| This is a stretch.
|
| Someone makes an uneducated point but it must be defended
| because Musk bad...
|
| Do you think you're making a good point here?
| kelnos wrote:
| I don't think it's a stretch at all. GP is pointing out a
| specific instance that illustrates that Musk doesn't
| truly understand the capabilities of the things he
| builds. He talks a good game, but he's not actually a
| rocket scientist/engineer. But he'll push for whatever he
| wants to push for, and people like Trump will eat it up
| and let him do what he wants.
|
| If Musk wants to push for "Falcon 9-based liquid-fueled
| ICBMs", he'll do so, even if he actually does know
| they're not the best/right tech for the job. And someone
| like Trump will listen to him.
|
| It's also a bit in bad faith of you to play the "you only
| disagree because Musk bad" card, when GP explicitly
| acknowledges that these sorts of bad government decisions
| are not unique to the US/Trump/Musk.
| Arubis wrote:
| US-based ICBMs, yes. Russia and China have actively
| fielded liquid-fueled ICBMs.
| nickff wrote:
| The USA also fielded liquid-fueled ICBMs, but I believe
| they have all been decommissioned in favor of solid-
| fueled missiles, which are more reliable and easier to
| store.
| nradov wrote:
| No one is seriously going to propose a liquid fueled
| rocket for the nuclear deterrence mission. It simply
| doesn't work.
|
| However, there are potential military applications for a
| vehicle like Falcon 9. For example, imagine being able to
| insert a Special Operations team almost anywhere almost
| anywhere in the world on a few hours notice. In a
| potential near-peer conflict there will also be a need to
| quickly launch replacement military satellites to make up
| attrition losses.
| justin66 wrote:
| If the US wants ICBMs they'll leverage existing designs.
| The SLS has nothing to do with them, not in the
| slightest, aside from the fact that they're all
| cylindrical in shape.
| rqtwteye wrote:
| Maybe they are also orange?
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| SLS has been to the moon and back. Starship hasn't yet made
| it to orbit.
| nickff wrote:
| SLS has been _around_ the moon and back; that mission was
| equivalent to an unmanned Apollo VIII. Going around the
| moon is much easier than landing on it and coming back.
| kelnos wrote:
| Sure. And not-quite-getting-into-orbit is easier --
| significantly easier -- than going around the moon.
|
| What's your point, really, aside from nitpicking, when
| "orbiting the moon" is a perfectly reasonable
| interpretation of the statement "been to the moon and
| back"?
| bpodgursky wrote:
| Starship has made orbit several times.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| No it has not. Cite a source please.
| ben_w wrote:
| Kinda. They demonstrated orbital delta-v, but the perigee
| was always low enough to guarantee re-enter atmosphere
| after just half an orbit from launch, because of SpaceX's
| unreadiness to confidently perform a controlled de-orbit
| otherwise.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| To be pedantic, Starship has made orbital velocity
| several times. It didn't circularize enough to be a full
| orbit. A full orbit would have been irresponsible. Blue
| Origin has left a massive trail of space junk from their
| last test mission because they went for an ambitious
| orbit rather than one that would passively deorbit
| immediately.
|
| https://x.com/shell_jim/status/1891842756500222212
| justinator wrote:
| Stop trying to use logic to make sense of these budget cuts.
| The budget cuts aren't about saving money. They're about
| destroying whole parts of the Government.
| dandanua wrote:
| You see, those are necessary steps since billionaires are
| tired of rules and regulations that don't let them grow and
| thus hold America back, so it can't be great again.
| y33t wrote:
| They don't want to destroy it, just make it so useless they
| have pretext to privatize it.
| nickff wrote:
| I don't think anyone wants to privatize any of the space
| telescopes or NASA as a whole. Do you have any evidence
| that there is someone who does?
| ericmay wrote:
| Generally speaking the current administration is looking
| to cut some functions and programs from federal agencies
| and then pay private entities to perform those same
| functions because they believe that private industry can
| perform those same functions better more cheaply [1].
| There is certainly some merit to that, however I think
| being dogmatic one way or the other is for simpletons.
|
| Specifically for privatizing space telescopes or
| privatizing NASA as a whole I don't think that has been
| on the table, but you can imagine a scenario in which
| eventually something like 20%, 40%, 90% or some other
| significant portion of NASA's "funding" is just a pass-
| through vehicle for private contracts.
|
| Honestly if you want to learn and understand more about
| some of these activities you can just read the news
| because a lot of analysis is being done, well-informed
| opinions are being written, and indisputable factual
| evidence including quotes, interviews, and detailed data
| are publicly available. Admittedly some reporting is
| behind paywalls, but that's easy to get around. I
| understand it's not very fair to tell someone to "go read
| the news", but if you can't keep up with current events
| or you aren't willing to that's kind of just your
| problem. There are plenty of websites across the
| political spectrum ranging from the Financial Times to
| the Economist, to the New York Times, Wall Street
| Journal, international journals, and more including
| locally focused websites that keep tabs with events going
| on at the federal, state, and local level. It's certainly
| a lot but it's your responsibility as a citizen (assuming
| you are American, apologies if not) to keep yourself
| informed and well read.
|
| [1] I'm being charitable here because I _personally_
| believe that the goal is to just funnel money from
| government agencies to specific private enterprises that
| have the favor of the current administration. Crony
| Capitalism is what that is called. The current
| administration has not _yet_ earned my trust to believe
| otherwise.
| nickff wrote:
| I was replying to a comment that said:
|
| > _"They don 't want to destroy [NASA], just make it so
| useless they have pretext to privatize it."_
|
| I just think they were wrong. I agree that the current
| administration does want to prevent the administrative
| agencies from doing many things, but I don't think anyone
| is actually looking to privatize NASA or the telescopes.
| LargeWu wrote:
| Yes, certainly Elon Musk, who owns SpaceX, has no
| conflicting interest in privatizing America's space
| operations...
| ericmay wrote:
| I think you're assuming a maximalist interpretation where
| the federal government sells NASA or spins it off as a
| private company or something like that. What the OP was
| likely referring to (and they'll have to answer
| definitively) was the privatization of significant
| portions of NASA potentially so that it just acts as a
| pass-through entity for private contracts.
|
| Take something like the James Webb Space Telescope. NASA
| could potentially build its own rockets to launch its own
| telescopes [1]. Instead what we might see is NASA wants
| to launch a rocket with their telescope, but their
| capacity to launch a rocket has been privatized via
| contracts that go to private enterprise instead of
| through NASA.
|
| Since many in the Trump administration have espoused the
| belief that existing functions of government and/or
| administrative agencies would be better off privatized or
| completely cut, many are worried that the same fate
| awaits NASA with crony capitalism as the end result.
|
| When you say that you don't think anyone is looking to
| privatize NASA or the telescopes, instead what you should
| be considering isn't NASA being completely privatized in
| the sense that it's now a private entity separate from
| the government, but you should be considering NASA as
| being privatized in the sense that Congress and the Trump
| administration allocate taxpayer dollars _through_ NASA
| to private enterprise for existing or potentially new
| NASA functions in the future. It 's less so about literal
| 100% privatization, and more so about someone who happens
| to have a rocket company gets taxpayer allocated funding
| "from NASA" to provide services. I also don't think NASA
| as it exists today will be 100% privatized, maybe 40% is
| privatized, etc. , and the space telescopes won't be
| because they don't generate revenue, but what I do think
| will happen and it's up to the Trump administration to
| convince me that this isn't the case and earn my trust,
| is that they will allocate funding for NASA works
| specifically to private enterprise that is in favor with
| the current administration in a form of crony capitalism.
|
| One way to maybe think about this would be imagine that
| we "privatized" the IRS and in order to file your taxes
| you would have to file through one of many existing
| vendors who have contracts from the IRS and charge you to
| file your taxes. Does that feel right? Why can't we just
| file directly with the IRS?
|
| [1] I'm not sure if this is a good or bad thing, it's
| just an example.
| throw0101a wrote:
| > _Generally speaking the current administration is
| looking to cut some functions and programs from federal
| agencies and then pay private entities to perform those
| same functions because they believe that private industry
| can perform those same functions better more cheaply
| [1]._
|
| In some cases they want the federal agency to completely
| stop doing things and let the private sector do them
| instead: for example the National Weather Service.
|
| Some folks (e.g., the CEO of AccuWeather) wants zero free
| weather reports from the government, and you'd have to go
| to a private corporation to get a forecast.
|
| John Oliver had a segment on it during Trump 1.0:
|
| * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMGn9T37eR8
| omegaworks wrote:
| Musk just yesterday asserted that it was time to deorbit
| the ISS.[1] Decommissioning telescopes would not be out
| of the question.
|
| 1. https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1892621691060093254
| bradyd wrote:
| That is something NASA has already been planning for a
| while now.
|
| https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/iss-
| deorbit-...
| jtgeibel wrote:
| Yes this has been planned for a while. But accelerating
| the existing schedule by 4 or 5 years would almost
| certainly result in a large increase to the existing $843
| million dollar contract that Space X has. Elon definitely
| has a conflict of interest here.
| bmelton wrote:
| The Biden administration released an RFP a year ago to
| exactly that end. IIRC, there was an $800+ million
| contract awarded.
| kelnos wrote:
| Sure, and speeding up the ISS deorbit timeline would
| almost certainly mean a lot more money for SpaceX, at a
| time when SpaceX's competitors are still very far behind
| in terms of capability. Musk wants an earlier ISS deorbit
| because it lines his pockets sooner, and more reliably.
|
| Not only does Musk have a lot of power to get favors
| granted to him now, but I'm sure he also realizes that
| there could be significant backlash against him and his
| companies during a future administration, if his and
| Trump's actions turn out to be as broadly, bipartisan-ly
| unpopular as I'm hoping. So not only will he want to
| extract as much as he can from the government now, he'll
| want to consolidate and increase his lead over his
| competitors so a future administration may have no choice
| but to continue using SpaceX for the bulk of its needs.
| lupusreal wrote:
| The ISS is essentially worthless and the contract to
| deorbit has already been given to SpaceX (during the
| Biden administration no less.) There is no useful (much
| less economically sensible) research being done on the
| ISS. If you consult NASA FAQs, the way they like to
| justify it to the public is the ISS is a center for
| research that will help humanity live in space. That's
| bullshit. We figured out decades ago that human bodies
| start breaking down after more than a few months in
| microgravity and there's really fuck-all that can be done
| about that. Pursuing spin habs is one possible avenue for
| the future, but the ISS isn't one. It's dead end
| technology.
|
| And on the topic of dead end technology, let's face the
| fact that the ISS is just Mir 2 with US participation.
| The DOS-8 module it's built around is the module Mir 2
| was to be built around, Mir (1) being DOS-7, and the
| previous DOSes were the Salyut stations. Direct hardware
| lineage. The only reason these things exist in the first
| place is because the Soviet Union though space stations
| would be good for earth observation, a role they are
| wholly obsolete in now, but once the Soviet Union started
| building something they liked to keep building it long
| after it made sense (see also, the Vostok capsule, which
| they are still using as a satellite bus to this day.).
| And the only reason the US is involved in this is
| literally welfare to the Russian aerospace industry to
| prevent their engineers from having to seek employment in
| Iran/etc. In this role too, it is obviously obsolete.
|
| Now a word about Mars, because I can already sense
| somebody about to accuse me of being a senseless musk
| fanboy. Mars colonization makes no sense and musk is
| lying about pursuing it. For a Mars colony to actually
| become a "backup for humanity" of whatever drivel he
| claims, it would need to bootstrap itself into self
| sufficiency, which at the very least would require a
| viable economy for trading with Earth. No such economic
| plan for a Mars colony exists. Furthermore, SpaceX isn't
| even investing in the creation of the requisite colony
| hardware, the habitats and Martian industrial
| infrastructure which would be required to make it work.
| What they're actually doing is far more mundane; building
| rockets for launching satellite into Earth orbit. The
| Mars talk is just a recruitment tactic to pull in young
| idealistic engineers and get them to work long hours for
| cheap.
| lupusreal wrote:
| Nothing could make less sense than a plot to privatize
| space telescopes. Space telescopes have no commercial
| value whatsoever. All satellites which have commercial or
| military value are pointed at earth. The only plausible
| counterexample is a few of those pointed at the sun, and
| they only have value insofar as they can make forecasts
| about solar weather that may disrupt affairs on Earth.
| krapp wrote:
| I think it's less a plot to privatize space telescopes
| and more a plot to shutter NASA and get the US government
| out of the space industry altogether and privatize
| everything.
|
| Which means that either companies find commercial value
| in space telescopes or else we just don't have space
| telescopes.
|
| But don't worry, we'll always have luxury trips into LEO
| for billionaires.
| lupusreal wrote:
| After decades of searching, the only good uses for space
| telescopes thus far found is keeping university
| researchers entertained and making cool posters for geeky
| kids to hang in their bedrooms.
| layer8 wrote:
| They don't necessarily care about space telescopes. They
| care about someone else receiving the tax money than
| NASA.
| mandeepj wrote:
| You packed quite a punch in that short comment! Those fed
| employees who voted for this govt. and got laid off must be
| feeling a voters remorse.
| radicaldreamer wrote:
| Facebook is packed with posts of people saying they support
| this administration but could they please make an exception
| for their own role or for their loved one whose nursing
| care got cut (at the VA) etc.
|
| They still don't understand that they voted for this
| specific thing, nobody was shy during the campaign about
| what was to come.
| jandrese wrote:
| I'd say at least the SLS program is in jeopardy. NASA has
| notably had some real scares recently about massive job cuts
| that have thus far not panned out. Since the administration
| revels in chaos this probably won't be resolved neatly or soon.
|
| IMHO if someone wanted to cut the James Webb the time to do it
| was 15 years ago. Now that it is actually flying and producing
| the best images of the cosmos to date it is too late. Those
| costs are fully sunk. The ongoing running costs are downright
| modest by government standards. Plus the project is visible
| enough that cuts are likely to result in public outcry.
| righthand wrote:
| Once the money is approved it is then the receiving agency/orgs
| money. Not the Executive branch's money to redistribute. There
| is no money being "saved" or "cut", there are only corrupt
| people halting payments of the budgeted money and illegally
| laying off workers.
| epolanski wrote:
| > Can't some of the money that's been saved from other cutting
| channeled to NASA?
|
| What are you a socialist? /s
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| More likely to end up at Space X
| rurp wrote:
| Many of the announced savings are fake. The actual savings are
| a paltry number that will be dwarfed by the 100s of billions
| that will be spent on border security theater, not to mention
| the trillions in upcoming tax cuts for the wealthy.
| kelnos wrote:
| > _Can 't some of the money that's been saved from other
| cutting channeled to NASA?_
|
| Why would they want to do that? This administration is hell-
| bent on reducing spending, period, not moving it around, as
| well as crippling the executive branch's ability to govern. And
| they don't care what useful initiatives die due to their
| actions.
|
| And I can't see Trump's supporters caring about this at all. He
| won the presidency in no small part because he acknowledged
| that people were facing financial strife, while Harris just
| kept repeating that the economy was great (implying that anyone
| with financial issues was either imagining it, or themselves at
| fault). Why would a Trump supporter care about some "elitist"
| scientist being able to look at celestial phenomena? They don't
| care about this stuff, sadly.
| bradly wrote:
| Not commenting on the budgets cuts themselves, but operations,
| monitoring, and maintenance of JWST is under contract with
| Northop Grumman until 2027.
| aaronbrethorst wrote:
| Whew, good thing Musk and Trump _love_ respecting existing
| contracts and settled law then.
| https://www.npr.org/sections/planet-money/2025/02/18/g-s1-49...
| chrisweekly wrote:
| Everyone able to make it to the Boston Museum of Science should
| make a point of watching "Deep Sky" in IMAX (the story of the
| JWST and tons of new-to-mankind images of the furthest reaches /
| oldest objects in the universe), it's breathtaking.
|
| https://www.mos.org/visit/omni/deep-sky
| qzw wrote:
| Not sure if it's the same one, but I saw a similar IMAX with my
| kids at the Kennedy Space Center a few months ago. Agree that
| it's well worth seeing and has some spectacular images from the
| JWST.
| amarcheschi wrote:
| Oh I thought I had seen it at ksc and then I saw your
| comment. I agree, it's breathtaking and moving. It's a shame
| that all of this is happening to save a bunch of money for
| the wealthy elite that see "you, the people" as disposable
| items
| jgalt212 wrote:
| I'm bummed to have missed that when I was last there in 2024.
| Overall, I was pretty disappointed with the place. It's a good
| stop for kids under 7, though.
|
| To the contrary, I found the London science museum amazing.
| Great exhibits and great presentation.
| willis936 wrote:
| It says tickets are unavailable.
| EcommerceFlow wrote:
| SpaceX has shown us that private enterprise is the way. Giant
| decades long projects are slow, stifled by bureaucracy, and less
| effective.
| jmward01 wrote:
| SpaceX shows the natural boom, decay to a rut, bust out of rut
| cycle that happens in every industry. Strong independent
| government institutions make sure that the growth phase when
| that bust out of rut phase happens stays (relatively) positive
| for society and free of corruption.
|
| I personally define a corporation as 'evil' when they try to
| change the regulatory framework to be in their favor since they
| cross the line from 'playing by the rules defined by society'
| to 'making up the rules instead of society making them up'. In
| a democracy it is important that society makes the rules to
| give the average person a chance to have their priorities
| listened to. Now that SpaceX is in politics they are an evil
| company because they aren't beholden to society. Musk will do
| whatever he thinks is valuable and there are no stops on him. I
| don't care how amazing the tech SpaceX comes up with, the
| danger posed by Musk and SpaceX are not even remotely worth it
| anymore.
| zmgsabst wrote:
| People voted for this: by definition, what's happening is
| society making the rules.
|
| You're the one trying to overrule the public.
| kelnos wrote:
| Less than half of voters voted for this. Trump didn't even
| get a majority of voters to agree with him.
|
| Harris didn't either, and by a slightly worse margin.
|
| I don't think we can make any statements about what the
| public wants, just based on electoral stats. And beyond
| that, in a more general sense, if you think that every
| voter actually knows all the nuance (or even the broad
| strokes, sometimes) of what their chosen candidate wants to
| do, well... I've got some news for you.
| kelnos wrote:
| SpaceX has shown that certain particular projects can be done
| better and cheaper via private investment and private
| enterprise.
|
| SpaceX did not show that a private company can (or would even
| want to try to) tackle a multi-billion dollar space observatory
| platform that takes 15+ years to build, and may not be able to
| provide much in the way of commercial return on investment.
| d3rockk wrote:
| This is basically "Don't Look Up" in real life.
| sega_sai wrote:
| Obviously it's pointless to try to make any reasoned arguments.
| These people don't care, they just want to destroy for the sake
| of it. In the past I wondered how great civilizations collapse
| and how this could happen. It is just becoming clearer and
| clearer every day.
| nine_zeros wrote:
| Yep. History of humanity is littered with stories of super
| powers crumbling under their own foolishness. Very strange to
| actively witness the death.
| renegade-otter wrote:
| A hedge fund manager, somewhere out there, does not have enough
| tax cuts to pay for the 5th infinity pool and a lambo. Science
| can go suck it!
|
| Queue "In the eyes on an angel" by Sarah McLachlan.
| herodotus wrote:
| Gee, I wonder if this will maybe benefit Space X in some way?
| ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote:
| You're gonna have to connect the dots here...I don't see the
| benefit to space x
| BurningFrog wrote:
| This whole discussion is probably the dumbest I've seen on HN.
|
| Maybe discussing politics just doesn't work here.
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