Hacker News Reader

China is accomplishing great things in science; very impressive list of projects.

By contrast, the U.S. seems to ceding its former leadership role. We don't even have a manned space program anymore. Maybe some day, Orion will be completed. But in the meantime, NASA is operating on a shoestring budget compared to a few decades ago.

View on HN

>NASA is operating on a shoestring budget compared to a few decades ago.

NASA has gone from 5% of the federal budget to .5% of the federal budget. It is quite depressing to see this.

How has the military budget changed over the same period? What about the military space budget? In the late 1990s I remember they were getting aggressively in to weaponizing satellites and anti-satellite weaponry was developed. I suppose there's a lot of space weapons (eg. anti-satellite) idling by now.

Then again, there's that story about NASA's space pen and the Russian pencil... maybe budget cuts were needed.

I imagine there is always going to be some waste. Even the military is notorious for unused equipment, toilet seats costing thousands, etc.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com