Beiruty wrote:I am not against science, or near earth space programs that we all benefited from, like satellites and GPS, Hubble etc...
However, one has to be wise in his spending. Pure science is great if cost is reasonable and there is expected benefit.
At this time, we should be worried about debt ceiling and greatest nation on earth not to be declared bankrupt and defaulting on its debt.
Interesting timing on those observations. Atlantis touched down July 21 at 5:57 EDT, and that marks, for the first time since 1963 when the Apollo program began, that the U.S. has relinquished its role as the leader in space exploration. That title now falls to Russia. And literally thousands of highly educated and highly trained aerospace workers are out of a job, or will be very soon.
Something else to think about. Speaking of jobs, one of the biggest gaps we've developed in this country regarding education is mathematics and the sciences. A few decades ago, we led the pack. Now, U.S. 15-year-olds score lower than 17 of the other 33 OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) countries, higher than only
5 countries; in the remaining 11 countries the scores are not measurably different. (
Source.)
Our kids already want to be reality TV stars or pop singers, not scientists or engineers. Relinquishing our role in "sexy" scientific endeavors like space exploration certainly isn't going to help motivate Johnny and Susie to abandon their hopes of instant fame and fortune for careers that will actually be
productive.
Another note, one often overlooked in discussions of NASA, is that all royalties on NASA-originated patents and licenses go directly to the U.S. Treasury, not back to NASA. It's tough to find specific numbers because the royalties are tied to the patent or license, and not directly identified as "NASA-related."
A 1992 article in Nature pointed to a 1989 Chapman Research report, which examined 259 non-space applications of NASA technology over an eight-year period. What that showed was $21.6 billion in sales and royalties, 352,000 jobs created or saved, and $355 million collected in related corporate income taxes (not to mention the individual income tax revenue from those 352,000 workers). According to the Nature article, those 259 applications were selected because they could be positively identified, but that they represented only a fraction of the estimated 25,000 to 30,000 space exploration spin-off products or processes.
Also, the last stats I can find were for fiscal year 2009, but it's also interesting to note that, as a percentage of the federal budget, NASA has been, since 2006, at its lowest amounts since NASA was first created in '58/'59. NASA's budget in 2006 was 0.57% of the federal budget, and it hasn't crept back above 0.6%. At no time since 1960 has it been that low. At the peak of the Apollo program, 1966, NASA's budget was 4.41% of the
federal budget.
NASA's budget--not including its royalty receipts, just its raw budget--is smaller than I think a lot of people realize. The federal excise tax on tobacco alone is sufficient to fund NASA's budget. The federal government spends, each year, over 500% of the amount of NASA's budget for transportation, and that doesn't include transportation vehicles, maintenance, and services that are included in the Defense budget.
Heck, Americans spend more than 900% of NASA's budget each year in order to consume alcohol. If we wanted to pull NASA completely out from under the federal budget and privately fund it, it would cost each American
less than $4.80 per month. We spend $42.20 per capita per month on booze.
Given the relative outlay balanced against royalties, NASA is not very expensive. Remember the notorious AIG bailout of '08/'09? That involved a direct federal investment of $70 billion, plus $52 billion to buy some of AIG's mortgage-based assets, plus a $60 billion credit line to keep them hummin' along. Ignore the credit line (although those were taxpayer dollars too), and that was $122 billion in direct investments that the Obama administration made in AIG to keep it afloat. That would have completely funded NASA at its 2010 (space shuttle active) levels for over six years. Again, not counting the continued royalties NASA was/is generating.
Given the choice, for example, of bailing out a private company only to then see them make the news awarding huge executive bonuses (total "mismanagement" bonuses for the financial unit alone were $450 million), or funding NASA for six years and keeping our global edge in space exploration, continuing to make new discoveries that can be translated to private sector products, and preserving just about the same number of jobs as AIG has in the U.S....
Well, point being that in the big picture, NASA isn't as expensive as I believe most people think. An extra 11% excise tax on booze would fund NASA.
