[HN Gopher] A leaderless NASA faces its biggest-ever cuts
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       A leaderless NASA faces its biggest-ever cuts
        
       Author : libraryofbabel
       Score  : 17 points
       Date   : 2025-06-06 18:03 UTC (4 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.economist.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.economist.com)
        
       | 1970-01-01 wrote:
       | And if Elon pulls SpaceX out of NASA?
        
         | tocs3 wrote:
         | I think Elon has more to lose than the folks holding the purse
         | strings for NASA. Defense contracts might make some pause for a
         | little while but congress has a long history of supporting more
         | traditional defense contractors and they could spend some money
         | on lobbying (or dinner at Mar a Lago).
        
         | watwut wrote:
         | He wants them money. The contracts for SpaceX is his primary
         | gain from his political engagement. He needs those contracts
         | and got them.
         | 
         | If he looses them, it will be as a revenge from Trump rather
         | then voluntary something.
        
           | mft_ wrote:
           | To offer a little factual background:
           | 
           | * The fact that SpaceX is currently the only US company with
           | an available and reliable capacity to fly astronauts to/from
           | the ISS is the main reason for many of the contracts, and
           | they had this before and irrespective of Musk's political
           | engagement.
           | 
           | * For other launch activities unrelated to the ISS, SpaceX
           | offers the most cost-effective service, so again it's not
           | unreasonable that they would win business irrespective.
           | 
           | * Most of SpaceX's active contracts with NASA predate Trump's
           | second term.
        
         | whatever1 wrote:
         | What if the gov takes over SpaceX overnight?
        
       | tagami wrote:
       | It may take a few years but there's Blue Origin's New Glenn (i.e.
       | https://spacenews.com/nasas-escapade-could-launch-on-second-...)
        
       | kulahan wrote:
       | Does anyone have a mirror?
        
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       (page generated 2025-06-06 23:00 UTC)