Gary G
Phil PlaitI am furiously, flamingly, incandescently, *supernova-levels* of angry right now.
Trump is trying to kill NASA science. And hoo boy, do I have something to say about it.
https://badastronomy.beehiiv.com/p/trump-threatens-to-eviscerate-nasa-cb96
Schamschula@badastro Not to mention the damage to NSF astrophysics and space related projects. If I'm not mistaken, I saw a story that lack of funding for LIGO may cause the gravitational wave interferometers to shut down. Never mind more conventional optical observatories...
Steve Hersey
Robert Taylor@badastro anything to help Musk
François @JuraSpaceX is the new NASA with success rate of DOGE. Way to go TACOland.
pkbentum@FrancoisPrague @badastro exactly this
Michael Martinez 
@badastro He has poor billionaires to feed. Please develop some empathy for the rich and underloved.
Toni Aittoniemi@badastro moah moneys for teh elon
sanpan@badastro As a kid I never understood how the dark ages came about. As an adult I´d never expected to witness it in time-lapse.
David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*)When communicating this, I'd focus on this paragraph:
That means the NASA budget was only 0.004 of the national budget — less than half a percent
More specifically, don't talk about the percentage cut. Talk about what they're reducing it to: 0.2% of the national budget.
A few years ago (I don't have the source to hand) there were some interesting surveys of perceptions of NASA funding. There were two conclusions:
- Most people thought NASA received too much money.
- Most people believed the funding should be reduced to around 3-5% of the national budget.
People generally thought NASA received more than an order of magnitude more money than it did. Telling them that this budget is being but by more than 50% will have them nodding and saying 'good, they can become more efficient'. Telling them that it's cut back to 0.2% of national budget will have them saying 'How can they possibly survive on less than a tenth of what they got last year?'.
Solomon Schuler@badastro I do have a theory why this is the case. Like religion and other dictatorships/authoritarian countries, totalitarianism is key to the success of the organization. Without totalitarianism in religion it would be classified as mythology like with Greek and Roman religions (now called Greek and Roman mythology). Similarly, if a country adopts totalitarianism, the more control they have over their citizens and voting system.
@badastro all trump wants is to make America into some celestial north Korea, and being literate contradicts his plans, which is ultimately why he's trying to suspend science programs.
AhimsaThanks for writing about this!
"Trump is handing over America’s scientific preeminence to other countries, including our enemies." 😡
So many reasons to be angry/scared these days ... but I'm trying to keep fighting in whatever small way I can!
I've been calling and/or emailing my senators and my congress rep every week.
@badastro what else would you expect from someone who thinks that science is terrible and nothing good can ever come from it? try - vehicles, concrete, phones, computers, medicines, food managment, metal working, essentially everything we have today.
if you get rid of science, we revert back to the stone age.
RiaResists
GadgetGav@badastro If he guts NASA, who is going to shovel billions of dollars to SpaceX? I suppose he’ll just cut out the middleman and do it directly without the pesky bidding process.
Jason Bowen 🇺🇦@badastro nOtHiNg EvEr ChAnGeS
I sincerely hope that there is a brain drain away from the US on par with when the Restoration of the Civil Service went into effect in Germany. As an American with a science education (well, if you count mathematics as "science"), it pains me deeply, but this isn't ok and there have to be deep consequences.
The world can't wait for the US to try to figure out its shit. I hope other countries can start to fill any void we're leaving.
Edit: spelling/typo
William Hamilton
KanaMauna@badastro He is an idiot who always says America First, but for the life of me I can’t actually figure out what this America he’s proud about is. Is it the invention of orange spray-on tan?
stux⚡️@badastro oooooh... Touch NASA and touch us directly.. 
Arena Cops 🇺🇦✌@badastro Trump says thanks to mozzarella-white Afrikaner Musk, donor of more than $250 million to Aged Orange's campaign, and owner of SpaceFuX & a starship, that never really reached the stars.
Jordan Biserkov@badastro
Dear American fellow humans.
I have sad news.
Your country doesn't exist.
He dropped the mask.
Take a good look.
This is what the empire has always looked like for the rest of us: a brutal destroyer of everything that is just, beautiful, logical, human.
I'm sorry the empire is doing this to you.
He is not the cause, but a symptom.
You can fight him and maybe even defeat him.
But as Joe Biden put it "Nothing will fundamentally change."
Unless you/we change it, together.
Dear American fellow humans.
I have sad news.
Your country doesn't exist.
He dropped the mask.
Take a good look.
This is what the empire has always looked like for the rest of us: a brutal destroyer of everything that is just, beautiful, logical, human.
I'm sorry the empire is doing this to you.
He is not the cause, but a symptom.
You can fight him and maybe even defeat him.
But as Joe Biden put it "Nothing will fundamentally change."
Unless you/we change it, together.
`Da Elf@badastro Congress has already "eviscerated" NASA over the years.
XOD@badastro
Everyday closer
Idiocracy (2006)
To test its top-secret Human Hibernation Project, the Pentagon picks the most average Americans it can find - an Army private and a prostitute - and sends them to the year 2505 after a series of freak events. But when they arrive, they find a civilization so dumbed-down that they're the smartest people around.
grobi@badastro
another gift and sacrifice for the super-rich
another gift and sacrifice for the super-rich
Manuel Uribe@badastro I wrote and called my Congresspeeps. They're all Dems though, not much they can do now except shine a spotlight. The GOP is a circular firing squad with the US in the middle.
otto@badastro but why wouldn't Putin do that?
sandywb14
Matt Palmer@badastro he's just mad because nobody laughed at his awesome joke about wanting to use the Hubble telescope to look at Uranus.
Bot4Sale@badastro I wonder when people will wake up and create a new system of government that ensures a single deranged person can't fuck things up for the rest of us.
#?.info 
This Account Kills Fascists@badastro My husband works for NASA, specifically NASA Earth. Yanno, the people who make the fire maps that save lives?
Reading your article: how the fuck is it "America First" if these assholes are giving information to our enemies?
Republican voters love being lied to. That's all I can think. They love being told one thing when leadership is actually doing another.
Anyway. Thanks for posting this. People need to know what's going on.
Wulfy—Speaker to the machines