Bah
We've got no money to send rockets to other worlds but we've still got plenty of cash to send them slamming into other countries.
NASA overcame the glitches that plagued the SpaceX Dragon's most recent berthing with the International Space Station - but it still has other worries, according to the space agency's administrator Charles Bolden. Artist's impression of a manned mission to Mars Plenty of sun, sea and sulphur here on Mars Bolden has said …
"no money to send rockets to other worlds but we've still got plenty of cash to send them slamming into other countries"
Maybe. But the US defence budget will take a $46bn cut from the sequestration compared to $1.5bn cut from NASA's budgets. In proportionate terms the cuts are about the same.
"imagine how much more *useful* it would be to take that $46bn cut from the military and give it to Nasa"
Useful? Only in the longest term definition of useful. If NASA sent a mission to Mars, or even the next nearest star, how much use would you or I get from that? Obviously if the human race wants to get off this rock before we get fried then we need to start somewhere, but in terms of both theoretical and applied research, I'd guess that you get rather more benefit from military R&D than from NASA's paltry budget. In fact DoD R&D spending is reported at around $73bn a year, so already more than three times the entire NASA budget.
There's an argument that cutting $46bn on defence might stop US presidents from conducting wars on poor foreigners, but that rather overlooks the fact that the DoD still have a $650bn budget after sequestration, in order of magnitude similr to the entire GDP of Turkey, Switzerland or Saudi Arabia.
"Let me guess, you consider yourself a libertarian, right?"
No, but what I consider myself has little to do with the debate. You could try sticking on topic, and contributing, instead of attempting some irrelevant labelling, that I presume you consider some form of insult?
George Carlin: This country is only two hundred years old, and already we've had ten major wars. We average a major war every twenty years in this country. So we're good at it!
George Carlin: And it's a good thing we are. Can't build a decent car, can't build a TV or a VCR worth a fuck. Got no steel industry left, can't educate our young people, can't get health care to our old people. But we can bomb the shit out of your country, all right!
George Carlin: We can bomb the shit out of your country, all right! Especially if your country is full of brown people. That's what we're good at, bombing brown people. Can you remember the last white people we bombed? Can you remember *any* white people we've ever bombed? The Germans! Those are the only ones, and that's only because they were trying to cut in on our action. They wanted to dominate the world. Bullshit, that's *our* fucking job!
George Carlin: That's our fucking job!
George Carlin: Jammin' in New York (1992) - still largely applicable today.
George Carlin: And it's a good thing we are. Can't build a decent car, can't build a TV or a VCR worth a fuck. Got no steel industry left, can't educate our young people, can't get health care to our old people. But we can bomb the shit out of your country, all right!
He could almost have been talking about the UK as well, except we've not even been able to do the last bit for the last 70-odd years or so.
> $85bn worth of cuts that would be painful to both sides
Sad, but the fact is that the feds have to get spending under control, and NASA will have to do its share in that effort. I am not a Republican, but the federal government can't go on spending $1 for every 60-70 cents it takes in. Sequestration is a bad way to do these cuts, but the lack of mutual trust between the two parties in DC means that they can't reach a more rational and considered agreement--so across-the-board cuts are the game for now.
"And worst yet considering it was usually two cars coming at each other another loser is the cops cleaning up the scene with bleach praying the nightmares don't come."
OTOH
Were these to be pairs of Congresspeople the result would be across the board openings for new blood as they mass auto Darwinate.
Hopefully they would be a bit more amenable to negotiation.
They want to appear important so they have to have these big dramatic budget blowups over trillions of dollars happen several times a year. Every year it has to get worse so they can go back to their constituents and say "we're fighting harder for you than ever before!" Then both sides point to the utter unreasonableness of the other side - when this deadlock is a deliberate part of the plan of both sides to increase dramatic tension. It's utter nonsense.
They're like five year olds.