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Americans clueless on NASA budgets : Survey

theregister.co.uk — A recent survey, carried out on behalf of The Space Review, has revealed that the average American believes a quarter of the country's public purse goes towards funding NASA.

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  • tastypickles, on 11/20/2007, -3/+68Better NASA than bombs
    • thcobbs, on 11/20/2007, -2/+15Even better? NASA WITH bombs.
      • kevinmotel, on 11/20/2007, -0/+10even better? NASA with fricken' lasers attached to their shuttles
        • thcobbs, on 11/20/2007, -0/+2Oh, they already have that.... Didn't you watch Moonraker?
    • CedEx, on 11/20/2007, -1/+0Now if only they can work completely in metric.
  • wishninja, on 11/20/2007, -9/+41you know what is great? while 25% think NASA has such a big budget only a fraction of those people would even know what it is and acronym for. Also I would bet only a 3rd of those people in that same group of 25% even know what an acronym is. This is just further proof there are a huge number of people that are stupid.
    • kirashira, on 11/20/2007, -3/+7Thanks captain obvious.
    • jboswell2000, on 11/20/2007, -2/+20You wildly speculate at several percentages and call that "further proof"? Are you sure where your percentile rank might fall?
      • scrumdiddly, on 11/20/2007, -2/+5Yeah, that's stupid. You can make up statistics to prove anything! 78% of people know that!
        • DashingLeech, on 11/20/2007, -0/+3And even when they don't make it up many of them get the math wrong anyway. Four thirds of people can't even do fractions.
    • mstoneburner, on 11/20/2007, -1/+9Does telling the internet you believe stupid people exist make you feel better about yourself?
    • thanakar, on 11/20/2007, -6/+4Means "Need Another Seven Astronauts" doesn't it?
    • weizilla, on 11/20/2007, -0/+1knowing what the acronym stands for and what the organization does are completely different. radar used to be an acronym but how many people know what that used to stand for?
    • mizenerd, on 11/20/2007, -1/+1Who are these 25%? Where does a UK site come up with this stuff? No offense to the Brits, I used to live there...but geesh. Give up on the anti-American garbage already. I prefer this part of the article > Bootnote
      We'd like to add, before the anti-American/pro-American flame wars begin, that we're pretty sure similar levels of daftness pervade our own population. Have you ever watched Big Brother? Probably best not to mock too loudly.
  • Dysarthria, on 11/20/2007, -4/+89A whopping 0.6% of the national budget and NASA has inspired and educated the world. No wonder most morons think it costs 50x what it does; its impact is mind-blowing.
    • NinjaBoy, on 11/20/2007, -0/+21It would be bad ass if it was 25% Just think of what all we would have. 10 hubbles and multiple space stations.
      • sabach, on 11/20/2007, -0/+15Think bigger, several terraforming colonies on Mars and research stations on Titan and Europa.
        • Subliminational, on 11/20/2007, -0/+1I'm skeptical of that. NASA is incredibly wasteful. But its a place where I don't mind wasting tax money really....
      • SuperWinner, on 11/20/2007, -0/+1About 12 Enterprises.
    • bolerobell, on 11/20/2007, -9/+2To be fair, during the Apollo heyday, NASA was getting a helluva lot more.
      • djpants428, on 11/20/2007, -0/+16At the peak of the Apollo program, NASA was getting 4% of the total federal budget.
        • RogerStrong, on 11/20/2007, -0/+5And that was only for a couple years. The extra funding was a knee-jerk reaction to Sputnik and Gagarin showing the Soviets to be ahead.

          Once the Gemini program put the US ahead, funding was chopped. Saturn V production was capped even before the first moon landing. Apollo coasted to an end on what hardware was already in the pipeline.
    • linagee, on 11/20/2007, -4/+2Wars are more mind-blowing. Mind-blowingly insane!
  • ColorBlind, on 11/20/2007, -0/+58GOOD! GIVE THEM MORE!
  • Error601, on 11/20/2007, -3/+20Yea, people would be in for a shock to learn how much of the budget is take from one person and hand to another programs. The NASA budget is tiny in comparison to just unemployment payouts.
    • Chicken, on 11/20/2007, -10/+7They're more like handouts than payouts.
      • Gerz1219, on 11/20/2007, -1/+5Well, except for the fact that unemployment is an insurance program, not a charity.
  • medalian1, on 11/20/2007, -26/+4They need more money to throw bigger and more expensive parties. http://www.nasawatch.com/archives/2007/11/nasa_par ... NASA'S Luxury, At Your Expense, CBS "And most of the honorees? They're not NASA employees. They're from Boeing and other billion-dollar contractors that aren't picking up the tab. Bryan O'Connor is a NASA spokesman. What does he say to the criticism that these events are frivolous or extravagant? "I think what I would do is ask the people who we have honored to give me an idea if they think this thing was reasonable, if they felt they were honored properly," he said. [CBS News correspondent Sharyl] Attkisson said: "I wouldn't ask the honorees, I would ask the people who pay for it: taxpayers."
    • insomniacal, on 11/20/2007, -11/+2I'd digg this comment up twice if I could.
    • TAGline, on 11/20/2007, -4/+0Because moral never ever provides a net gain for organizations? NASA may get
    • TAGline, on 11/20/2007, -1/+17Le sigh, Digg clipped my comment.

      NASA gets less than 1% of the budget and probably spends less than 1% of that on awards. Contract employees also make up a huge contingent of the regular staff of NASA so of course they are going to be as eligible for being honored. It is sensationalist drivel like that CBS report that make people think NASA gets more cash than the DOD.
      Are you going to complain that the DMV has free coffee next?
      • medalian1, on 11/20/2007, -7/+1The entire government is bloated, especially the DOD, but that isn't the subject of this article now is it? What about how pathetic the spending on education is? Textbooks that are filled with tons of errors, etc.
        • JAVandiver, on 11/20/2007, -0/+2Education is a State matter. The actual designed purpose of the Federal Department of Education is to make that all of the States educational requirements are on parity.
      • MammasMilk, on 11/20/2007, -0/+1The DMV has free coffee?!?!!?

        REVOLUTION!!!!!
  • AgentAce, on 11/20/2007, -4/+50NASA is the epitome of the phrase "Work with what you have." They get very little in the way of funding, yet are able to conduct great science. They are surely masters at minimizing administrative overhead.
    • tehxen3, on 11/20/2007, -12/+3More like masters of waste, I don't think you know anything about NASA.
    • iadiggs10, on 11/20/2007, -2/+2A lot of what NASA is happens to be administrative. One would think it might be counterproductive to have your research and launch centers spaced across the country instead of centered in one area. But, with senators trying send federal money to their state, I'm sure NASA probably spends too much on airline bills and a set of administrators for each of their 14 center locations.
  • davebg8r, on 11/20/2007, -0/+29How in the world could people think NASA receives 25% percent of the budget. Where is there an emphasis on NASA or anything in space? There is nothing in the media, education, or anywhere that would even suggest that.
    • Xondar, on 11/20/2007, -0/+2I think it's because the perception that shuttles, probes and robots cost a lot of money. They see images some robot sends back from Mars and they think it must have been enormously expensive to get those images.
    • sabach, on 11/20/2007, -2/+4It's the people who still believe in Bush, he said we were going to Mars and they just assume he actually meant it and appropriated the $ for it.
    • osfn8, on 11/20/2007, -0/+1It's because every time there is a story about NASA from the AP, it always says how much that mission cost. For example, they made a big deal about it costing a million dollars to fly the shuttle from CA to FL. When people see these huge numbers associated with NASA and no mentions of cost for say the FBI, people think that NASA is using a lot of money. It is also hard to see $100 million and not think it is a lot of money when you only make $40,000 a year.
  • indiscriminate, on 11/20/2007, -5/+4what's 0.6% of a kajillion?
    • xasc, on 11/20/2007, -0/+3It's 16.8 billion USD, if by a kajillion you are referring to the United States federal budget.
      • RogerStrong, on 11/20/2007, -0/+6And much of that is spend on the aeronautics side - making aviation safer.
  • dbalaski, on 11/20/2007, -0/+21Kodos to the register for their editorial note/comment:
    >Bootnote
    >We'd like to add, before the anti-American/pro-American flame wars begin, that we're pretty sure similar levels of daftness pervade our own population. Have you ever watched Big Brother? Probably best not to mock too loudly. ®

    • Amnesia10, on 11/20/2007, -0/+3Actually the same would apply for nearly all Brits as well. Or many nations about their own respective national space programs. NASA is extremely good value for money when you consider what they have achieved.
  • TheFoolyCooly, on 11/20/2007, -2/+34BREAKING NEWS: Americans Mostly Clueless about a lot of things!
    I think it's great that we pay for NASA, and we should put more effort into things like it instead of *cough* policing.
    • dboy3587, on 11/20/2007, -7/+3why does everyone think that all the police are corrupt
      • oldhick, on 11/20/2007, -2/+5why wouldn't you??? Power usually corrupts. The better question is why would you willingly give authority over yourself and your family and your country to someone else and not be constantly and consistently skeptical of their actions? We should monitor their behavior and actions closely and consistently remove those from duty who show a proclivity towards the use of force.
        Wake up and take your freedom back.
      • NinjaBoy, on 11/20/2007, -3/+2Cause we have DELT with them.
        • ImOscar, on 11/20/2007, -0/+11Caps lock should be reserved for words you can spell correctly.
      • macweirdo42, on 11/20/2007, -0/+3The real disservice is the illusion created on digg that we're somehow headed toward a police state. The police have always been corrupt. It's just, before the Internet age, you didn't really hear about it so much. I'm not saying it's right, mind you, but quit acting like it's something new.
  • markgl, on 11/20/2007, -16/+1i didn't know i was suppose to be the accountant for the government.
    • macweirdo42, on 11/20/2007, -1/+5You better goddamn well know a thing or two about the government's budget - that, or stay home on election day.
  • harajukukei, on 11/20/2007, -1/+38NASA would get 25% if they were building pin point laser murder satellites
    • mizenerd, on 11/20/2007, -6/+0Yeah, uhuh. Dugg down for being retarded.
  • evil-doer, on 11/20/2007, -5/+2250% of americans tax dollars goes to the military.
    http://www.warresisters.org/piechart.htm
    • NewGTGuy, on 11/20/2007, -3/+6Incorrect. 50% of the debt goes to the military. Most of our tax dollars go to the interest on the debt.

      Also, it is important to note that the budget the government publishes is fake. Do some research on the Black Budget. Trillions of dollars have been moved to this unauditable black hole.
      • domlachowicz, on 11/20/2007, -0/+7Actually, most of our federal tax dollars go toward Social Security, Defense, Unemployment, and Medicaid. Interest on the debt (at $244bln) is a "distant" 5th.

        http://www.answers.com/topic/united-states-federal ...
        • NewGTGuy, on 11/20/2007, -3/+3Sorry, we have $50 TRILLION is "unfunded" liabilities. The government budget is totally screwed. Make sure you understand the M3 statistics. There is a reason the FED stopped publishing these. All money is created as debt. I know they say the national debt is around $9 trillion. This is a very small part of the total picture.
          • domlachowicz, on 11/20/2007, -0/+3Unfunded liabilities aren't the same thing as debt. It isn't debt until you've spent the money. Unfunded government liabilities represent an estimate of potential future government debt. Unfunded liabilities can be restructured, re-funded, or even canceled by the government. For instance, the government could decide to stop providing Medicare or Social Security, and thus eliminate that $50 trillion liability. Or it could decide to raise taxes to fund those unfunded liabilities. Or it could borrow, as you assume that government will do. But that assumes that people are willing to lend the government the money to pay for those programs. Without any money, those programs simply disappear without the government incurring any debt...
  • thefirelane, on 11/20/2007, -4/+17You know, most people don't know how much THEY spend on various things, estimating NASA's budget really is a stretch
    • MikeFromAmerica, on 11/20/2007, -0/+1Looking at this another way, why should most people know what NASA's budget is? Do we know what the FDA's budget is? How about the Bureau of Indian Affairs?

      Definitely SOME people should be aware of these things so that intelligent decisions can be made [must... keep... from laughing] but the vast majority of the population should rightly care less.
      • macweirdo42, on 11/20/2007, -0/+2Well if they don't know NASA's budget, then they really shouldn't pretend. You see - we live in a representative republic. We're in charge of choosing the politicians who make all of the important decisions. How are we to know whose policies are best if we know nothing about what's going on in Washington? Aren't you concerned that the misinformation might affect people's decision-making processes? If I thought NASA was using up 25% of the government's budget, I sure as hell might be looking for politicians who will cut NASA's budget.

        Sure, in real numbers, it wouldn't make too much sense to vote based on a person's stance on NASA (though I'd vote for someone in favor of increasing NASA's budget, but I'm just a big astronomy geek). However, when those numbers start getting distorted, a non-issue can end up affecting an election.
  • drmangrum, on 11/20/2007, -20/+21Right, and how many British know how much is spent on their space programs? How many French know how much is spent on their transportation budget? How many Germans know how much is spent in their defense programs? How many Japanese know how much it costs to run their power plants? How many Canadians know how much it costs to run their water treatment plants?

    This is a loaded question meant to make Americans look stupid when in actuality most people around the globe have no clue how much is spent in most government programs.

    Buried for the sensationalist title.
    • thefirelane, on 11/20/2007, -10/+9you are 100% correct, and getting dug down because it goes against the digg-groupthink. Welcome to digg.
    • nblsavage, on 11/20/2007, -3/+8I know how much of the budget goes to NASA. There is no excuse for not being informed.
      • drmangrum, on 11/20/2007, -6/+4Only because you just looked it up.
        • Meccabilly, on 11/20/2007, -3/+1Yea! Good for nothing know it all! You can learn anything if you look it up... What about all the people who never look anything up? Should they be insulted, simply because of thier personal choices not to do so? Of course not! Same goes for people who don't wish to check the use by date on products or pay attention to road signs.
        • drmangrum, on 11/20/2007, -2/+2@Meccabilly

          you need to sharpen your less than razor wit. Saying you know something simply because you looked it up that instant is pointless. The point which whooshed ever so far above your head was that he probably didn't know NASA's budget or even care what that budget was before he read the article. It's something that exists outside the scope of most peoples lives. They simply don't care when it doesn't directly effect them.
    • krnldmp, on 11/20/2007, -1/+1I think it is important that Americans be continually advised of how equivalent they are to other countries' citizenry until there's any goddam difference.
      • drmangrum, on 11/20/2007, -0/+2Well, if you read the article:

        "Bootnote

        We'd like to add, before the anti-American/pro-American flame wars begin, that we're pretty sure similar levels of daftness pervade our own population. Have you ever watched Big Brother? Probably best not to mock too loudly. ®"
    • 471776, on 11/20/2007, -2/+5The British have a space program? Britain doesn't even have a space agency per se.
      • drmangrum, on 11/20/2007, -2/+1Now your just arguing semantics. You understand my point.
    • maliath, on 11/20/2007, -3/+4Okay, you keep living like an idiot. See how far it gets you. Even if you did not know exactly how much was spent on NASA, you have to be an ignorant ***** to think it hovered around 25%.
      • drmangrum, on 11/20/2007, -2/+1Notice how the "survey" doesn't list who they asked? Notice how it doesn't list the sample size? Something tells me they conveniently avoided the obviously educated and preyed on the ignorant. If I asked 10 burger flippers and 5 said 25%, that does NOT equals the average American thinking NASA costs 25% of the budget. All that means is that someone how makes 20k a year has no idea how much money 2 trillion dollars is and really doesn't care. It doesn't effect them.
    • Xondar, on 11/20/2007, -3/+1Water treatment plants are municipal responsibility, not a federal one. Not only that, but water is free, so who cares how much it costs to run a treatment plant.
    • saifatlast, on 11/20/2007, -0/+1Actually, it says right in the article that other nations would probably be similarly uninformed. The point of this article was clearly not America-bashing.
      • drmangrum, on 11/20/2007, -0/+1Not the article, the digg headline.
    • DashingLeech, on 11/20/2007, -0/+2No, if you read it you'd see it's related to understanding why the public perceives NASA as a "bad bargain" in terms of what they get from NASA versus the cost. This is investigating one side of that coin: how much do people think it actually costs. The other side -- why the public doesn't know what NASA achieves -- will probably require more of a PR investigation. (I suspect it's too many mathematician astronauts and not enough inanimate carbon rods.) This actually is quite important for NASA and the government to know. It's not so important that you know it, other than the side-effect of possibly correcting the perception.
  • flyjar, on 11/20/2007, -37/+10.6 percent is still too much, IMHO. Are we all planning to move to space or something? I understand the importance from a spying perspective, but beyond that I really don't see the need for space exploration.
    • NinjaBoy, on 11/20/2007, -0/+23Yeah, ***** learning and science.....
      /Jack Ass
      • djbon2112, on 11/20/2007, -0/+2Let's spend it on big bombs and nook the a-rabs yee haw!

        /sarcasm (Dugg you up NinjaBoy)
    • StoneLox, on 11/20/2007, -0/+16think bigger picture
    • inajeep, on 11/20/2007, -0/+4We are burning through our resources now at a huge rate. So eventually we'll be living on a dead planet, assuming we are still living. If we are we will need resources that may be beyond the planet's ability to give up in order to get off this mud ball.
    • 471776, on 11/20/2007, -0/+10And I thought comments on Digg couldn't get any stupider...
    • AlmostEvil, on 11/20/2007, -1/+6Spying perspective?

      Hate to sadden you but the NSA pays for all those spy satellites, not NASA. I know that and i'm not even an American.
  • lpmiller, on 11/20/2007, -3/+10People barely understand their own budgets, expecting them to know one government programs budget is a little much.
  • Lanefair, on 11/20/2007, -17/+7That's nothing compared to how many Americans believe in a god.

    There is no god. It's obvious.
    • sipps, on 11/20/2007, -2/+9How is it obvious? Take a philosophy class.
    • Lanefair, on 11/20/2007, -3/+2Oh come on guys if you really believed in a god you'd be out there helping the homeless guy on your block instead of sitting there clicking on a thumbs down logo on a comment made about an article on a website.
    • sipps, on 11/20/2007, -1/+5I didn't say anything one way or another. All I'm saying is don't be a dick and say it's obvious like you're enlightened and we're all too dumb to figure out what you know. It's not obvious and like I said, take a philosophy class. The argument for God is just as logical and maybe more so than the argument against.
      • Xondar, on 11/20/2007, -0/+3I wish the arrogant atheists would figure this out. Damn atheists always trying to jam their stupid philosophy down everyone's throats. "Wahhh! The world would be better off without religion!"
  • xasc, on 11/20/2007, -0/+9If Americans were asked a follow-up question: what percentage of the federal budget _should_ go to NASA, what would they say? 10%? 5%? 50%?
  • markmoogal, on 11/20/2007, -5/+8I wouldn't be so quick to call Americans ignorant on this score. Who really cares about the NASA budget, even if you are a taxpayer? How about real questions like, I don't know, ... 'Where's Mexico?'
  • DarkNemesis618, on 11/20/2007, -0/+13NASA has always been known for making the most of what they have. Apollo 13 come to mind? It's still amazes me with everything they did during that mission to get the astronauts home safely.
  • kelt65, on 11/20/2007, -0/+5I love how the author says respondents 'overestimated' defense spending - the US governments hides an enormous amount of what most rational people would call 'defense (actually offense) spending' in other budgets, ***** the entire Iraq / Afgan invasion / occupations are 'off budget'. Nuclear weapons costs are hidden within the Department of Energy, and so forth. Not to mention all the blatant pork in so many bills for the military industrial complex.
    • VitriolAndAngst, on 11/20/2007, -1/+2I wonder if the Pentagon has found that "missing" $2.5 Trillion yet?
      Everyone likes to talk fiscally conservative until we get to the Military -- which is the greatest threat to real prosperity in this country.
  • finalcloud33, on 11/20/2007, -0/+9This is a shame.... NASA back in the 60's and 70's was one of the sole sources of innovation, and all but seems gone.... Out of NASA research there was innovation and new technologies that are used in military applications, health (miniaturization, composites), and the list goes on. Some thing needs to be done about this. Hopefully once we get a real president in office and W out maybe we can deflate out huge military budget and pump up NASA a little from its pathetic 0.6%.

    PS. I wonder how W thinks we will get to the moon again and Mars on this small amount......?
    • drmangrum, on 11/20/2007, -10/+3NASA has made some technological breakthroughs, but they've had their flops too. Remember, they spent millions on the technology to get a pen to write in a zero-G environment. The Russians spend 15 cents on a pencil.
    • VitriolAndAngst, on 11/20/2007, -0/+2Bush's Mars mission was just Bull *****. Everything he does has no benefits while he is in office -- even the AIDs benefits in Africa rob from Malaria research, and don't spend any money until he is out of office. If you work backwards from how someone can ruin NASA, and suck funds away to friendly mobbed-up corporations -- that is ALWAYS what Bush has done.
      NASA has problems -- but Bush has made everything worse, by design.
  • sipps, on 11/20/2007, -0/+18It's sad to hear people say that there is no need for space exploration. 0.6% is a ***** joke compared to what is spent on defense.
    • MikeFromAmerica, on 11/20/2007, -5/+4If we spend money on NASA, the terrorists win.
  • MrBison, on 11/20/2007, -6/+6"Americans clueless" ...who would have guessed
  • NavS, on 11/20/2007, -0/+3So... how many dollars is 0.6%?
  • hmmmok, on 11/20/2007, -0/+1kewl
  • merper, on 11/20/2007, -1/+5What we need is another space race. Fortunately, China seems like its gearing up for one.
    • 5JimBob, on 11/20/2007, -1/+1It seems like we have to have the s*** scared out of us before we pay attention to these sorts of things. China, it is my guess, will attempt to actually claim its bases on the moon as national territory, starting a scramble for the solar system much like the one for Africa in the 19th century. That should move things right along.
    • RogerStrong, on 11/20/2007, -0/+1Not really. China is where the US was at the beginning of the Gemini program 45 years ago. Except that where Gemini was flying and setting milestones every few weeks, China is flying every few *years*. They're falling further behind.

      They're planning to land an unmanned probe on the moon in a few years, 50 years behind the Americans.
    • Xondar, on 11/20/2007, -0/+1The Space Race was the result of Cold War thinking. There isn't likely to be another one. Also, by international treaty all of space is considered international territory, no nation can lay claim to any part of it.

      However, there is no stipulation against private corporations making claims in space. I think the next space race will be a corporate one. We might one day see huge swaths of the moon and Mars owned by Microsoft or GE.
  • frostbyt, on 11/20/2007, -4/+490% of Americans are clueless anyway. Period.
    • hmmmok, on 11/20/2007, -0/+1FTA: We'd like to add, before the anti-American/pro-American flame wars begin, that we're pretty sure similar levels of daftness pervade our own population. Have you ever watched Big Brother? Probably best not to mock too loudly.
      • hockey, on 11/20/2007, -0/+1shhhh don't confuse the issue with relevant facts.
  • RogerStrong, on 11/20/2007, -0/+7“If nothing else had come out of [the space program] except the knowledge we've gained from space photography, it would be worth ten times what the whole program has cost. Because tonight we know how many missiles the enemy has and, it turned out, our guesses were way off. We were doing things we didn't need to do. We were building things we didn't need to build. We were harboring fears we didn't need to harbor.”
    - President Lyndon Johnson
  • NewGTGuy, on 11/20/2007, -0/+4I'm not sure this is news. Most Americans don't know where Iraq is on a map. Not that it is their fault. The government gets what it pays for and the last thing it is paying for is an informed public capable of critical thinking.
    • tomis, on 11/20/2007, -1/+3A failure of the government is a failure of the people. The American people are the failure.
      • NewGTGuy, on 11/20/2007, -1/+2I agree with you. One caveat, our ancestors failed us. Today the federal government is so centralized and so big, it would take a revolution to stop them.

        The day (December 23rd, 1913) we gave private banks the ability to control our money supply is the day we lost control.
  • tehxen3, on 11/20/2007, -6/+1This article perpetuates the myth that if you throw tons of money at a government agency anything is possible. NASA should be shut down and regulation scrapped so private sector can more easily compete and take people to space.
    • VitriolAndAngst, on 11/20/2007, -0/+4It can now. So why hasn't he private sector done anything beyond tinker-toy efforts at low earth orbit? It costs money. Private industry won't make such an investment without .... government paying the check.
      If you want space travel by private industry -- then it's going to be government paying for it. With that kind of money and our system, you get a feedback loop where the private industry bribes the politicians and it ends up costing ten times what it costs to do it with purely government resources.

      I agree that NASA needs to be re-invigorated, but that won't happen until we get rid of all the bureaucrats, crony hires, and corporate leeches on the program. Best to find a few of the most respected folks at NASA, and start a new agency with them picking the best and brightest -- the Can Do people. There are a lot of really great science programs going on at NASA, but they were shut down under Bush -- and in a haphazard way that costs more than continuing them (like tracking Voyager).
    • RogerStrong, on 11/20/2007, -0/+3This post perpetuates the myth that if you scrap NASA, private industry will step in and compete. Simply put, why haven't they? NASA isn't stopping them.

      Where are the private space stations? Bigelow is working on a small station, but nothing on the scale of the ISS. And it's years off.

      Where are the private manned missions to the moon? None are even in the design stage, because no-one has figured out a way to make a profit off them. The same goes with the vast majority of NASA's projects, from aviation safety to deep space probes.
    • tehxen3, on 11/20/2007, -3/+1I don't think you are aware of the amount of red tape, government regulations that are put in place to stop private sector from competing with NASA and blocking every private initiative.
      • RogerStrong, on 11/20/2007, -1/+2There are regulations, but nothing to do with "competing with NASA". And those regulations are mainly for safety. Launch off a converted oil platform as one venture does, and those regulations don't apply. In fact, if you want satellites launch business or space tourism business, you are NOT competing with NASA, as they are not in these businesses.

        Where NASA has hurt things, is in doing a poor job of creating reusable launch vehicles like the Shuttle and VentureStar - giving investors the idea that reusable launch vehicles are a bad investment. But then most new industries start with a fiasco or two, and survive.
  • tonto69, on 11/20/2007, -1/+6Americans are also clueless on the Billions of dollars we give to Israel each year!
    To quote Ralph Nader:
    "Israel has universal health care - We Don't.
    Israel has secure borders - We Don't.
    Israel should be giving us aid."
  • Xondar, on 11/20/2007, -0/+2NASA should be given at least 2%-5% of the national budget I believe. Imagine all they could accomplish with all that money? Imagine what they could accomplish with funding equal that of the U.S. military? They'd have colonies on Mars by now...
  • VitriolAndAngst, on 11/20/2007, -0/+2I bet most people don't know that the NASA budget comes out of the same category as welfare. So, feeding people must compete with science -- I think that started under Reagan -- that cynical crypt keeper. Most people also don't know that Reagan used to be a Democrat, and made a lot of sense before Nancy got her hooks in him.
  • Tantrum, on 11/20/2007, -0/+1Which 'majority' did they ask this question to? The same majority that voted for Bush ?!
    • thcobbs, on 11/20/2007, -0/+1I suppose of the top of your head you know NASA's budget?

      What about the Federal Highway Commission?

      NTSB?

      FBI?
  • R34C7, on 11/20/2007, -0/+4In the book "The Challenger Launch Decision" Vaughn describes how the environment of NASA has been so distinctly changed by massive and continuous budget cuts that it has been forced to secure funding through deals with the military and with corporate clients for space projects in order to remain an entity at all. These opposing standards and continuous cuts in budget to make room for other programs has forced NASA to make concessions with safety and quality in their work. Despite this difficulty, they have made incredible progress, but the obvious downfall was with flights like Challenger where the whole event would have resulted in no deaths if, to reduce weight for military specifications on shuttles, they did not have to eliminate the ejectable passenger cabin as well as other features that would have prevented the tragedy in the first place.

    The glory days of NASA are gone, when technology was pushed to its edge and funding was plentiful they were the creators of numerous engineering marvels. Now the program is characterized by military and corporate interests that are necessary for the continued existence of NASA.
  • Chirp08, on 11/20/2007, -0/+1wtf, I don't even know the budget of my dept. at work, let alone the business, let alone NASA. Why is this news? People were just guessing, based off of know knowledge what so ever of government budgets, they might as well have done this survey in a highschool...
  • acidbass, on 11/20/2007, -1/+1Survey: Americans are clueless on (insert government program here other than universal health care) budgets.
    • Eljefedeath, on 11/20/2007, -0/+1Survey: Nations across the globe clueless on their governments budgets.
  • verdeyen, on 11/20/2007, -0/+1NASA's FY2007 budget is $16.8 billion dollars, or, about half of what General Motors lost last quarter.
  • MikeMacMan, on 11/20/2007, -0/+1I WISH we could take all the money that is being wasted on this "war" and spend it on NASA.
  • mattieohya, on 11/20/2007, -0/+0NASA needs a much bigger budget so it can do what it needs to most replace the space shuttle that worthless piece of junk was made for the military. In the original plan there would have been many more shuttles of less capability and each shuttle built would get more advanced until the ones we have today. But then the budget was slashed and the military said we want the best shuttle now so NASA had to make it able to do everything the military needed it to do Such as polar orbits to launch spy satellites. But the military has never use the shuttle to launch spy satellites because the shuttle costs way too much to launch and it has a huge failure rate 1 in 100. Can you imagine using a spacecraft that has a 1 in 100 chance of failing? Would you drive your car if you had a 1 in 100 chance of dying if you drove that would mean if you drive to and from work each day you should be dead in 50 days. Russia pretty much copied the space shuttle then dropped the project because it was so bad.

    I would like to say that the space shuttle isn't the engineers fault it was politics and military that ignored the main mission of NASA and its scientific purposes.

    Also to whoever thinks that we need to leave space exploration to the private sector the fact is there isn't enough money in it. Why would a company go to Mars? it isn't worth the money to bring the resources back. In the end there is no money in Mars but there are scientific reasons to go. And the only group with enough money to do that is a government.
  • Darkhowling91, on 11/20/2007, -0/+1I hear somewhere it was 1/100th of a penny (every fraction matters)
  • zeitgeistxx, on 11/20/2007, -0/+1....I would like to add, Wonga!

    http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/business.cfm?id=63 ...
  • cwcentral, on 11/20/2007, -0/+1Americans clueless on gov't budgets, period--local, state and federal levels.

    The yearly tax pamphlet (1040 directions!) presents some info, but nothing close--considering no one RTFMs... And forget the e-file version for any useful info.
  • wil2200, on 11/20/2007, -0/+1Kucinich has the right idea to use NASA's R&D to assist with the fight against Global Warming.
  • Trance750, on 11/20/2007, -0/+0Most Americans are clueless about anything that has nothing to do with American Idol or any other commercial fad
  • Yage2006, on 11/21/2007, -0/+1They are clueless on oh everything ?


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