Hacker News Reader

Comment by photochemsyn | Hacker News Reader

> "NASA will fund the mission from its planetary science budget until 30 September 2024. After that, management could be taken over by the much smaller heliophysics division, potentially involving a new group of scientists."

Sounds like bad management. Why not just have a joint project instead of a takeover? Granted this means more money has to be spent since you have more team members. Certainly a better use of money than many other idiotic things the federal government gets up to, anyway, since heliophysics is important and planetary science is important.

View on HN

I assume they're trying to allow as much cooperation as possible, but at the end of the day you have to choose where to point the sensors and cameras, so it's largely a zero-sum game that somebody has to lose.

There's also surely a budgetary consideration at play. (Sadly, give NASA all the money!!)

25 billion per year ought to be enough for anybody- that's 1/3 of total us ukraine aid! every year! for goofy space stuff!

Nothing about studying space is “goofy.” Want to know more about theoretical physics at ever higher energies or smaller scales? The universe is going to provide the means to study that, not any human engineering project until we’re building mega structures. Want to keep as much earth as pristine as possible? Then do industry off earth. There’s literally everything in space.

That seems to be a political rather than a scientific solution: two groups want the same thing, so let's give them each part of it.

> heliophysics is important and planetary science is important

yes, but they can only accomplish one with the spacecraft that's out there, apparently. So someone has to feel bad.

This is something many people miss, compromise is not always a desirable outcome in the political process. Compromise often generates the worst outcomes of all decisions and none of the advantages.

Agreed. I'll put in $1k. How much will you contribute?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com