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ceejayoz parent
> It's insane to "throw" hundred of billions of USD for Artemis and not invest 1 billion for the comms infrastructure.

Perhaps, but that's largely not in NASA's control; Congress appropriates money for specific purposes. NASA can't legally go grab Artemis money and shift it over to DSN.

dylan604
The DSN has facilities located around the globe which is most definitely not in Congressional districts, so it's not capable of being a jobs program. That might help explain why it gets such little attention.
toomuchtodo
Call your Congressperson. Ask them to support an appropriation specifically for Nasa's DSN. It only takes 5-10 minutes.

https://www.congress.gov/members/find-your-member

"Hello, my name is $name. I am asking you to either sponsor legislation or to support legislation sponsored by another memeber of Congress to increase funding for NASA's Deep Space Network to an appropriate level, which to my understanding is roughly $700M, about $500M more than current allocated. I'm sure you are aware of the enormous amount of value that we enjoy from space science [1], and therefore why it is crucial NASA has the capability to continue to operate this communications network in order to enable that ongoing science. Thank you for your time."

They will ask for your zip code and possibly contact info to follow up (you'll usually get a letter or email from your rep on the topic).

> The agency's internal watchdog said a project to upgrade the three DSN sites with more 34-meter antennas and higher-power transmitters is five years behind schedule, and the cost of the upgrades has increased to $706 million. That expense takes a long time to pay off for the DSN's budget account, which has fallen from an annual level of about $250 million in 2010 to about $200 million today.

[1] https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/files/Benefits-Stem... (if you want specific value talking points)

anigbrowl
Sending a letter is probably more efficient and effective than making a phone call. But bear in mind that many sensible proposals are DOA if they don't fit neatly into the hyperpartisan agenda that obtains in Congress at present. Some lawmakers would be against any sort of proposal that involves increasing spending, and when one party has a razor thin majority such ideologues have leverage disproportionate to their numbers.
toomuchtodo
For sure, but it only takes a few minutes to make the call versus asking folks here to write a letter. Default to action and all that jazz. A call is better than nothing.
dylan604
Hi, 1999 called. Today, people are more along the lines of "What's a call?"

The old rule was congress critters weighted a personal letter with highest weight over a form letter, over a call, over an email. Now, staffers are of younger age, and they are the gate keepers of what gets passed along. So that order of weighting may be different now. Then again, that's probably also highly dependent on the specific congress critter. AOC may be much more open to tweets/emails/etc vs Mitch McConnell or similar aged someone

toomuchtodo
A representative from the EFF's policy team I met at def con a few weeks back mentioned that calls are still weighted heavily. YMMV.
anigbrowl
Writing and printing a letter takes about 5 minutes, phone calls are not that time effective unless you already know the person you're calling, in my experience. Calling Congress I would expect to be on hold for a long time, plus staffers know that you're reading a script, and will also discount it because you have a general ask rather than saying 'Please vote (yes/no) on HR ####'.
NKosmatos
I agree, but perhaps they should've included in the Artemis budget a small item for comms investment/modernization. Or even better spread out the DSN cost in all missions (JWST, Orion...) and also ask partners like ESA and JAXA to help cover the costs.
ajmurmann
I fear that as soon as something becomes this controlled by politics, reasonable project decisions take the backseat to political concerns, no matter what any participant's motivations and reasoning is.

They might have tried attaching this to Artemis, as you suggest, but gotten political pushback. They might have known that they can get Artemis approved without the DSN improvement and then hold Artemis hostage for DSN improvements. DSN money might have ended in the wrong Congress person's district. So many possible political reasons we might never know

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