• Declares new space race against China.

    Proceeds to dismantle space agency.

    wtf

    Is space just gonna became another funnel for moving money to companies like the military.


    ⓘ 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘶𝘴𝘦𝘳 𝘪𝘴 𝘴𝘶𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘰𝘧 𝘣𝘦𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢 𝘤𝘢𝘵. 𝘗𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘵 𝘢𝘯𝘺 𝘴𝘶𝘴𝘱𝘪𝘤𝘪𝘰𝘶𝘴 𝘣𝘦𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘪𝘰𝘳.

    • LeninWeave [none/use name, any]@hexbear.net
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      13 days ago

      Is space just gonna became another funnel for moving money to companies like the military.

      astronaut-1

      It’s obviously worse now, but the private contractor grift has been around for a long time.

  • Awoo [she/her]@hexbear.net
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    14 days ago

    Lmao this shit takes months of construction to custom build and tweak to get right and they’re just gonna toss the entire room out like you can just order one on the internet later

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        Anechoic chambers are all like this, they’re utterly soundproof rooms. They’re also supposedly only something humans can stay inside for short time periods because it gets uncomfortable when you start to realise you can hear the blood travelling through your own veins because of how silent it is.

        This one is set up for whatever the job of this antenna is. I don’t know enough about the antenna to comment on it.

          • Xavienth@lemmygrad.ml
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            13 days ago

            Can confirm. I’ve been in a room exactly like that, where they had an antenna mounted on one wall like the above picture, an RF reflector mounted on the opposite wall, and RF dampening cones on every surface, so that they could measure the frequency curve at a distance twice that of the size of the room (the curve changes with distance)

          • altphoto@lemmy.today
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            13 days ago

            Yes exactly. This is a room to test for signals, wanted or unwanted coming out of the devices to be tested. I know nothing about it so don’t spy on me please lol.

        • Bolshechick [she/her, kit/kit's]@hexbear.net
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          They’re also supposedly only something humans can stay inside for short time periods because it gets uncomfortable

          It’s true! I’ve been in one and it was uncanny as hell. I’ve also been in an echoic chamber where the tiniest little footstep or w/e echoes and echoes and echoes

        • hotcouchguy [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          13 days ago

          it gets uncomfortable when you start to realise you can hear the blood travelling through your own veins because of how silent it is.

          Wouldn’t be me, I’m built different, I got tinnitus

      • Looks similar to foam sound padding. Reducing waves (whether that be sound or something else) Presumably for creating a room without interference for the antenna.


        ⓘ 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘶𝘴𝘦𝘳 𝘪𝘴 𝘴𝘶𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘰𝘧 𝘣𝘦𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢 𝘤𝘢𝘵. 𝘗𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘵 𝘢𝘯𝘺 𝘴𝘶𝘴𝘱𝘪𝘤𝘪𝘰𝘶𝘴 𝘣𝘦𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘪𝘰𝘳.

      • sodium_nitride [she/her, any]@hexbear.net
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        13 days ago

        It simulates the conditions the antenna will find in space, where everything else is at a “large” distance from the antenna.

        It’s gonna be expensive to build cause you need to build it to pretty high standards. Even small defects can cause interference in your data.

  • sodium_nitride [she/her, any]@hexbear.net
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    14 days ago

    Smh they could just give it to me.

    For instance, a building housing Goddard’s ElectroMagnetic Anechoic Chamber (GEMAC), an extremely important piece of equipment for testing spacecraft antennas, is being shuttered.

    Meanwhile the US has been making a big rukus about getting to the moon before China (a race that the Chinese didn’t know they were in, and are basically 20 years ahead of the US in). This is how they will get to the moon.

    The closures could impact the launch of the JWST’s successor, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, as well as its Dragonfly program, which is hoping to send a large helicopter to Saturn’s largest moon — concerns that a NASA spokesperson has since denied.

    RIP 🙏

    I can’t even joke about ts.

    A NASA spokesperson told the broadcaster that the closures are all part of an existing “strategic consolidation” plan that shouldn’t impact existing projects.

    Yeah I’m strategically consolidating my assets into the trash can. comrade-raccoon

    • ourtimewillcome [any]@hexbear.net
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      a race that the Chinese didn’t know they were in, and are basically 20 years ahead of the US in

      Exactly! This is also why I’m so frustrated with the whole “space race” narrative in the west. Because

      • a) the USSR didn’t see itself as participating in a race
      • b) it won.

    • Evilsandwichman [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      14 days ago

      are basically 20 years ahead of the US in

      China’s 20 years ahead of us in basic infrastructure; I think 20 years is being generous to us (I’m already being generous to us to say that China’s only ahead in infrastructure by 20 years)

      They’re funding the sciences, meanwhile our teachers are springing out of pocket to teach students and Trump’s also decided to dismantle the department of education (which…you know, I’m not sure dems are going to bring back)

        • alexei_1917 [mirror/your pronouns]@hexbear.net
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          7 days ago

          “You want my taxes payin’ to educate other people’s kids!? If you can’t afford 'em, don’t make 'em! If I don’t have kids, why should I pay for schools!?” -The average American “fiscal conservative” if public schools were a new concept that you were trying to start nowadays.

  • BigWeed [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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    14 days ago

    I have an entire plant tissue culture lab that I’ve paid basically nothing for from government auctions. Incredibly expensive stuff but almost nobody bids on it. I’m basically out of room for more stuff but some of it doesn’t get bid on and ends up in the garbage. Like a pallet of lab stuff for $10 w/ 0 bids.

          • BigWeed [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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            13 days ago

            They had a whole liquid cryo system go for less than $1k. Been trying to avoid getting any mass specs but they come up a lot. I’ve been shopping here for the past like 6 months and heres my haul so far:

            • Harvey Sterilemax autoclave: $10
            • Airclean 600 laminar flow hood (new in box): $400
            • 2x milli-q advantage a10 water filters (w/ filters): $20 each
            • Shakers, rockers, and scales: ~$10 in pallet deals
            • Incubating orbital shaker: $100
            • Oscilloscope: $10 in pallet
            • nikon ts100 inverted microscope w/ camera attachment: $70
            • Olympus CK2: $50
            • Accuspin 1 centrifuge: $20
            • spicy pancake@lemmy.zip
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              12 days ago

              oh my god. all you need now is the grad students to do the repetitive pipetting and you’ll be a whole ass university for less than the price of a high end laptop

          • HexaSnoot [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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            What exactly is a TEM?

            Edit: A microscope that kills bugs by taking the coolest images of them. No judgement, even if I wouldn’t do it myself, I’m very glad other people do it for everyone else to see. Speaking of, if you get it I hope you upload some images! Lots of insects have a surprising amount of details up close, like their true number of eyes.

            I feel this process could give an already-dead bug dignity. I try to rescue bees sometimes, but some of them are expired already when I try to help them. I really like bees so I wish I had a way to preserve their image, and return them to nature.

              • spicy pancake@lemmy.zip
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                i used to look at the outsides of single-celled organisms with 'em, it’s pretty neat

                electron microscopes truly are the most “you change the result by looking at it” instrument though. I burned many a hole in precious one-of-a-kind samples by looking at them too hard 😭

        • KoboldKomrade [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          I saw a lot of japanese yugioh cards on there for like $10. If it weren’t in Arizona (I think it was), I’d grab it and hope some of them were $$.

  • GrouchyGrouse [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    14 days ago

    Remember: this kind of slash-and-burn “break stuff” leadership will spur creative and entrepreneurial endeavors. Dennis Prager told me all about this part.

    • theturtlemoves [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      13 days ago

      I know this is a joke, but NASA does incredibly important work running weather satellites and remote sensing stuff. They also maintain archives (with free public access) of the data collected by these satellites, going back decades.

      • Blakey [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        I thought that stuff was NOAA?

        Gotta say as a non-seppo firing up a browser session to look at their website and being greeted with “the government is shut down” is super bizarre. The last time a budget bill failed to pass here was fifty fuckin years ago and the yanks used it to coup Gough Whitlam because he did a socialised health care.

        • theturtlemoves [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          There’s some overlap, but in general you need NASA to move the satellites from earth to orbit, maintain them and collect and process the data they send. (The raw data from satellites are things like ‘reflectance at x wavelength’ which can’t be used directly. You need to do complicated black magic to convert that into say temperature or crop cover.)

  • acab_means_cop_Dva [they/them]@hexbear.net
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    14 days ago

    On the other hand, how are post-society scavengers supposed to scrounge up scuffed lost old technology in the wreckage of civilization if we don’t throw out the prototype solar sails and DARPA classified research power cells first and let it get mixed in with the other detritus?

    • alexei_1917 [mirror/your pronouns]@hexbear.net
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      7 days ago

      I mean, I like steampunk as much as the next 2000s kid who likes retro tech from before I was born, but you can’t run a real modern government on steampunk technology. Not to mention the amount of fossil fuels that burns, if you’re not allowed to cheat and use electric heating powered by renewable energy to create the steam. As much as I’d like to see a desperate government try to build very impressive things to run on primarily steam power in order to complete basic government functions in the modern world, using the scientific resources they’re no longer allowed to use on more useful public health and safety research. And there’s something about fascists relying on steam powered machines while the rest of the world has modern electricity and computers and scientific equipment, that makes excellent social commentary on regressive ideology.

      • InevitableSwing [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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        7 days ago

        And there’s something about fascists relying on steam powered machines while the rest of the world has modern electricity and computers and scientific equipment, that makes excellent social commentary on regressive ideology.

        Trump’s hold on the GOP is beyond scary. He only needs to say “______________ is woke so bad,” and then the republicans norm is to agree. He could say “Cancer research is woke so bad,” and his hogs would hoot and holler for cancer.

        • alexei_1917 [mirror/your pronouns]@hexbear.net
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          I bet if he called capitalism woke, he could get the “children of the Cold War” my dad’s age to hoot and holler for communism. Not that he would, because the other GOP classic line is to call anything they don’t like communist, but that’s how self-contradictory they all are under his influence.

          Huh. I wonder if socialists posing as MAGA chuds and calling capitalism woke would produce anything funny.

  • Evilsandwichman [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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    14 days ago

    Wait…is NASA concerned because incredibly specialized science equipment is being thrown out as if it was garbage…or is it that garbage is incredibly specialized science equipment? Cause like…I’d happily donate my garbage to NASA; heck, just like modern phones are more powerful than early computers, my trashbin may contain more advanced equipment than anything NASA’s had for decades.