But word by word isn’t going at all. It’s a lot of painful typing for nothing.
1 Like
Not if you just hold the button down.
2 Likes
No evidence or not conclusive evidence? 
3 Likes
It’s going to take me a fee days to absorb the finer details, but I thought this should be here as a matter of record.
My immediate reaction — we’re screwed.
7 Likes
If it weren’t for a GOP-controlled Senate, there are about 27 other things he could be impeached for.
12 Likes
6 Likes
Man. Even the even-more-fascist prosecuters have to be fantasizing about the epic shitshow lawyering needed to take this fucker down.
I think we’re going to just get the shitshow though.
7 Likes
I’m sure Pence’s pronouncement is more of a distraction attempt than anything else, but still…
8 Likes
Three astronauts thought they knew the power of technology.
—BOOM—
Of craftsmanship.
—BOOM—
Of science.
—BOOM—
This fall they will learn the. power. of. prayer.
—Orchestra swells—
Watch as a Saturn VI has a technical fault at T-5 seconds. The scientists are confused, elitist and angry. But a busload of plucky students from Bald Eagle Christian Academy form a ring around the launchpad and pray. Them. To. The. Moon!
Coming soon from Pure Flix.
Tranquility Base here, the Dove has landed!
12 Likes
Yeah, but remember that this is as a percentage of annual budget.
The annual budget in 1966 was about $100bn, or about $750bn in today’s dollars. 4% of that is $37bn in today’s money.
The current annual budget is $3.8tn. 0.5% of that is $19bn.
The graph makes it look like the Apollo years spent 8 times as much on NASA as today, when it’s really only double, and they’ve had fifty years of experience in building rockets since then, so they shouldn’t need as much to build a rocket.
The problem isn’t “NASA isn’t getting enough money to build their new rocket.” It’s “NASA’s new rocket is a corporate welfare program whose main purpose is keeping the same companies who built the Shuttle in business.”
SpaceX started developing the Falcon 9 in 2005. From scratch. If you want to count engine development, the Merlin engine was first conceived in 2002. They had the F9 flying in 2010, for under $400 million in development costs, all in, including the dead-end Falcon 1.
Boeing started building the SLS in 2010, with its engines and solid boosters basically already designed (being reused from the Space Shuttle). They’ve poured $14bn into it (so far), and it’s on target to launch in late 2021.
Budget is not the problem here.
5 Likes
3 Likes
Yeah, that.
The thing is, they’re still needing to build something that we haven’t had a need for in long enough that a large portion of it needs to be re-engineered, and there’s no similar budget influx. While they also need to keep things going with lots of other programs that are in-progress.
I’m by no means a fan of the SLS development either. But even so, the budget just isn’t matching the lip service being given towards setting a deadline for putting humans on the moon, or Mars, or a halfway station, or whatever else the plan currently is.
4 Likes
There’s no way it could be done in five years, especially with NASA bureaucracy, even given ten times their current budget.
Pence wants Americans on the Moon in five years. NASA does not have a lunar lander under development.
Let me reiterate this. The last time NASA had a lunar lander in development was as part of the Constellation program (the Altair lander). It never made it off of paper. In 2010, when Constellation was cancelled, Altair was considered to be about nine years away from being ready for launch.
In addition to this, Ares (and SLS) were supposed to require two launches to get a lander to the moon orbit: one with Orion, one with the “Earth Departure Stage” (including Altair).
So, the to-do list for a lunar landing for NASA is currently:
- finish developing SLS (which has been two years away from launching for about five years now)
- finish developing Orion
- re-start development on Altair
- re-start development on EDS
- re-start development on the EDS engine (the J-2X)
- hopefully do at least one unmanned on-orbit docking test between EDS and Orion (requiring the completion of two more SLS rockets: 8 RS-25 engines, 4 solid boosters, and everything else).
Now, maybe they could make this work with the Exploration Upper Stage instead of the EDS. But SLS Block 1B + EUS is only barely able to get to low lunar orbit, and thus the lunar surface (which is a big reason why they chose a near-rectilinear halo orbit for the Lunar Gateway in the first place), so I doubt it.
Add all of that together, and 2024 is not a date that can be achieved for a lunar landing, no matter how much money you throw at it.
8 Likes
Also problematic: planning to spend billions on a ceremonial flags-and-footprints mission while simultaneously claiming a lack of funds to deal with climate change or provide food, housing or healthcare to the American poor.
14 Likes
She is literally the most disgusting human on the planet.
5 Likes
2 Likes
Yup.
1 Like
r… what?
1 Like