
NASA doesn’t have the funds to get to Mars alone, Ted Cruz says - LinuxBender
https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/08/ted-cruz-says-nasa-cant-get-to-mars-without-private-sector-innovation/
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pjc50
Nobody ever says "The US Army doesn't have funds to go to Iraq alone",
somehow. Easy enough to find a trillion dollars for that.

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jandrese
The headline is basically wrong. It should read "Congress doesn't have the
political will to go to Mars".

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aiyodev
That’s the opposite of what the article is about.

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freeone3000
They mention "billions" as if it's a huge number - the CBO charts are all
denoted in billions. It's the smallest number worth mentioning from the
perspective of the federal government. The federal government decides the
budget of NASA. Ted Cruz is saying that none of the money, not even the new
billions they're getting from tariffs, or the old 34 billion from customs
duties or the 84 billion from excise taxes, or even the income tax, is worth
diverting to go to Mars, so we should rely on private industry.

I get he's proclaiming the benefits of a public-private partnership, but it
still feels suspiciously like he's declaring it can't happen because he says
it won't.

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DSierra117
NASA didn't have the funds to get me a monitor with an HDMI port for 6 months
when I worked there. They absolutely do not have the money to get to Mars.

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Sindisil
So then, expect the "space industrial complex" to augment the current military
industrial complex?

