It might not seem like it, but I really am on your team. What you're missing and Sabine understands is that there is no such thing as spending that's insignificant, and whether we're talking cash or mission bandwidth, everything has opportunity costs. Exactly how many possible missions are thrown out every time we decide to send squishy humans instead of robots?

As for defense spending, to be clear I'm all for swapping the pentagon/nasa budgets, but afterwards I'd still call bullshit if I think there's gross mismanagement at NASA. Pandering to the public with space-selfies is mismanagement, even if it's brought on by desperation and shrinking budgets. I think there's a strong argument Webb was also is bad strategy / mismanagement, but it's too long to get into here.

Unfortunately, like everyone else, NASA, NSF et al do need to worry about public trust, ROI, and the dreaded question: What have you done for me lately? There's this idea that basic research must be incompatible with that sort of thing, but I disagree.

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cromwellian 8 hours ago | parent [-]

Sabine got her wish. DOGE cut NSF by 40%. Tons of scientists out of work including physicists. But she'll be ok, she only needs to pimp another ad for Brilliant.com

	▲	randomNumber7 a minute ago \| parent \| next [-]
		And? What significant development in the last decades came out of science and not out of industry labs?
	▲	throw-23 7 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		> Sabine got her wish. DOGE cut NSF by 40%. You think that was her wish? Typical situation is "We only get X, too much of it goes to Y, which is bad for Z". Of course X is not negotiable in an upwards direction, Y is some entrenched status-quo that's difficult to change, and Z is lots and lots of stuff. Everyone who cares about Z attacks Y because they can't increase X and don't expect they can decrease it (although sometimes just calling attention to the zone does that anyway). DOGE is/was stupid and awful, not for their mission, but because of their methods, missing skill sets, sheer repugnant criminality, etc. As a general rule in any push for efficiency you'll be way better off exercising a little creative intelligence rather than doing straight austerity anyway. And while I don't think the entire government should be run like a business, why isn't more of it self-funding? So maybe let serious people with good intentions at NASA or NSF do DOGE-style work, creating tech or process that cuts costs for other less intellectually-gifted sections of the government, and then let them keep half of what they save the tax payers. Half of what they save could triple their budget! It's not ideal to use our best and brightest this way honestly, but house on fire, you work with what you have at hand.
	▲	Der_Einzige 5 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		While we are throwing shade towards Sabine, just want to remind readers that she's in the Epstein files and her discussions around AI are full on grifter territory.