
NASA's Juno to Soar Closest to Jupiter This Saturday - betolink
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/nasas-juno-to-soar-closest-to-jupiter-this-saturday
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jessriedel
I was glad to hear that Juno has a nice visible-light camera even though the
it's not useful to the scientific mission. I'd prefer if 5-10% of equipment
cost for spacecraft was always spent on popular-level pictures/video/sound.
Studying details of the magnetic field of Jupiter is a good excuse to send a
probe, and I'm glad there are a handful of scientists who devote their life to
understanding it deeply, but we should acknowledge that those details will not
provide benefit to 99% of the folks paying for it. (These missions can't be
justified by the rearch; much more valuable science can be done on Earth for
less money.)

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Retric
I think it's important to realize that the budget is not 1:1 per person from
taxes to spending. If hypothetically 50% of the population wants more drug
research, 10% wants pure science, and 40% military R&D then using that
breakdown for spending works. The real limitation is total spending and thus
tax levels not how cash flows.

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Sharlin
And as a reality check, Juno's total budget is on the order of $10^9 over six
years. So roughly $200 million per year, or about one percent of Nasa's yearly
budget, which itself is a bit over one percent of the US federal
_discretionary_ budget (about a 1/300th of the total budget).

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mikeash
Or to compare with something concrete, that's enough money to buy about six
KC-46 tanker aircraft for the Air Force, or about half the cost of the B-2
that was destroyed by faulty maintenance in Guam eight years ago.

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damon_c
Now, doesn't "soar" mean to go higher/farther? Maybe they mean that by soaring
closer to Jupiter, Juno is going higher and farther from Earth?

I never thought I'd be this guy. Sorry... but the children.

[http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/soar](http://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/soar)

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mikeash
One of the definitions in your link is merely "to fly aloft or about."
Higher/farther is a common implication, but not a necessary one.

For the children!

