Charlie Stross

2 settimane fa • •

Charlie Stross
2 settimane fa • •

A thought that occurred to me early in reading this take-down of NASA's Orion capsule is that NASA is now 67 years old, and we shaved apes are *terrible* at building institutions that function for more than an average human life expectancy, on the order of 70-80 years.

Even before Trump, NASA was probably likely to wither and die before 2050. Now I think it'll be lucky it make it to 2030.
spacey.space/@nyrath/115485574…

Winchell Chung ⚛🚀 (@nyrath@spacey.space)

https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2025/10/31/nasas-orion-space-capsule-is-flaming-garbage/

^{Spacey Space}

in reply to Charlie Stross

Brian Gordon

in reply to Charlie Stross • 2 settimane fa • •

I predicted (guessed!) in 2005 that civilization-as-we-know-it would collapse by 2030, and unfortunately I may be right. I was thinking that #ClimateChange, peak oil, and democratic decay would do us in. We found more oil, but that turned out to be a bad thing.

"NASA is now 67 years old, and we shaved apes are *terrible* at building institutions that function for more than an average human life expectancy, on the order of 70-80 years."

#Collapse #NASA

in reply to Charlie Stross

Dr. Eric J. Fielding, PhD

in reply to Charlie Stross • 2 settimane fa • •

I hope that NASA can survive as a government agency longer than 2030. I think that NASA is the most popular agency of the U.S. government with the public. The Orion spacecraft and Space Launch System rocket may not have a long future but NASA does many other things, including Earth Observation and planetary science.

in reply to Dr. Eric J. Fielding, PhD

Charlie Stross

in reply to Dr. Eric J. Fielding, PhD • 2 settimane fa • •

@EricFielding Your baseline assumption is that the US government itself survives longer than 2030. Until November 2024 that was a very solid bet: now it's much less certain. (Whether you'll still have a democracy after November 2026 is now in question.)

@Dr. Eric J. Fielding, PhD

in reply to Charlie Stross

Electropict

in reply to Charlie Stross • 2 settimane fa • •

Sensitive content

in reply to Charlie Stross

Eleanor Saitta

in reply to Charlie Stross • 2 settimane fa • •

If it does, of will be entirely and only because of a) systematic underfunding vs. the benefit it delivered to society, industry, and the country since at least the early 90s, and b) repeated ridiculous presidential priority switches that have nothing to do with what would be useful. Neither of those is a NASA issue as such.

in reply to Eleanor Saitta

Charlie Stross

in reply to Eleanor Saitta • 2 settimane fa • •

@dymaxion I think you discount (c) a regime motivated by actual malicious intent towards the United States of America, with a side-order of graft and corruption (I'm thinking of Project 2025 and Donald Trump here).

@Eleanor Saitta

in reply to Charlie Stross

Eleanor Saitta

in reply to Charlie Stross • 2 settimane fa • •

Oh sure. But that, like my a and b above, has nothing to do with NASA as such.

in reply to Eleanor Saitta

Charlie Stross

in reply to Eleanor Saitta • 2 settimane fa • •

@dymaxion So all three options can be condensed to "enemy action"!

@Eleanor Saitta

in reply to Charlie Stross

Eleanor Saitta

in reply to Charlie Stross • 2 settimane fa • •

There was a certain amount of plausible deniability until recently, even if the Mars stuff did stretch the boundaries of the probable.

in reply to Charlie Stross

Rob Landley

in reply to Charlie Stross • 2 settimane fa • •

After Challenger exploded they put Dan Quayle in charge, but the real issue was Boomers took over. Neil Armstrong was 38 when he landed on the moon: in 1969 the oldest Boomer was 23.

FDR's New Deal and the WWII veterans did amazing things, which the Boomers inherited and took credit for. The WHO repurposed WWII supply chains in 1948 and declared war on smallpox 1958. Since Boomers took that over they have eliminated zero diseases.

The Baby Boom has collected value, not created it.

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IanMoore3000

in reply to Rob Landley • 2 settimane fa • •

@landley not sure I'd blame the boomers for WHO's failure to eliminate more diseases. I suspect it's more that all the easily eliminated ones are gone. Also the concept of boomers is a bit Euro-American and not everyone in senior positions in the WHO is from that part of the world.

@Rob Landley

in reply to IanMoore3000

Rob Landley

in reply to IanMoore3000 • 2 settimane fa • •

@IanMoore3000 You think eliminating smallpox was _easy_? The follow-through AFTER they thought they'd won took a decade. That's the missing part: Boomers fail the marshmallow test and stop taking their antibiotics when they feel better.

We came pretty close to eliminating polio and tuberculosis (thanks Obama: csis.org/blogs/smart-global-he…). Jimmy Carter's retirement project was trying to eliminate guinea worms (which en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caduceus shows the classic treatment for).

staff carried by Hermes in Greek mythology

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@IanMoore3000

in reply to Rob Landley

Charlie Stross

in reply to Rob Landley • 2 settimane fa • •

@landley @IanMoore3000 Bacterial antibiotic resistance wasn't just boomers not finishing their antibiotic prescriptions, though: a lot of it comes from US agricultural practices (copied in the developing world, illegal in the EU) of dosing livestock with antibiotics to promote weight gain. (Which it does.) This turned the entire agricultural sector into a forced evolution lab, and the boomers were mostly not the farm owners or industry lobbyists at the time this happened (1960s onwards).

@Rob Landley @IanMoore3000

in reply to Charlie Stross

Rob Landley

in reply to Charlie Stross • 2 settimane fa • •

@IanMoore3000 Oh sure. I was trying to do a metaphor.

@IanMoore3000

in reply to Rob Landley

Timo

in reply to Rob Landley • 2 settimane fa • •

@landley I'm assuming by boomers you mean the first wave of baby boomers, the ones born before 1954, the ones that could get drafted. The ones that did all the cultural revolutions, the ones that marched for peace, the ones that all voted for Reagan once they couldn't get drafted, the ones getting fewer and fewer every day. There's a lot of later boomers who had nothing to do with what you say they did. The first wave clogged the jobs ahead of us for 40 years.

@Rob Landley

in reply to Timo

Charlie Stross

in reply to Timo • 2 settimane fa • •

@timo21 @landley "Late boomers" oh you mean Generation X, the forgotten generation. (My generation.)

@Rob Landley @Timo

in reply to Rob Landley

MidgePhoto

in reply to Rob Landley • 1 settimana fa • •

@landley
Got close to Polio.
Who eliminated Rinderpest? (Not my area either way).

We are close to eliminating cervical cancer of the sorts caused by human papilloma viruses and genital warts as a side effect.

Each reversal in those is caused by religious nuts. (And Americans) We are still making progress on the long job of eliminating that.

@Rob Landley

in reply to MidgePhoto

Charlie Stross

in reply to MidgePhoto • 1 settimana fa • •

@Photo55 @landley

You forgot "got close to Polio ... then the goddamn CIA fucked everything up for *everyone* by going door to door in Pakistan looking for Bin Laden while pretending (badly) to be a Polio vaccination team". And now we can't have nice things (like not living on a world where children end up paralysed) because of George W. Bush.

Thanks, America!

@Rob Landley @MidgePhoto

in reply to Charlie Stross

MidgePhoto

in reply to Charlie Stross • 1 settimana fa • •

@landley "religious nuts (and Americans).
Also Boko Haram in Nigeria.
Almost as if a mind-virus regarded immunisation against physical diseases as inimical.

America didn't sign the Geneva Conventions, I think.

@Rob Landley

in reply to MidgePhoto

Charlie Stross

in reply to MidgePhoto • 1 settimana fa • •

@Photo55 @landley Authoritarian personalities have *weird* hang-ups about their physical integrity—they assume determination is a substitute for a working immune system at fighting off diseases, and anything that smacks of modernity (like medicine) is a liberal conspiracy to pollute their precious bodily fluids. Because it all somehow comes down to patriarchal attitudes to sex with them.

@Rob Landley @MidgePhoto

in reply to Charlie Stross

MidgePhoto

in reply to Charlie Stross • 1 settimana fa • •

@landley

I suppose _some_ of them are sincere.

@Rob Landley

in reply to Charlie Stross

MidgePhoto

in reply to Charlie Stross • 1 settimana fa • •

@landley Bush was a disaster in many ways.

@Rob Landley

in reply to Charlie Stross

Jocelynephiliac :reclaimer:

in reply to Charlie Stross • 2 settimane fa • •

@vmstan @nyrath at this point I'll be surprised if the united states make it to 2030

@Michael Stanclift @Winchell Chung ⚛🚀

in reply to Charlie Stross

Elena ``of Valhalla''

in reply to Charlie Stross • 1 settimana fa •

@Charlie Stross for sure, the probability at founding that any institution will survive for 80 years are pretty slim

but I wonder if the probability of a 67 years old institution to survive 80 more years aren't significantly higher: they should have already gone through at least a couple of generational changes and other events that cause the early failure of most institutions.

We do have a big handful of examples of institutions that lasted for centuries, or even millennia (not unchanged, and in many cases their current state wouldn't be recognized by the people from the time of their founding, but they are still there)

@Charlie Stross

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in reply to Elena ``of Valhalla''

Charlie Stross

in reply to Elena ``of Valhalla'' • 1 settimana fa • •

@valhalla Yes, but NASA is an agency of the United States government; if the USA fails to survive in even a loose approximation of its current organizational structure, NASA will cease to exist. And right now the USA looks very unstable.

@Elena ``of Valhalla''

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