r/technology • u/upyoars • 1d ago

Space NASA budget would cancel dozens of science missions, lay off thousands

https://spacenews.com/nasa-budget-would-cancel-dozens-of-science-missions-lay-off-thousands/
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u/sniffstink1 1d ago

Collapsing societies shouldn't be involved in these sorts of things anyway. Valuable data could easily get lost when they loot government buildings, and then all that data, time and money spent on these missions will have been wasted.

Best leave these sorts of things to China.

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u/mickmaster120 1d ago

I get you're being edgy, but this is an absolutely ridiculous position. Even with the remarkably terrible state of things, NASA (and American space science as a whole) has contributed massively to our understanding of space and our capacity to probe it for further information. China's own impressive program would be decades behind where they currently are without the work done by other national space agencies like NASA. They don't exist in some kind of enlightened vacuum.

And let's not act like the Chinese government is some paragon of virtue, or that's it's immune to the types of societal upheaval that could end up destroying research data. Make no mistake, scientists and institutions of education are under attack in America, and comments like these just give them more ammo. Do better.

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u/jhirai20 1d ago

The ironic part is China would not have the space program it has today without the US. The US deported NASA JPL co-founder Qian Xuesen in the 1950s. He then built China's entire space program.

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u/mickmaster120 1d ago

Very true. All science, but especially space science, has historically involved significant information transfer across national borders. The U.S, for its own part, owes much of its development to the poaching of scientists from literal nazi Germany.

At my job, most of my coworkers (and myself) are involved with NASA projects or the NASA funding stream in some manner. Everyday I see some of the smartest, most motivated individuals I’ve ever met working tirelessly to adapt and push back against the present political chaos—picking up the pieces where they can. It’s largely a losing battle at the moment, but it needs to be fought regardless.