
What has NASA done to make your life awesome? - instakill
http://wtfnasa.com/#
======
jcbmllgn
Hi HN, my name is Jacob, I'm the guy that made wtfnasa. Here's my tl;dr
reaction to the virality that this project has seen:

wtfnasa was not made to go viral, it was made to be a simple intro to
CodeIgniter & a reaction to people upset with NASA, I put ~zero thought into
having 'fuck' in the title, it was built in about 10 hours (design, build,
data entry, & launch) last Wednesday & Thursday, it had 9 unique visitors as
of Friday at noon & right now it has just under 40k. I'm considering removing
the 'f word' based on the loads of kickback I've gotten from it, I'd love to
hear your thoughts. Thanks!

~~~
Kerrick
Don't remove the word "fuck." If you must, provide a censored alternative, but
the "fuck" helps things like this grow popular.

See: <http://whatthefuckhasobamadonesofar.com/> versus the PG version:
<http://whattheheckhasobamadonesofar.com/>

~~~
jcbmllgn
Nice! I haven't seen these before, but that's a great idea... 10 minutes
later... take a look at What The NASA <http://wtnasa.com/>

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acoyfellow
For some reason, using the entire word "fuck" was shocking in a odd way for
me. It's sending mixed signals- it's sounding harsh not funny. I personally
think it could be stronger with a nice headline not using it- this idea is
really awesome.

There is something off in the relationship between the whole written word and
the "ideals" of NASA. I love this, but I think it's a little over-the-top with
the whole word being written out.

I can't send this to a niece or nephew with a clean conscience!

~~~
onli
Don't be so fucking american. Swearwords are not not to be used. They serve
its function, and here it is part of a well crafted site which is trying to
make a point.

edit: Though I agree with harrywincup that the wtf-approach at first seems
like nasa did nothing good.

~~~
MengYuanLong
NASA is American... So, who is the target audience then? Is the author
intending to persuade western Europeans to fund NASA?

Swearing may be 'fun' but it still isn't what should be front facing for a
business.

~~~
tsahyt
You're right about the funding thing, but this page is interesting to Non-
Americans as well.

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harrywincup
It seems to me that the realisation/delight of discovering all of these
incredible benefits to society that come out of NASA carries more than enough
weight without requiring the whole "wtf" twist to make this interesting. If
anything, it comes across as sounding like NASA hasn't actually done awesome
things ("what did they ever do for us?!"), instead of the intended emphasis on
the many, many unknown awesome things that affect the world daily.

~~~
CoolGuySteve
I think it's meant in an ironic "what have the Romans ever done for us!?" kind
of way.

~~~
harrywincup
I get that, and I do usually enjoy the heavily sarcastic approach sites like
this take to make their point ... it just seems to me that "wtf
[organisation]" is something more akin to how i'd emphasise how unbelievably
ridiculous, say, oil companies are for yet _another_ spill/cover-up/buyout etc

In this situation, the intention is really to celebrate the fact that NASA
makes awesome stuff and the whole WTF comedy angle seems a bit awkward to me
:)

[EDIT] I just realised out exactly why it seems awkward to me ...
<http://whatthefuckhasobamadonesofar.com/> works because it's sarcastically
about what he's _done_ , whereas "wtf NASA" is aimed directly at NASA and
comes across as angry. The URL needs to be something like
"wtfhasnasaeverdonefortheworld.com" (like the page heading) for the joke to
really work I think

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wisty
Meh. The Swiss Patent office did more.

Some of NASA's innovations are the result of its focus on solving the kind of
problems no-one has tried to solve before; others are simply the result of so
many talented scientists and engineers spending their time there.

The question shouldn't just be "Was NASA worth it", but "what kind of new
problems should mankind be working on". Deep sea research in another
interesting domain. I'm sure there's plenty of others. Space isn't the only
frontier.

~~~
wonderzombie
_Meh. The Swiss Patent office did more._

Right, yes, excitement is zero sum.

 _The question shouldn't just be "Was NASA worth it", but "what kind of new
problems should mankind be working on"._

I agree with the sentiment, but "is/was NASA worth it" _is_ the question in
practice. It's a question with a simple answer: yes. But it helps to be able
to explain why, especially with examples. Hence this website.

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_ZeD_
But apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, viniculture, public
order, irrigation, roads, the fresh-water system, and public health, what have
the Romans ever done for us?

------
richcollins
This assumes that we wouldn't have these things without NASA. What evidence is
there that private industry would not have provided them more efficiently?

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Kilimanjaro
I'd really like to know how much money has NASA administered since its
inception.

Just a ballpark figure, hundreds of trillions?

~~~
icebraining
Not even close:

    
    
        According to the Office of Management and Budget and the Air Force Almanac,
        when measured in real terms (adjusted for inflation), the figure is $790.0 billion, or
        an average of $15.818 billion dollars per year over its fifty year history.
    

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA>

------
TheOnly92
Well they provided hope and dreams for the children, I'm not an American
citizen so I don't feel the pain on how they waste their money, but they
definitely don't deserve this kind of criticism. Programmers like to reinvent
things as well, sometimes in a stupid way just for the sake of research or
trying out new things.

------
michaelbuddy
this is a good page. Please revise to remove the language so it can be shared
with all age groups. Normally I love tossing an f-bomb around but this site's
idea rises above that.

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spitx
Someone pointed out the other day that an estimated $71 billion per year is
lost in US tax revenue because of religious tax exemptions.

If religious organizations paid taxes like everyone else, NASA could send 28
rovers to Mars per year...EVERY YEAR. FOREVER. (Total Cost of current
Curiosity mission : $2.5 billion, including $1.8 billlion for spacecraft
development and science investigations and additional amounts for launch and
operations. )

Perhaps we should be asking questions that have to do with why we place such
little importance on advancing our knowledge and more on preserving arbitrary
religious orders.

~~~
icebraining
While I'm not a religious person, and you won't be seeing me give money to any
church, it's not that simple. Firstly, the idea that you can calculate the
loss in taxes by just applying the tax on paper is fundamentally incorrect,
since the tax itself creates an incentive _not_ to spend money that way.

Secondly, churches spend part of the money on social assistance, and so a
reduction in their income may increase the funding needs for governmental
assistance programs.

I'm not fundamentally opposed to cutting tax breaks for churches, but living
in a country where recent tax increases have lead to a massive tax revenue
_reduction_ , I felt the need to point out that you probably _couldn't_ fund
28 rovers with it.

~~~
ericssmith
"churches spend part of the money on social assistance"

As a vehicle for proselytizing. Organizations that are dedicated to social
assistance have reporting requirements that churches don't. It's not
transparent at all what churches spend their money on. It's a murky
government-sponsored wealth redistribution scheme. Not unlike the financial
industry in that regard.

~~~
jacoblyles
"As a vehicle for proselytizing."

...which produces more social assistance.

~~~
freshhawk
and the need for it.

