[jvanderbot]

Can you explain why you feel NASA is a jobs program? There's certainly a much larger, constant-stream funding source going to national defense and national sciences. NASA is being paid to continue our usually unprofitable interests in space. Everything else falls under the non-compete restriction. Also, NASA employs some highly employable folks who would make much more in private industry.

[georgrwasington]

I'm actually not going to do this. If you want to have this conversation go read up on it. Not trying to be rude but your question makes it sound like you've never heard the idea before. Given that, I feel like you're not ready to have this conversation. ...I'm trying not to sound rude but it isn't working. I am not expressing malice towards you.

[bcohen5055]

Any links to good articles about this? I for one have not heard of this before.

[grgwsngton2]

I just googled this https://www.buzzfeed.com/danvergano/nasa-is-a-jobs-program?u...

Again, I have to say I really hate how my previous comment sounded. There's just a lot to this and I didn't want to try and defend the very idea while arguing about government reform because it would have been an uphill battle. Sorry for how rude that sounded.

The basic idea, though, is that NASA (while awesome) has been building a heavy lift but also disposable and expensive new rocket. There are a lot of traditional contractors (Boeing, Lockheed Martin, ATK) across the country helping to build the rocket. This means jobs. So congress supports the program, despite its cost, because it means jobs. This stifles innovation as evidenced by what SpaceX has been able to do on a fraction of the budget. This branches and goes deeper with organizations like the ULA which charges several times that of SpaceX but has failed, completely, to innovate. Anyways by the time NASA's new rocket will be ready SpaceX will be have been launching Falcon Heavy for years and possibly even launching the BFR. This means SpaceX will have more powerful, more reliable, reusable, cheaper rockets. All this time NASA has been unable to innovate because ??? and now the entire SLS is nothing more than a jobs program.

[jvanderbot]

The article is about congress using NASA to send money to their districts by building out the lift program.

Thats Congress being dumb. NASA may have become a jobs program, but it isnt supposed to be, and Musk is a response to that, in my mind.

"A surprise billion dollars may sound good. But while adding money to “Space Operations,” the Appropriations Committee also cut $660 million from NASA’s science, aeronautics, and space technology programs that build the telescopes, observatories, planes, and landers that make the agency so beloved. In justifying this decision, the committee wrote that the rocket “is the nation’s launch vehicle that will enable humans to explore space beyond current capabilities.”"