space, the final frontier

Remember when on Interstellar there's this whole prologue about the collapse of the US, the dismantling of NASA and the family getting on an argument with the school because the official stance now is that the moon landing never happened and mankind never went to space (despite there being still people alive who went there)?

So, anyway, life imitates art …

Recently there was a rerun of interstellar in IMAX at our local IMAX theatre. Rewatched it and had some pretty shocking revelations that I did not think of when I watched it for the first time. The rewriting of history being prime amongst them
buzz aldrin endorsed trump btw... such a dumbass.
- One of Trumps supporters even got punched by Buzz.
We ain't getting Interstellar, we're getting Don't Look Up.
- The Republicans are still holding out for the earth getting destroyed to make room for a bypass.
I remember when that movie came out people argued with me that the Democrats were the party that was going to create the world of Interstellar and the Republicans were "standing up for science".
It was obviously nonsense then so i have little illusions that those people have changed their view on it--or if they have, they've simply changed to believe the moon landing was faked.

NASA, like the post office, is such a public benefit that we should be funding it well.

I don't think people understand how much value we get from NASA... Like, $7 for every dollar spent, or more, in economic benefit and technological advancements. So many solutions they have to come up with to make space flight possible are incredibly useful here on Earth too
Value that we won't get if we're paying a private company to do it

NASA does research. They push the boundaries corporations can't.

Depends where the funding goes! And then musk can take a cut.
- Corporations cannot carry the risk involved. Because else it would be similar to the medicine industry, but there is no large market to sell to.
  We're going to Mars is not something you can sell in a boardroom, because why? What is the ROI?
- SpaceX has been a huge success for NASA. For much less funding than NASA doing it themselves or a fraction of the cost of ULA, NASA has a very reliable and much cheaper medium launch vehicle launching much more frequently, and a heavy launcher pretty far in development.
  This is great, turning “routine” space operations over to cheaper private companies, while focussing on research and stretching the envelope
Not with that attitude...and probably will be able to change that with the upcoming administration deregulating everything. Or did you mean won't instead of can't?
- Deregulation means private businesses won't research anything that doesn't make their quarterly numbers look better. Accelerated capitalism, woohoo!

Space travel is exceptional in that you need an incredible amount of cooperation to get a project into space. The supply chains are insane, the component parts highly specialized and hugely expensive, and the range of expertise and knowledge required is simultaneously focused and intense and broad and varied. If human society ever does manage to transition to a genuine people power, space flight will be, to my knowledge, the very last thing we achieve, because it takes so many people working together to get it done. The scope of these projects makes you realise how easy it must have been to build the pyramids. Two brothers can build a plane that just about works, but to get a vehicle to orbit needs a city of people working together.
Almost like Jim Bridenstone was a bad pick….
Regarding rocket propellant
Methane is more dense than hydrogen
Methane makes more thrust than hydrogen
Hydrogen rockets need to have huge fuel tanks, hydrogen rockets have low thrust - the space shuttle needed boosters to lift off
Everything in space is a trade off, kerosene is better in all those ways than methane, but you can make methane on Mars. The global warming potential isn't much as there are so few rocket launches, and hydrogen fuelled rockets use fossil hydrogen (made from fossil methane (aka natural gas)) because it is cheaper than alternatives

I had a lengthy argument with someone that Musk couldn't possibly be kissing Trump's ass for money - he's a billionaire after all and "has all the money he needs". No no, Musk is doing this out of the goodness of his cold billionaire heart. Isn't it obvious?

Why are so many people so stupid? WHY?

Elongated Muskrat is a billionaire who wants to become the first trillionaire. That’s what these people aren’t getting. It’s all just a game to him. He thinks that he lives in a simulation and everyone else is an NPC. He now wants to set a new high score.
Ah yes, the essential personality traits to becoming the richest person: integrity, and stopping once you have all the money you need.
I had similar arguments and the synopsis is that people can't admit being wrong because it makes them look weak. It's a toxic masculinity and ego thing.
You basically double down on the bet and ride the boat right into hell over the waterfall.
Dead, but you never had to admit the other person was right about the waterfall!
- That's how kids were taught to think when I was in school. Did you get something wrong on your first try? You're a failure! Take your F and move on, you're not allowed to try again unless you fail your entire grade level. 12 years of my school system taught many people to have that ego you mentioned, myself included. I graduated high school 10 years ago and still struggle accepting my failures. I have to remind myself that in real life I can actually learn from my mistakes. Unfortunately many people never have that realization.
Good things have happened to Elon, therefore he must be a good person, otherwise my worldview is destroyed and there is no point being good.
As we all know, the ultra-rich are famous for getting to a certain level of wealth and saying, "NO MORE! I RENOUNCE THIS CAPITALIST SOCIETY AND NOW ONLY WORK FOR THE GOOD OF HUMANITY!"
They have a sense of "enough" and the concept of a thousand millions for someone who barely had a thousand hundreds or even just a thousand is so far out of their realm of understanding that they think "enough" must be a concept for capitalists too
Also dumb as rocks.
I comfort myself by saying I have something Musk and his ilk never will: ENOUGH.
- ^ Brilliant comment.
Yet another page from Trump’s playbook. People insisted that Trump couldn’t be bribed because he was so rich, and that he was financing his own campaign, so he could be the only non-corrupt politician. Obviously these people are quite naive and don’t understand how wealthy Kelle tend to operate - always wanting more, more, more.

God, I love how the incoming cabinet has zero redeeming qualities amongst them.

They are predictable
- I think I would rather be pleasantly surprised.

The challenging thing here is that NASA does have deep, systemic problems and is in need of some overhaul. SLS is a breathtakingly expensive boondoggle, lunar gateway has no reason to exist, Orion is underpowered and overweight, Mars Sample Return’s entire mission is in question, JWST was a decade behind schedule and an order of magnitude over budget, and the list goes on. Extreme risk-aversion and congressional meddling have resulted in a bureaucratic quagmire of an organization. It’s hard to find nasa projects that are going well.

Of course I don’t think a gorilla with a sledgehammer as we’re sadly going to see from Trump will make things any better, we need a surgeon with a scalpel.

Most of the things you listed are directly related to Congressionally mandated specifics for funding those programs. The money is only there if NASA does it the way Congress dictates, not necessarily the way it should be done.
The entire SLS program is essentially a Congressional jobs and legacy aerospace grifting program post-Shuttle.
If Congress would. Keep their hands off, and just allocate budget, most of the issues would likely disappear since the people that actually know what's going on could make the decisions instead of a Congress critter that is an imbecile.
- It's the whole reason SLS is the train wreck it is. Congress wouldn't let them not keep shoveling money to the same people who made Space Shuttle parts. So instead of the best design possible, we got the best design using old parts.
- The way I've heard it described is a lot of the NASA funding is intentionally spread out across many states, funding many jobs in those states, to get the support of many representatives to vote for the funding. This also means that trying to optimize costs would get a lot of push back, since it will cause jobs to be lost in many states. And these are states which voted for Trump: Alabama, Texas, Florida, etc.
- You’re absolutely right, though the extreme risk aversion is harder to blame on congress.
This is such a common theme.
There are huge systemic problems which the "establishment" will demonstratably not address and Trump appears to be the answer to many voters... but him effectively addressing them is a wild fantasy.
- We are about a decade plus into the current political theme of "throw the baby out with the bathwater". It's scary. These people have no plan. It's the levellers and the diggers all over again.
- You’re absolutely right, which is why I don’t want the left get tricked into defending a status quo that doesn’t deserve it.
NASA budget shouldn't matter on the scale that it does. It is <2% of the US military spendings
Honestly I think lunar gateway is a decent idea, Its the easiest thing to do thats new as far as space is concerned and thus potentially the cheapest way to gain international co-operation, public interest, and potentially ignite another space race. Looking forward it can can potentially act as a life raft for any future lunar colonies in the event of a mishap. And while a moon colony isn't as impressive as a mars one its much safer to practice on given that emergency re-supply can actually get there before the crew are already skeletonized. A moon base itself can then act as support for moon based telescopes (which have significant advantages, and disadvantages of course) and if you can get some kind of manufacturing going its far easier to launch from the moon than it is from earth, even if the moon just ends up as a glorified space gas station.
- Moon base on the surface is a great idea, I’m 1000% in favor.
  Lunar gateway is in NRHO, which means rendezvous windows are a week apart. This makes it pretty useless for any kind of emergency. It’s in this crazy orbit because Orion is a pig that can’t transport a crew to low lunar orbit and back.
SLS should definitely be on the chopping block. It was a good idea to fund two possibilities for heavy lift rockets but SLS is clearly going nowhere. At this point, Bozo’s rocket seems like a better choice despite being so much farther behind in development.
But lunar gateway would be pretty useful if we really are going to establish a long term presence. It would allow:
having the lander and the transportation be different vehicles
keeping a backup lander convenient
having a secure place to store extra supplies until a base can be built
having a possible backup place for astronauts in case the lunar base has problems
Any sort of problem on lunar base would go bad real fast if the nearest help is two weeks away.
Having a place to park and transfer lets them not only use different vehicles for traveling and landing but also differently sized vehicles
…. But it’s only worthwhile if we’re establishing a long term presence

it won't be though. spacex tech is massively reliant on NASA. if they do it they'll hurt spacex in the long run. which means they'll probably do it because musk is a fucking moron.

"... in the long run"
These aren't people who understand what "in the long run" means.
- This quarters profits must be higher than last quarters. Fuck anything beyond that
Surely he'll strip NASA, put the bits he wants up for sale, then buy them for cheap.
Sure the best staff might leave, but he'll probably keep enough of the organisation to get something out of it.
- he's gonna have to find more indentured slaves

Some other country is gonna have the new nasa, and the united states is going to fall even further behind. It'll just be a brain drain and most of it isn't going to go to space-x.

Any suggestions on where to emigrate? Asking for a friend
- If you're a fundamental researcher, engineer, etc. come to the UK. We've got SO many job openings for those roles and would love to bring in talent to fill those roles because the local gammon isn't up to the job.

When has that stopped them when they have the Congress and the courts?
- Hey now... it's not like it's something heinous like a peanut farm.

And absolutely no one paying attention was shocked.

He efficiently using the government to make himself richer. What more did anybody expect?

Well… that, but inefficient.

NASA has already sent out emails to their teams and contractors about what implications this can have on their departments. Shit’s bad.

People poke fun of Musk as being a idiot. But he had us Kaiser Soze'd by pretending to be dumb so that he could implement his self-serving ideas.

Musk is not the smart person behind any of the companies he is part of today.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwynne_Shotwell
... is why I would have invested in SpaceX pre-Russian aggression against NATO and their allies.
Now ... no, thank you. They can keep their private equity to their little NAZI hands.
- That's why Musk is smart, because he is a scammer.

Space exploration certainly will be the final frontier, its the last thing this pathetic species will have ever worked on before blinking out of existence.

"Sure is a nice publicly funded and scientifically minded space program you got here. It would be a shame if anything happened to it."

Convenient? That was the whole plan with buying X all along, to get into politics, and this guy is still there keeping it relevant.

Lol you are giving Musk way too much credit. No it wasn't the plan. But that's what it ended up being used for.

Trumps goons are going to sell out key functions of government to private buyers, like nasa to space x. This reminds me of when the USSR fell and all the shadiest people bought up the national industries.

I wonder who’s gonna buy the noaa. That’s the one I’m most concerned about.

NOAA goes to The Weather Company?

I wanna try something...

Ahem. Investors! I have the concept of a plan to put gigantic billboards in space that can be seen by half the planet at any given time. Give me money.

Didn't coke propose doing that with colored powder on the moon?
- In one of the Red Dwarf books, there's a subplot about sending hundreds of stars supernova simultaneous in order to spell out Coke Adds Life in the sky.
  Pepsi would be buried.
It only works for emerald heirs.

Doesn't that fat fuck get lots of money from NASA?

He's cutting out the middleman. See? Efficiency! _/s
- Name a more efficient structure than a monopoly!

Space: the final (capitalistic) frontier.

Humanity: Let's make a bunch of stories about how space capitalism has some really bad outcomes.
Also Humanity: That sound great! let's do that!
"final"

Step 1) hurt other manufacturers more than Tesla

Step 2) benefit SpaceX by gutting NASA

Step 3) no regulations for digging tunnels?

No regulations for digging tunnels is the boring part
- not more tesla tunnels, there’s already one in Vegas, where you can enjoy claustrophobic traffic jams, 44 feet underground!

What sucks the most is NASA fights tooth and nail for funding as it is. Imagine gutting it, and then coming back 4 years later to ask just for their existing budgets back.

President Musk is just there to be less inconvenienced and to revel in finding an easily manipulated orange loophole to being the president of the United States.

I guess that makes us all Musks workers now. What could go wrong?

Please come to europe and lets make the european space agency get their shit together.

ESA is a pork barrel like NASA, Euro style. Airbus does great because it's now a traded company. ESA is simply an agency designed to maintain Europe's minor relevance in space. Ariane rockets are a decade behind Space X, 5 years behind china and ISRO.
Rocket Lab is where I lay my hopes. SpaceX without the giant douchebag. Innovation, incremental, sensible growth, without Billions behind.

He makes Rogozin look competent

What if these so-called efficiency measures actually help pave the way for the first civil outpost on Mars? I think I want to give people some benefit of the doubt, we can do better than what we have currently. Ideally, it’s realizing that there’s no such thing as scarcity in a boundless universe.

Make no mistake though, the Trump admin is giving grounds to fascism, and that’s a problem. Apologies if I sound unreasonably optimistic, I know a lot is happening which will ruin lives for many. No one should be okay with that.

What benefit does a civilian outpost on Mars give to our current society? We have effectively handled scarcity already. All scarcity that exists today is entirely manufactured by the owner class. We have the means to safely and effectively have infinite electricity, food, and housing. We choose not to. How would that change if we have a base on Mars?
- I don’t think any of the resources you’ve mentioned can be handled for unlimited population growth on Earth.
  Besides that, land is a limited resource on Earth for continued human population increase, so instead of asking people to limit reproduction, we’re better off looking for different planets to inhabit.
  That said, Earth is the only known habitable planet we have, and it makes sense to protect it for both practical and cultural reasons. But future gens will benefit from space exploration, it doesn’t have to be either/or regardless of what anyone says.
There are still people who think humans can live on Mars, with today’s technology even?
The continuous radiation bombardment alone makes it virtually impossible, but the insane cold won’t help. Spending the rest of your life in cramped pods isn’t quite the psychological experience you would appreciate, and the low gravity is going to mush your muscles up. And there’s no way back, ever. So seeing mum and dad at christmas … fat chance. You might zoom them, with 20 minutes delay per direction. But Gen X billionaires that read too much shoddy scifi in their youth never think of those things.
Oh, and Elon promised us that Mars colony in 2021. There’s not even a starter kit on the surface yet.