alcoholicorn [comrade/them, doe/deer]

Back in the early 70s, NASA engineer tests on a part indicated that a joint with 2 O-rings was too wide and could expose the o-ring. Northrop Grumman and NASA’s project manager said it was fine, 2 o-rings meant one was redundent right? and the design made it into the solid rocket booster.

Then in 1977, a different test indicated 1 oring was letting gas during certain levels of mechanical stress. The engineers proposed a solution, which was ignored.

Then in 1980, they asked to test what would happen if 1 oring weren’t there and what would happen if the oring was cold. This was denied.

Then in 1981, a return booster was inspected and they found soot between the orings and one eroded, and the problem was added to the critical issues list. And ignored.

This happened again in 1984.

In 1985, they realized when the oring was cold at launch, the problem got way worse. Northrop Grumman finally changed the design to fix it.

But they had a bunch of the old, unsafe part laying around, and NASA didn’t want to miss deadlines, so in January of 1986, they launched a shuttle with the part that they knew was unsafe in cold conditions, coldest morning they’d ever launched and a middle-school class watched a live stream of their teacher exploding 10 miles in the air.

A company tried that in 1999/2000, just before the dot com bust.

You got a $500 PC for free, but were locked into a contract with an ISP and had to spend 10 hours a week on the PC, and 1/3 of the screen was ads at all times.

We’re moving in that direction, but nothing is free.

I don’t think it has a meaningful effect. Libs call themselves socialists all the time. For every case you’re able to argue for socialism and not have people’s brains shut down, you get 10 “those tankies aren’t real socialists! Socialism is when you for food stamps and means-tested college subsidies”

we’re not talking about the nature of the system here, we’re talking about this specific instance.

If I buy a million lotto tickets that have a 50% payout, it would be incomplete if not deceptive to point at one ticket and say “Well you might win 100 bucks, we don’t really know” instead of “the reason they’re selling you those tickets is because the risk and expense is greater than the payout.”

Hiring people is extremely expensive and having those people do nothing between projects is even more so.

That’s still an example of NASA eating an expense of R&D while Lockheed gets the profits.

Just because a river flows south doesn’t mean you couldn’t find an eddy in the currents that flows north for a few seconds.

But the water still has nowhere to flow but south. If the cost was less than expected return, these companies would do this research internally. Even if for just one moment, one tiny aspect of the program did make a profit, it wouldn’t change the nature of the system.

If NASA was a profitable enterprise, it wouldn’t require external funding, and Lockheed and co would be doing that research themselves to keep that profit for themselves.

NASA isn’t like CNSA or Roscosmos in that they don’t make their own rockets. It exists first and foremost to funnel money to aerospace contractors by either directly contracting with them or providing R&D in cases where cost/risk is greater than expected profit.

A similar relationship exists with publicly funded universities selling patents to pharma.

I know right? Of course it’s sold at a loss, that’s why NASA is paying Boeing to do the research.

Can’t have Boeing waste money on R&D, that would hurt their shareholders.

Both sides developed jet engines. The allies didn’t get them into a fighter until after the war though.

lol I clicked your name to see if you were doing a bit, and apparently you don’t tip servers.

People who deserve money, according to Huge Anus:

[❌]Food service workers

[❌]Hollywood workers

[❌]Tech workers

[✅]Landlords, Shareholders, copyright trolls, and IP rights giants

You think people renting out their property is immoral?

Correct. All wealth is the product of labor, therefore rent and profit are theft, and workers taking back a bit of the wealth stolen from them is good.

I think I see the confusion, you believe in private and intellectual property.

I’m quite aware there’s some silly laws written by those same billionaire’s lobbies and passed by their politicians.

Copying something is quite obviously not stealing from someone.

But again, stealing back some of the wealth the billionaires have stolen from us is morally good. If you’re not stealing from them, you’re stealing from your family to support your family’s further deprivation.

It’s not theft, because it doesn’t deprive the original owner of anything.

But if it did, theft from billionaire hollywood studio owners is cool and good.

You’re not paying the wages of the hollywood workers, you’re just increasing the funds the studios have to break the worker’s strikes and further depress their conditions.

But you can watch those movies and shows for free. The only part you’re paying for are the ads.