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Smithsonian Using Kickstart Campaign To Save Armstrong's Moon Suit
qpgmr writes: The Smithsonian is appealing for assistance to raise enough money to preserve Neil Armstrong's moon suit. The "Reboot the Suit: Bring Back Neil Armstrong's Spacesuit" campaign launched Monday on Kickstarter, marking 46 years since Armstrong's moonwalk in 1969. Smithsonian reports: "....on the anniversary of that 'small step for a man,' the Smithsonian Institution announced a plan of action that is, in its own way, a giant leap for funding the job with what the Institution’s first federal Kickstarter campaign. With a goal of raising $500,000 in 30 days—by offering incentives such as exclusive updates to 3D printed facsimiles of the space suit gloves—museum officials hope to be able to unveil a restored spacesuit by the time of the 50th anniversary of the moon landing four years from now, in 2019."
RTFA: "The Smithsonian’s federal funds—about 70 percent of its resources—are restricted to safeguarding collections, research and the costs associated with operating and maintaining the museums. But exhibitions, public programs and the recent digitization of the collection have largely been privately funded."
Your math is off a bit. That's 711M for Salaries AND EXPENSES. Actual salaries is ~300M based on their request for a 1% raise of 3M.
So they make roughly 50k/yr on average.
Actually, plenty of people do want to cut that budget, but can't for ideological reasons.
The US spends just over 17% of GDP on health care, which is a figure only exceeded by Tuvalu. Most developed countries (e.g. most of Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Japan) the figure is around 9-10% of GDP. Even France spends less than 12%.
So, yes, you could cut that figure by a third simply by building a real public health system.
I don't know if Obamacare has helped or will help in any significant way. Given that the AMA supported it, probably not.
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Sorry... nationalizing stuff is not a panacea.
Who said anything about nationalizing anything? A real healthcare system doesn't have to be nationalised.
Take the Canadian system, as a prime example. As it is not something enumerated in either the constitution, or the British North America act before it, by default healthcare is under the jurisdiction of the provinces. Each province runs its own single-payer insurance system, and sets standards for care and outcomes. In turn, each province is divided into regional health authorities, which for the most part own and operate the hospitals in their region, as well as handle things like health inspections of restaurants, initial investigation of disease outbreaks, and so forth. In turn, unless they are on the hospital payroll (rare), doctors in turn are free to operate their practice as they see fit (private business, partnership, chain etc...) the only proviso being that they either have to be in the public system, or completely out of it, no double-dipping.
The net effect is that hospitals, and doctors are operated locally and in the case of hospitals, in a non-profit manner. This results in a reasonably efficient system that costs far less than the US system, while delivering similar or better outcomes.
...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
Just because you don't like to cost doesn't mean it's not accurate.
It is almost always more expensive to restore an old [anything] than it would be to build a lookalike from scratch. Materials fail and have to be very carefully repaired. Have you ever tried to repair fabric in a historically accurate way?
I happen to deal in buildings, and most people don't realize how complex it is to restore an old building while keeping as much of the historic content as possible. It means you spend $10000 to internally repair and strengthen a damaged beam that might cost $200 in steel and $350 in fabrication to replace. That trim work that's very similar - but not exactly the same profile - as the $1.10/LF chair rail at Home Depot will cost you $400 for a custom knife, $3/ft for the lumber, and $75/hr to have it milled, plus shipping and markup - and you're probably only going to be 20-30LF to patch in places where the old lumber could not be saved or where it was cut out (say for a door) and you're putting back the wall.
As for ilcdover - how many workers currently employed by them worked on the Apollo era suits and still remember all the techniques used for assembly? I'm going to guess the number is right around zero. How many of the materials used in modern suits they do have experience with match the condition of the materials used in Armstrong's suit? How many workers have used that material after it's been laying around for 50 years? How much are you willing to save to risk damaging the suit forever?
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
It does seem high, but comparing it to oil painting restoration isn't really fair. Oil paintings are well understood and repair is somewhat routine. We know what techniques to use, how materials will react etc. Plus, for that money you won't be getting fully insured work on a priceless bit of art.
For an Apollo era space suit a lot of the documentation has been lost, or at least needs to be found. Samples of the material need to be found to test processes on before using them on the real suit. Not just testing for discolouration and stuff like that, but testing for accelerated deterioration that might affect it in 10 or 20 years time. It's a new process on a unique artefact.
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SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC