alt Hacker NewsWhat really puts all of this into perspective for me is I work in academia and one of my friends works for a defense contractor. He told me the maintenance cost per flight hour of F-35 was a bit more than $40k, which is significantly more than I make in a year as a grad student. It's crazy basic science is what's been the focus of so many cuts while it's so cheap.
Replies
How many million graduate students do you need to give the US the military hegemony and political influence over allies and adversaries that the F-35 program provides ?
Looked at from a policy maker's viewpoint, things look very different.
Because it’s an excuse, the trump admin is lying. All the time, you should never take them at their words. They have never been about cutting costs. Just look at Trump deficit. They are very openly going after science because it goes against the fake reality they are selling to their cult members
The cuts that don't make much economical sense are ideological, its because they need to give something to that part of the coalition. Somewhere someone is having an erection when hears about these cuts and say something like despite everything supporting Trump was worth it after all.
Someone has to pay for the kings mistakes and it might as well be you.
Basic science is never cheap, but none of that money goes to the grad students.
Then again, military weapons are indeed insanely expensive.
I’m sure this has nothing to do with 3.1 million graduate students versus 500 F-35s.
For actual context, F-35 program receives $9B per year (amortized over lifetime), which is $3000 per year per graduate student. Erasing the F-35 program entirely would make something like a 10% difference in graduate wages, while destroying the US Air Force as a modern military.
So no — your request to fund graduate students is more expensive than the F-35 program and delivers at best marginal results.
When you math through per unit or per capita or per year, we already spend more on education and science than the military — and it’s unclear further science funding to the detriment of the military would improve things.
I understand why you want more money, though.
It's cheap but it's prestigious. Ideologues and fascists hate that.
[dead]
I wouldn't assume that this is about cost cutting. If the goal were saving money, the cheapest option by far would be to leave the hardware in the water and just stop funding the monitoring. Instead the plan is an expensive operation to send ships out to extract 900+ instruments from under two miles of ocean.
It's clear that this is driven by performative climate denialism and a pro fossil fuel stance. The Trump administration made a billion dollar deal with an energy company to stop construction of offshore wind farms and redirect the investment into fossil fuel projects. Trump constantly talks about the "green new scam" and "climate alarmism". And on top of signaling to his base, Trump met with oil executives at Mar-a-Lago before the 2024 election and pitched them on rolling back climate regulation in exchange for $1B in campaign cash. Destroying the instruments that would document the consequences and might spark alarm and activism is one way to hold up his end of the deal.