this post was submitted on 18 Feb 2024
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US concerned NASA will be overtaken by China's space program::undefined

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[–] [email protected] 155 points 10 months ago (5 children)

If they were truly concerned, they’d start giving it the funding it deserves.

[–] [email protected] 128 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

They've tried everything except actually funding NASA, and they're all outta ideas.

NOTE: China WILL overtake NASA, the same way they are dominating the renewable energy sector — because they invest heavily in science, and they do it early. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand this shit.

[–] [email protected] 49 points 10 months ago (6 children)

But hey we tried giving a shit load of money to a billionaire space nazi instead!

[–] [email protected] 16 points 10 months ago

Won't someone think of the investors!

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago

Maybe we should give money to fund education and research instead of banning books and attacking each other.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I came here to say exactly this.

Perhaps a space race with China would rekindle the motivation for our money grubbing demagogues to actually fund it.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 10 months ago (1 children)

No, it won't. They'll just relocate to China, or maybe a super yacht out in international waters. They'll continue milking every last cent out of the US until it's a dead dried up husk of a nation and then they'll just move to the next one. Their supporters are too stupid to realize where the end of the path they've been told to walk is going to take them, and they'd rather blame anyone else but themselves for all the problems they face. So no, a space race with China won't fix shit.

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[–] [email protected] 111 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (4 children)

Gee whiz, maybe we should have been properly funding our space program all of these years instead of wasting it on making the military industrial complex filthy fucking rich and the world less secure overall?

[–] [email protected] 59 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Especially stupid considering last time they gave the space program appropriate funding, it led to a lot of advancements that the military industrial complex could use.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 10 months ago (1 children)

You make it sound like the military advancements were an unexpected byproduct, as opposed to the real goal.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 10 months ago (1 children)

The goal was optics. Kennedy didn't know what advances would result from Apollo. He wanted to show that the US was better at science and technology than Russia.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 10 months ago (5 children)

The science of putting a ballistic payload anywhere, including heaven.

The space race was awesome because it let the two countries measure their dicks (specifically their military dicks) without actually obliterating the planet.

The "for all mankind" angle was a great way to frame things for the population of Earth, for sure. But just like mobile chemical WMD labs in Iraq, sometimes the given justification and actual justification are two different things.

Don't get me wrong, there absolutely were beneficial optics. Something doesn't have to just be for one thing. But it was always primarily about practical demonstration of weapons capacity under the facade of human exploration.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago

Nonsense, surely their shortsightedness will pay off in the long run!

[–] [email protected] 18 points 10 months ago (2 children)

People behind the scenes are siphoning NASA space research money and turning it into space profit instead. The growth of private space companies starting in the US is no coincidence. Blame oligarchs for steering the country into a dead end.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago

Don't worry, I do.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Hate on spacex and its competitors as much as you want, im not saying you dont have cause.

But defunding NASA caused this. Those billionaires looked and said holy shit, the entire nasa budget is only that much? And they arent building rockets anymore? I can literally fund my own space program? Ide be crazy not to

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[–] [email protected] 66 points 10 months ago (13 children)

US: continually decides to not fund scientific exploration of space

Also US: GUYS! BE AFRAID! ANOTHER COUNTRY DID DECIDE TO SPEND MONEY ON IT! NOW WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO IF…UM…WELL, I GUESS IF THEY TAKE OVER SPACE…? Or…wait, what are we concerned about? Ah, fuck it. Cut NASA’s budget again. We got genocide to fund and taxes to cut for the wealthy.

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[–] [email protected] 58 points 10 months ago (4 children)

Huh. I wonder if funding NASA better might help, Republicans?

[–] [email protected] 15 points 10 months ago (5 children)

They are likely going to fund it less and give more and more of its mission over to space force and private companies is my guess

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 10 months ago (5 children)

If we fold it into the space force and say it’s for targeting woke weirdos…we’ll get a billion dollars through congress by tomorrow

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Call it "search for extraterrestrial woke intelligence" and they'll melt.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago

Instead, I think we should defund China.

rapturous GOP applause and cheering

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[–] [email protected] 33 points 10 months ago

One can only hope.

The last time that happened, we explored the moon and developed the space shuttle program. We got microchips and memory foam.

Ideological rivals encourage congress throwing money into big science. Apollo returned $14 on the dollar. It's a good investment.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 10 months ago (6 children)

Choosing Musk and SpaceX for Artemis is likely NASAs biggest mistake.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 10 months ago

It was always part of Musk's plan to cripple NASA funding and pump that money into SpaceX.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 10 months ago

If you look at the Artemis mission and think starship is the weakest part of the plan, you are simply not being objective.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago

At least for ISS, the choice is either Musk or Putin.

I don’t know which one is worse, especially considering Musk is aiding Putin via Starlink in Ukraine.

Ukraine claims Russian forces using Musk’s Starlink in occupied areas

But as someone who works in the industry, it is a bleak outlook. NASA absolutely needs more funding for its human spaceflight exploration, Earth Science, robotic exploration, and astronomy/astrophysics.

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Have they considered renaming it X and firing all their expert staff to make NASA more profitable?

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 10 months ago (1 children)

This is a good thing. Competition with the USSR made NASA what it is.

[–] [email protected] 40 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Only if the US actually competes. Given the fuckwits in congress, that is far from assured.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 10 months ago

Who would have imagined that decades of funding cuts and pressure to rely upon Musk would allow another nation to take the lead? (Sarcasm)

[–] [email protected] 15 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Dang maybe we should take a fraction of the trillions we spend on the military to fund scientific research, and also health and education while we're at it so we'd get even more potential scientists.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 10 months ago

Yes, race harder please.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 10 months ago

I'm sure throwing more money and contracts at Musk and SpaceX is going to help solve the problem any day now. /s

[–] [email protected] 12 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Export all your technology and jobs to cheaper labour to make more profit. Now you will slowly become bankrupt, as no one can afford the enshitification products and services.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago (3 children)

So they had no issue relying on Russia to service the ISS ever since they shutdown the space shuttle, but now they're afraid of China... doing space science faster?

Ignoring the fact that this is not even a real concern, maybe don't spend morbillions on free munitions for Israel or Lockheed's next stupid idea.

They defunded NASA so hard that they started hallucinating about going back to the moon with 15% of the Apollo budget.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Looking at their space station, I think China already has overtaken NASA.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Anyone concerned that the US will be "overtaken" by anything coming out of China right now needs to go read about what's been happening in China for the last 5 years.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 10 months ago (3 children)
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[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago
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