Nobody cares about ground control. They care about aerospace industry in their states. Public space programs aren't about science and engineering, no they are primarily about jobs. We burn enormous capital in strange ways in order to divert a small amount of capital into useful places. Its the only way to get it done, so I can live with it.

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mikkupikku 4 days ago | parent [-]

Senators care about ground control. Jobs is the whole reason any of them agree to fund NASA at all.

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avmich 4 days ago | parent [-]

NASA is the goverment agency routinely favored by the general public. They can't meaningfully reduce funding, now that "race to space" with China is heating up.

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mikkupikku 4 days ago | parent [-]

Most of the public don't know there's another space race and would probably tell you that Artemis is a new brand of deodorant or something. Senators don't care about space fans, they just want NASA to be a consistent reliable jobs program that doesn't throw any curve balls (hence NASA's [nominal attempts to have a] low tolerance for risk.)

	▲	avmich 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		Unlike other government agencies, space fans are electorally meaningful number of people, as far as I know. Wait till China start scoring firsts with manned Moon expeditions and journalists start explaining that Senate not caring, and situation will get interesting, uncomfortably so.