I will concede that the funding NASA is a subtle and roundabout way of funding the military, absolutely.
I agree with you, but rather than cut out NASA spending entirely, let’s just limit it to no more than 1% of the federal budget.
That still leaves 99% of the budget for your ‘more pressing needs’, but keeps a tiny investment in some really cool stuff that has the potential for huge payoffs.
Such an insignificant number as 1% won’t really affect much of anything.
(BTW, the real number is more like 0.6%. NASA isn’t causing the federal budget problems.
Budget of NASA - Wikipedia)
Let’s say that my family makes $100K a year and I pay in 25% in taxes making it an even 25K in taxes. At .8%, that means I’m spending $200 a year for NASA. (Yes, it’s .8% of the budget, but let’s pretend that the budget is actually balanced and we’re not spending more than we’re taking in).
That’s really not so bad considering the ROI, but I’d feel better about it if we saw more corporate sponsorship going on for these missions. Turn the next space shuttle into some kind of NASCAR-looking machine and sell that white space as revenue. Have an astronaut drink a Coke or watch a video on an iPhone for Verizon.
This is also a difficult point to argue for/against.
Research into “pure science” can certainly lead to meaningful practical discoveries. But research into practical discoveries can ALSO lead to other meaningful practical discoveries.
In the process of actively looking for a cure for cancer, we may also find the cure for Alzheimer’s. Great thing is, BOTH results are postive and meaningful and help humanity right here right now.
Sending humans to Mars, might also result in the cure for Alzheimer’s in some roundabout way. But we only really have one meaningful result from this example, and a handful of people playing around on a distant planet wasting our money.
My examples may not be great, but they illustrate the issue of return-for-investment. I strongly feel that the return on the investment put into space exploration is much, much lower, than say directed cancer research.
Sure, everything has SOME positive aspect to… but you can put that spin on ANYTHING. Me shooting my neighbors and their children may have SOME postive effect for someone down the line, but I’d have to be insane to use that as a justification for it.
Exactly. Focusing on research with obvious practical applications is important, but somewhat self-limiting. Revolutionary discoveries tend to come about when people tackle grander challenges.
And you’d be 100% right. ARPANET was devised in 1969 by the Department of Defense in conjunction with leading technical universities. Nothing to do with the space program at all. However, it is a direct spinoff of defense spending.
In my earlier post, I was trying to make my point in a sort of “reductio ad absurdum” sort of way.
More specifically, what I was trying to say is that many of the causes of poverty, disease and lack of education aren’t things that any amount of money will solve or eradicate, and the people afflicted them will eventually die, just like everyone else. Throwing money at the problems without solving them isn’t good stewardship of public funds, even if it improves their lives in the bargain; you’re effectively taking someone’s money to give to someone else.
With the space program, there are tangible beneifts- scientific knowledge, technical development, technological research, educational benefits, and many benefits that were spinoffs from the space related research. The same thing goes for defense spending- the Internet, canned food, and countless other technological developments were directly spurred by military needs through the ages.
Nobody’s saying that such things could not have happened. Practical research does indeed produce practical solutions, which is why it’s valuable.
The point is that some of our grandest, most earth-shaking discoveries have occurred when people were NOT trying to tackle a practical issue. That’s the nature of discovery. When you don’t have a specific goal in mind, then you’re more likely to see the unexpected and find yourself facing a bold new frontier.
I think we have 2 different issues here. One is improvement/optimization/amelioration of known methods/devices. This can and should be done, but at some point you’ll hit some fundamental limit of the said method.
At this point you need to rely on new principles/concepts in order to advance further. Problem is, you have no idea what this new principle is; you have to discover it first. My point is that both ‘pure science’ and ‘practical research’ are needed in order to achieve sustained scientific progress.
‘Practical research’ is more predictable in terms of achievable results and return for money. ‘Pure research’ is less predictable, but is absolutely needed for obtaining advances in ‘practical research’.
BTW, I was serious about establishing Earth-independent human colonies as an application for the current space programs. We know that very bad things happen on Earth. We should do something about it. The space program seems like a viable long-term solution.
One argument I never see put forth is the fact that out in space lie the solutions to many of the world’s greatest problems, just waiting for us to come get them. Energy? There’s unlimited solar power out there just blasting past us, going to waste. Resources? There are massive, massive piles of metals, water, and organic material just sitting there waiting for us to pick them up, which we can do with exactly zero damage to the Earth’s environment.
Yes, I realize that there are huge hurdles and obstacles to overcome, and it seems virtually impossible that it will ever be cheaper and more efficient to go millions of miles outside of Earth’s gravity well to snag a few hundred tons of iron. And yet, the Earth is limited. There’s a price we pay for everything we use now. At some point, it seems to me that it will make economic sense, and the more practice we get now, the more practical problems that we solve now, the quicker we’ll be able to take advantage when that time comes.
It’s important to remember that the money isn’t just gone. It’s getting paid to employees and contractors and manufacturers, all of whom in turn employ people and all of whom will turn around and spend that money into the general economy. The space program is fiscal stimulus, and removing it would have effects. If anything, society pooling resources to accomplish tasks too big for individuals is what government is about.
As far as spending the money in alternate ways: everything is subject to diminishing returns. If we put the entire federal budget into curing cancer, we’d cure it faster, but not THAT MUCH faster. You get the most bang for the first buck, and it makes sense to have a lot of “first bucks” in the air at the same time, instead of focusing on a small number of problems and throwing everything at them.
Can I ask why is it always NASA that gets dinged in these fucking stupid arguments? 4497 Billion is going to be spent on security items between 2012-2016 vs. NASA’s budget of 91.4 over the same period. Take 10% from that security budget and you get roughly 5 shut down NASAs. I mean if shutting 1 NASA down for cancer is good, shutting 5 down and keeping 1 open must be the workings of some sort of god like creature.
Cite –> http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/budget/fy2012/assets/tables.pdf
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds the most discoveries, is not “Eureka!” (I found it!) but “That’s funny…” ~Isaac Asimov
How about, instead of cutting NASA to fund programs for the poor and sick, we cut the military? Or maybe, we raise taxes a tiny amount?
If the problem is that we don’t spend enough money on the poor and sick, then what does the NASA budget have to do with it? It’s not like that money is snatched out of the hands of widows and orphans.
Take a look around your room. Make note of everything you have that could be sold and the money given to the poor and sick. We produce literally a trillion dollars worth of goods and services every year in this country, and only a small fraction of those goods and services are for the poor and sick.
So why is NASA the first thing you think of when you think about helping the poor and sick? If we put all the goods and services produced in this country into a big pile, and then start figuring out things we can do without and use that money to help out the poor and sick, the very first thing you think of is NASA? Really?
Teaching a man to fish is better than merely feeding him for a day. Though I wasn’t necessarily talking about the specific people today that will die anyways. I’m not talking about saving John and his family down the street from going hungry, but about working to find solutions to hunger, in general. Same goes for disease and education. I think if the majority of the world were as educated and as healthy as the better half of Americans, society as a whole might be making much quicker scientific and social progress (which would then be passed onto future generations).
I don’t buy the whole financial-stimulus argument one bit. You can achieve the same financial stimulus by funding health research, for example. The positive thing to this is that a cure for cancer or Alzheimer’s may be the side-effect of this financial stimulus. I don’t believe the “side-effects” of space exploration is quite as useful. (They exist, but are comparatively weak - but this is just my opinion.)
I also understand your view on diminishing returns, and in many cases I would agree that it is true. But as I stated before, I believe there are plenty of problems in the world right now that don’t even have that first buck to get it off the ground.
I understand. I believe there are “social programs” in this world that provide lots of return, some return, and no return. I’d put NASA right in the middle. As many have pointed out there ARE plenty of useful things to come out of it, for both today and for the future.
There is certainly spending by the government that borders on useless. Some would take this opportunity to give an example involving bailouts - though I’m not an economist, so I won’t go there. If cutting is necessary, then there are probably better places to cut than space exploration. All I’m saying is that things like NASA, from my observations, are riding on the wrong side of that thin line where we’re breaking even on our investment. And even if that’s shown to be incorrect, I’d argue that there are better and more fruitful ways to spend our money. Why invest in a volatile 3% fund, when you can get a secure 8% fund instead? Sure, maybe you’d put some into the 3% fund too… but how much?
I always hear about sending humans to Mars, and I think to myself, instead of spending 500 billion on such an expedition, can’t we just send robots for 20 billion instead? Do we really need to spend so much money when all we REALLY want are high-powered missiles to use in our wars? Can’t we just get them to make the missiles directly without all this associated waste? I’d rather spend 450 million on education, for example, so that our children would be better able to deal with our problems in the future. What specifically did this 450 million dollar satellite accomplish, really? Thing is, we could have probably done the same thing 20 years from now for 45 million, if we found that there was some good reason to probe Mercury.
I guess I’m not completely against “pure science”… I did devote many of my years doing it. Perhaps my issue is more with some of these specific missions NASA undertakes that appear to have no real benefit, other than to further military technology under the guise of scientific research - which I believe is a bit dishonest.
This.
Once we start being Nazis* about what is and isn’t worthwhile so we can spend all extra money on poor people**, then we surrender all advance and freedom.
- Ha! Godwin’d the thread!
** As Jesus said, there will always be poor people. And as we see in our modern welfare society, once we start agreeing to support them, more and more people decide that it is easier to be poor and let everyone else do all the work.
What problems? Each example you’ve listed, mostly medical and poverty related, already has extensive funding. What significant problems are being totally ignored?
And the fiscal stimulus argument is tied into this: yes, fiscal stimulus can start with anything, but it’s going to give us the greatest return if it is diversified. If nothing else, paying for lots of very different industries is going to be a more efficient use of resources than extreme specialization: NASA engineers could probably do medical research, but they are more productive where they are.
The government is deciding to spend my money (NOT “extra money”) on something I don’t fully support. If you want real freedom, let the free market fund these NASA missions and let them decide if this is or isn’t worthwhile. Would you agree to that?
Also, are you suggesting that poor people actively choose to be poor instead of trying to work for their money? This is quite a debateable claim, but to pass it off as fact is insulting to all the poor people who can’t overcome their circumstances.
Well, one can point to the military can point to the fact that they are currently engaged in killing bad people. As expensive as that prospect is, it is a deliverable which clearly relates to a major government priority. Realizing the the dollars involved are clearly on a different scale, is the investigation of Mercury a major government priority?
I don’t think anyone other than the OP is saying that such research missions are a bad thing. The reasonable question is, what priority do we wish to place on such expenditures?
The fact is that out of the $14 trillion dollars in goods and services we produce every year (note you shot a little low on your estimate), we are taking in about $2.5 trillion in taxes and spending about $3.5 trillion. That means out of NASA’s $20 billion budget (roughly), about $7 billion or so is directly financed with debt. NASA isn’t responsible for the country’s debt, but it absolutely has a role to play in resolving it.
It is a very reasonable question that when we are looking at budget proposals that could result in hundreds of thousands of poor kids being kicked out of Head Start programs, billions in transportation projects being eliminated, tsunami warning systems being shuttered, and so on, whether the funds NASA has requested for building the next space probe are better used for higher priorities. We should do the same for the military and a lot of other agencies, and also look at the revenue side of the equation.
But seriously, stop with the making out NASA to be some helpless victim in all this budgetary debate. Yes, space is cool, and it is good to explore space, and the public is directly benefited by some small amount of space spending, and indirectly benefited by some larger amount, but it is very reasonable to question whether those returns on investment are worth it in today’s constrained budgetary world.
On that subject, I say, good riddance to the Mars mission. I’m glad we canceled it.
The poor shall inherit the Earth, after all. Once the rest of us colonize space, that is.
Thank you for being so articulate in this post. I honestly don’t believe NASA is “a waste”, and many of the arugments put forth here are valid, and I accept them. My main goal, I suppose, was to get peoples’ input in determining where exactly does one draw the line, and where does NASA currently fall.
edit: I believe NASA falls on the positive side of the line, but that this particular mission to Mercury, would fall on the negative side.