JohnBarentine,
@JohnBarentine@astrodon.social avatar

that fortunately someone has already invented a term that was on my mind but for which no word seemed to already exist.

Thank you, Urban Dictionary: https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Spacewashing

dfrancis,
@dfrancis@mstdn.social avatar

@JohnBarentine NASA's budget in 2023 was about $25 billion. The defense budget for 2023 was over $800 billion and the welfare budget was over $1 trillion. They're not "hiding" anything behind NASA, the idea is ridiculous. Ditto for private space companies; SpaceX spent about $1 billion, Blue Origin probably about the same. The space program has been accused of stealing funding from social programs since it started and that's just nonsense.

JohnBarentine,
@JohnBarentine@astrodon.social avatar

@dfrancis I'm not sure I understand your comment. "Spacewashing" is about the way activities in space are represented in terms of their aims or objectives versus what affects they actually have. What you wrote seems to have more to do with the cost of the space program and/or defense versus other kinds of government spending. Am I reading it wrong?

dfrancis,
@dfrancis@mstdn.social avatar

@JohnBarentine It is the same kind of attack on space programs I have seen all my life, claiming that money spent on them is somehow "wasted" or "stolen" from social programs. It's tiring and it's wrong.

JohnBarentine,
@JohnBarentine@astrodon.social avatar

@dfrancis We are talking about different things.

michael_w_busch,
@michael_w_busch@mastodon.online avatar

@dfrancis That is not what @JohnBarentine is talking about.

"spacewashing" is things like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, and SpaceX promoting their roles in supplying NASA missions while they make huge amounts of money out of weapons contracts.

e.g. Lockheed Martin alone makes several times NASA's entire budget from its DoD contracts.

AskPippa,
@AskPippa@c.im avatar

@michael_w_busch @dfrancis @JohnBarentine That Urban dictionary definition is somewhat unclear and can easily be interpreted as negative for the whole space program.

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