>>13732318>... how come?Because they lie, and with good reason
Think about it, you're a politician and you've got to vote on a bill to approve NASA's budget for the next fiscal year. You've got a bunch of other things that you consider more important to yourself, such as the roads being upgraded in Podunk or the education budget in Hick County or what the fuck ever. And then you see the NASA budget, which is a tiny fraction of everything but is still contesting for the pie.
Those eggheads at NASA want to fund some sort of 'rover' on another planet, you don't give a god damn fuck about that sort of shit and building the god damned things is expensive as it is, just imagine how much more expensive it might be hiring a whole god damned team of eggheads to run the thing indefinitely. Of course, you're not entirely opposed to building rovers because some of the components are made in a part of the country you represent. What are you going to be more amenable to:
>a rover that costs $2b to build and launched with a proposed mission life of 18 months.>a rover that costs $2b to build and will work for upwards of a decadeBear in mind that after it's built you have no further interest in it and any further money spent on such a project is money that could be spent on pork in your district.
So the eggheads tell some white lies. And it turns out those rovers keep on going, and going, and going. But by time you might cotton on to the fact that they were bullshitting you, you've already moved on with your life, other fish to fry. And a few years later when they propose building another rover, you don't think about how long the last one kept going, you merely see the contract that says X% of components will be built by companies in the place you represent. You pull out your signing pen and the cycle repeats.
