Well... the TSA was a jobs program for people who couldn't or didn't want to get jobs as cops. Stennis (Space Flight Center) is a jobs program for Aero Engineering grads to keep them from going to work in Europe or India. Who knows... we might need them to design newer expensive missile systems sometime.

There are all these 30-60 year old engineers who look like they should be good hires on paper, but the tech economy has been pooping out bullshit products (and jobs) for the last 20 years. The last "real" job I had... my official role was to sit at a desk and "coordinate" development. While no one was looking, I wrote code and passed it off to a dev in India to check in (US engineers weren't allowed to check in code.) My job at Amazon was similar... the higher up the food chain you went, the less management understood what engineers did (modulo a few notable exceptions -- the guy who ran Route 53 when it launched was amazingly tech saavy for a VP level manager.)

There's only so much idiocy you can expect the tech industry to digest. It's time to send engineers to the government so they can write documents about how we should evaluate the requirements for evaluation criteria.

> many of the engineers were vilified and the programs disbanded as soon as this administration took office

they may have trimmed some fat, which is normal and necessary, but it's disingenuous to say that "engineers were vilified"

2027 White House proposed budget[1]: $18.8 billion

2026 White House proposed budget[2]: $18.8 billion

[1] https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/budget...

[2] https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Fiscal...

[2] is represented as deltas, explainer here https://spacenews.com/white-house-budget-proposal-would-phas...

24.4 in 2026 is less than 19.2 in 2016. I wouldn't call it a giant squeeze or anything though, but these raw numbers almost imply the opposite kind of misunderstanding.

The admin has tried two times in a row to cut the total budget by 20%, and the science budget by 50%

So, probably that squeeze?

Are these numbers adjusted for inflation? $19.2B in 20216 dollars would be $26.4B in 2026 dollars.

Accounting for inflation the 2026 budget is 2 Billion less than the 2016 budget.

You’re kinda implying that there’s a few people standing around in a shed, and that really don’t cost too much.

No

That’s not even remotely true and is a trite dismissal of legitimate criticism. Further, even though this might be an exciting concept, when put in the context of the massive budget cuts to nasa specifically it’s hard to fully celebrate what might be more a PR stunt than a meaningful commitment to science and exploration.

Not true; I'm a huge fan of USAID

It would be remarkable if random flailing didn't result in at least one good outcome, and sure enough Trump seems to have unblocked Federal action to eliminate pennies, which is one of those "obviously a good idea but..." things you would never get by ordinary Presidents.

However "Finally deleting the worthless penny" is not a big achievement and so it's understandable that you mistook "Trump constantly does incredibly bad things nobody likes" for them disapproving universally of all US Federal government activity.

It's intriguing because little tech as well as big supported the current admin, and installed J.D. Vance to make good on Thiel's $15 million to his campaign.

It’s not reflexive criticism. Why would anyone work for sn organization where the CEO continuously criticizes its workers and treats them badly. Would you work for Twitter?

I don’t know enough about the current NASA administration so it isn’t a criticism toward them. But it roles up to the top.

Just like if I were in the medical field - why would I work for the CDC now?

Suspicion, doubt and negativity is the default for this administration not the exception, for legitimate reasons.

It's always hard to get tell with you people whether your attempt at trolling is based on willful ignorance, maliciousness or immaturity. Probably all three.

You can certainly like it, it's just hard justifying your stance when things go sideways (eg. DOGE and the leaked Social Security data).

It’s not that you’re willfully ignorant of the critique, you already know what it is. It’s TDS. Case closed.

Pre-sorting all criticism as reflexive and not necessarily justified is a rationalization for you not trying to understand other perspectives.

Edit: it seems like my message was ambiguous. Fuck Donald Trump, I’ve got a bottle to pop when he dies and I’ll never let you fuckers live down what you’ve done.

> (oops I did a cynicism.)

That's not cynicism, that's... something else.