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Posted

NASA’s $349 million monument to its drift

 

In June, NASA finished work on a huge construction project here in Mississippi: a $349 million laboratory tower, designed to test a new rocket engine in a chamber that mimicked the vacuum of space.

Then, NASA did something odd.

As soon as the work was done, it shut the tower down. The project was officially “mothballed” — closed up and left empty — without ever being used.

“You lock the door, so nobody gets in and hurts themselves,” said Daniel Dumbacher, a former NASA official who oversaw the project.

The reason for the shutdown: The new tower — called the A-3 test stand — was useless. Just as expected. The rocket program it was designed for had been canceled in 2010.

But, at first, cautious NASA bureaucrats didn’t want to stop the construction on their own authority. And then Congress — at the urging of a senator from Mississippi — swooped in and ordered the agency to finish the tower, no matter what.

The result was that NASA spent four more years building something it didn’t need. Now, the agency will spend about $700,000 a year to maintain it in disuse.

 

Posted

Shut up, it's good for the economy. Governments are most effective when they are lavishly throwing around money, because this increases aggregate demand. Increasing aggregate demand is like a mighty superhero which bashes deflationary depravity with a mjolnir hammer. If governments were stingy during times like these, we'd be poor forever and our debt burden would increase endlessly, leaving us all in a bottomless pit of debt-slave quasi-neo-serfdom.

Posted

I guess that's $349 million that didn't go toward building another nuclear missile?

 

When you have the ability to wish currency out of thin air, no two expenditures are mutually exclusive.

  • Upvote 1
Posted

Just like how President Obama wastes tens of millions a pop on vacations practically every few weeks....
It seems like he has spent far more time on vcation than even attempting to look like he is working.

 

and yet many still wonder why the national debit is increasing at an ever accelerating pace.....

  • 3 weeks later...
Posted

Just like how President Obama wastes tens of millions a pop on vacations practically every few weeks....

It seems like he has spent far more time on vcation than even attempting to look like he is working.

 

and yet many still wonder why the national debit is increasing at an ever accelerating pace.....

TBH that might be for the best.

 

I hope the next president just goes on vacation for his entire term. Better absent than doing harm.

  • Upvote 1
  • 2 weeks later...
Posted

TBH that might be for the best.

 

I hope the next president just goes on vacation for his entire term. Better absent than doing harm.

 

Possibly, but the debit it helps increase is doing far more harm.

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