CamerondotcaCan someone explain to me how NASA's capabilities got so degraded that their options are now "fascist crackpot nutbar" and "military/aerospace assclowns who seem to be whacking whistleblowers and can't build anything for shit"?
OF NOTE! I was mostly being rhetorical/snarky/sarcastic. I understand, sadly, the fuckery that goes into NASA and the funding models (or lack of).
anubis2814@camerondotca Corporate welfare, none for the American people.
Parade du Grotesque 💀It's called: "throwing money at the first company that shows up, without any string attached or oversight". Free entreprise! Yay!
Aurora - NOW celestiallavendar@icedoatmilk@coffee@camerondotca The "fully operational" NASA you are thinking of was never real, it was an illusion created by the government as a propaganda piece to show American superiority. Now that we have space superiority, for the most part, the only people interested in it are crackpots and assclowns who believe they can either get rich or escape climate collapse.
@spots1000 Oh I'm aware it was never perfect. But one has to admit that there is a vast difference between say, the night I was born (the moon landing) and today.
@camerondotca Yeah that's what I said... The vast difference is we aren't using NASA as a propaganda piece anymore. The difference is billions of dollars of funding redirected to bail out ceos and fund military contractors instead of advancing space science.
@spots1000 Yeah.. it fascinates me. The ESA sounds a bit.. fucked as well. I don't know enough about the JSA at all. The Indian folks are .. erm.. they sound a bit cowboy (that ASAT test doesn't sound super awesome - though I'm sure others have done them - China's anti-satellite satellite springs to mind)
KolaMagpie@camerondotca budget cuts and privatization. The stuff NASA produces themselves are still stellar (haha) quality that far surpasses expectations.
Kevin Leecaster@KolaMagpie @camerondotca
NASA lost its $125-million Mars Climate Orbiter because spacecraft engineers failed to convert from English to metric measurements.
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/mars-climate-orbiter-team-finds-likely-cause-of-loss
NASA lost its $125-million Mars Climate Orbiter because spacecraft engineers failed to convert from English to metric measurements.
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/mars-climate-orbiter-team-finds-likely-cause-of-loss
Mars Climate Orbiter Team Finds Likely Cause of Loss
A failure to recognize and correct an error in a transfer of information between the Mars Climate Orbiter spacecraft team in Colorado and the mission navigation team in California led to the loss of the spacecraft last week, preliminary findings by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory internal peer review indicate.
@GreenFire @KolaMagpie they also built a thing in the 70s that is still phoning home from the depths of space... it all seems better than cowboying up with Musk or Boeing.
@camerondotca @KolaMagpie
I didn't mean to defend privatizing public service. I just mainly like to bring that story up as much as possible in order to help drag Ronald Reagan for forcing the USA to abandon the metric system.
I didn't mean to defend privatizing public service. I just mainly like to bring that story up as much as possible in order to help drag Ronald Reagan for forcing the USA to abandon the metric system.
@GreenFire @KolaMagpie Fair. It is amazing how many times that the answer to the question "Why is thing X fucked in the USA" is "because of Ronnie".
@GreenFire @KolaMagpie I have american friends who say that where they live had no meaningful homelessness until he got in. Unions got decimated under him. All sorts of crap got entrenched and never dealt with again.
Kevin LaRose,aka Grumpasaurus@GreenFire @camerondotca @KolaMagpie I was in grades 5-7 in the late 70s, and I remember the metric system being pushed really hard. Then, suddenly, it just stopped. I always wondered why. I always assumed it was due to the attitude of we are America, by God, and feet and inches are as American as apple pie. None of that foreign metric stuff for us.
@Thumper1964 @camerondotca @KolaMagpie
I had mistakenly credited Jimmy Carter for trying to get the USA to use rational system of measurements.
In 1975, Former President Gerald Ford signed the Metric Conversion Act, which created the United States Metric Board, charged with leading the planning and educational efforts for switching over to the metric system.
In 1982, Reagan effectively dismantled the metrication effort by stripping funding from the Metric Board.
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2015/jun/07/lincoln-chafee/lincoln-chafee-says-ronald-reagan-talked-about-con/
Thadd Selden@camerondotca Capitalism.
Noah Cook@camerondotca I believe they started asking that question back when NACA hired actual literal ex-Nazis.
Kevin Karhan 
@camerondotca it's called "#BudgetCuts"!
I bet ya if @georgetakei or anyone from the #ScienceBubble would be in charge, #NASA's #budget would be mandated to be at least twice if not triple that of the #USAF...
Michael Gemar@camerondotca @carturo222 Military/aerospace assclowns became such grifters that the fascist was vastly undercutting them on cost.
And old NASA *always* used military/aerospace assclowns to build their stuff, and still do (which is why the Space Launch System is so mind-bogglingly expensive).
Vicente Perez@camerondotca @cheezstk Sadly, it is still better than the option that we had for many years: Russians.