Uhhhh didn’t you hear that we’re definitely going back to the moon and have a space telescope all to our own and it’s no one else’s named after a homophobe?

So, hows privatizing the space sector going for you, America?

Well JPL has always been this way but go off. This is essentially punishment for their (mis)handling of the Psyche mission and other recent bureaucratic fuck ups. Obviously since those who did the fucking up are in charge of budget allocation, the workers take the brunt of it but its not as gloom and doom as it seems.

Really they should just cancel SLS and nationalize SpaceX but Elon would have to do something unforgivable for them to actually do it.

NASA is an inseparable part of the US MIC and put a literal fucking SS officer in charge of its flagship program. Absolutely wild to see "leftists" supporting it because NASA gives us fun facts about Saturn's rings between enabling the GPS system the guides Israeli bombs into Palestinian hospitals.

I think it means more privatization. They will just throw mare money at SpaceX and Lockheed or something

This is good actually

You're kind of right, it will (hopefully) force JPL to get its shit together when it comes to project management but more importantly, JPL doesn't make rockets.

Sorry to burst your bubble but unless something major happens, the US is going to be the only one capable of projecting any power into space. China is good at playing catch-up but even their plans talk about a having a domestic fully reusable superheavy lift rocket in the 2040's, which could obviously be accelerated somewhat if circumstances demand but we're not talking about a Moon race type situation here. SpaceX/NASA are the only players here right now.

they work you to the bone in space

that explains the bone density loss

Lots of cool tech starts out with military applications in mind. Take submarines, for example. Sure they started out as a means of sinking ships and drowned some confederate dipshits but nowadays we can go hang out with giant squids, find ancient ship wrecks, and occasionally implode a billionaire.

a couple dudes on the moon

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I assume you are not aware that this is NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab(JPL), not a general NASA layoff as you may have guessed from the headline. You seem to have based your entire comment on that premise if so this is all painful to read honestly, a huge miss.

The JPL is responsible for some of the most cutting edge research in space robotics and probes, the name is a relic of its origin in the post war era, it is not an actual rocket research factory or anything like that.

Even though there are obvious issues with the SLS program, I'm not sure how much of that is NASA's fault, right away you're giving NASA way too much credit and autonomy that doesn't exist IRL at all. The privatization was the point, SpaceX is the culmination of what started in the 70s so trying to give relative praise to SpaceX's achievements here is literaly the Obama self-medal meme. I would expect you to spot this from mile away. The US government defuned NASA after declaring the space race "won" and ever since then the budget is still less than it was in 1965!

America never actually gave a shit about space exploration, even though most Americans wouldn't mind a higher NASA budget there is nothing the public can do about it. The fact is the NASA isn't just "stuck" in past glory. Don't mistake NASA and their actual research for the shit America uses as daily life propaganda. Things like the Hubble, the JWST, all the Mars and space probes etc are all incredibly important and valuable, nobody would object to this fact.

And yet hardly any of that makes the news. It seems like NASA is irrelevant because yes to some extent if you only look at modern culture, the average American couldn't name a US space probe or gives a single fuck about Mars etc.

The JWST alone was a huge worldwide boost to astronomy and physics research, teams from around the world are eager and reliant on it.

Finally the point was always that nothing SpaceX does is uniquely because its a private company or anything. Yes I agree and indeed there is undeniably some cool tech behind the Raptor engines but that is not meaningful rhetoric, Its like saying the F-22 was a huge boost in composite material research. The US could have all of that through the public sector is the point.

This is your brain on spacex PR and launch vehicle tunnel vision

I hate to bring this up, but SpaceX (and I’m not giving Elon any credit here) as a private space company has done more significant advances than NASA has done in a long time.

Most of the fundamental technology breakthroughs were achieved by NASA in the 90's but due to various issues, the space shuttle being the obvious one (thanks Nixon/Agnew), they were not followed up on. Also NASA has worked very closely with SpaceX essentially from the beginning, just another case of the government selling off technology to a private company because it's the only way things change in this country.

NASA has no spacecrafts right now!

NASA has never built rockets or passenger carrying spacecraft. They have always contracted them out, yes even the Saturn V, with NASA oversight/management. Also you literally bring up Artemis so not sure what you're talking about.

using the same Solid Rocket Boosters (the very same defective booster design that caused the Challenger explosion)

You'll notice how they haven't had an accident since either but you can literally thank Obama for SLS.

At least SpaceX is trying something new with their Raptor engines.

Which itself is based on old Soviet and Aerojet Rocketdyne designs. Just like how Starship's design is inspired by the N1.

I’m not denying that there are some cool satellites and telescopes and stuff, but the heavy engineering that is going to blow everyone’s minds by achieving some incredible breakthroughs is not there anymore.

It was never there. Apollo only got funded as a way to 'peacefully' develop ICBM and related technologies. If China manages to land on the Moon before the US does again then perhaps there might be a similar program for Mars or an effort to industrialize LEO but while China is making progress in space they don't seem to be making it a priority and I would be genuinely surprised if they manage to make it to the Moon before the US/SpaceX does.

Edit: Also even if China did manage to somehow beat the US to the moon they don't have a fully reusable superheavy rocket (even their plans talk about the 2040's) so it would be a significant but ultimately very temporary victory.

NASA is bloated by government bureaucracy and red tape. They're also limited by their engineers and scientists because they pay poorly (don't get the best talent) and don't offer incentives such as promotions and there's no equity to grow multiples of if they succeed (no motivation to work hard). And until now, there was guaranteed job security no matter how little they worked so there was also no fear instilled into the employees. Glad they're letting the workers know now though that they actually have to produce something of value to earn their paychecks

SpaceX fixes literally all of these problems by virtue of being a private sector corporation participating in the free market rather than a publicly funded state apparatus with 0 interest of generating profits

The other common one and my last company did this shit to me was they give you a week long vacation along with some other workers for no reason and they keep extending it, then bam fired.

probably the hundreds of workers that just lost their jobs because our congress prioritizes weapons and "border security" over space exploration

based