With all the problems on our own planet, i.e. AIDS, racism, violence, people dying of starvation, drug addiction, homelessness, etc., couldn't the money be better spent? Does anyone have a differing opinion? In pricipal, my liberal heart says you're right.
But let's look at one small contribution of NASA.
When I was a child in the 50's my dad took me out on the lawn one night and pounted out a glowing speck floating across the sky. It was Sputnik.
My dad, who was involved in computer development at the time, told me it would be unlikely that anything useful would ever be put into space, since at that time a computer was as big as a building.
Boy, was dad wrong!
The development of high powered small computers was driven largely by NASA.
Right now you can call a friend on a cellphone that has more computing power than that huge 1950's computer.
Advanced computer technology has made possible sweeping advances in weather modeling, all sorts of design applications, and the impact on the medical field (CAT, PETT, MRI, sonography, radiological studies) cannot be overstated.
If you compare the NASA budget to that of the defense department, for instance, it becomes glaringly clear which of these organizations has a better cost to benefit ratio.
And the military budget would be even larger if every tank had to haul a building behind it for the computer needed for it's infrared rangefinder ;-) Considering the moon landing was faked, then probably so. Some of their programs may be a waste of money
Like the ISS for example. But on the whole, sattelites have been very useful for mankind and NASA puts them up there. We need NASA but we need NASA to be fiscally responsible. If you knew squat about what economic benefit we get from NASA you wouldn't have asked this question, the technoligies developed through NASA have gone on and become major parts of our everyday lives, hell teflon wouldn't be around without NASA and there are LITERALLY thousands of other products that have been developed off the work at NASA NASA gave us Tang. Bums give us head lice. I'd rather blow the cash on rocket fuel. what if the early explorers never ventured out into the atlantic? absolutely not . their research has improved our lives greatly , and we gotta go someplace once the runaway greenhouse effect starts killing earth. NO NASA is important and I would like to say to the dumb person who said the moon landing was fake that you are an idiot. Misty? First, Good Question. Next? Bad opinion. I grew up in the 60's and 70's. I stayed up, all night in July of `69, to watch Neil Armstrong walk on the Moon. But the talent, that is around NASA? Isn't nearly the caliber of who once roamed those Halls. Budgets, and in-fighting? Has turned that place into a Den of Misfits! End it? No way! I do believe that it needs to be shaken up. And I mean, from the top, down! No. Using your logic, we should increase the amount of money they get so we can all leave this miserable planet! I think that NASA is the embodiment of the Human spirit.
To want to know more, to investigate things that we are just starting to know about, an educated person looks up at the stars and wonders if there is other life there, NASA is trying to get answers. I truely believe that while we are having issues the money is important to be spent because space will be the next step. There is talk of creating a place on the Moon to stay, They found water on mars, life on mars, I am more interested in space than with how to combat AIDS.
Here is why, AIDS is preventable, AIDS is a disease that was created to kill humans, and now cats, created by mother nature, created by a mutation of another disease, it was created. AIDS is not the issue, but proper care of your body and knowing who you have sex with and getting tested is the issue.
Racism can not be cured with money,
Violence?? How is violence going to be fixed if there is 2 million more a year
People dying of starvation? The money that is allocated to the space project is not taking money out of feeding people, if you are so worried about people dying of starvation, then donate money to the causes, same goes with Homelessness.
Drug addiction is a whole other story, you chose to take drugs, why should we as taxpayers pay to get you clean. I don't get money to buy food, or goods for my family, why should someone that already had the option of going to a free clinic to get clean need more help. If they don't want to help themselves then why should the government help them. Considering the possibility that they are building something up there to protect us in a nuclear war that would destroy missiles, it would otherwise be a waste of tax dollars, yes. But I don't think anyone knows for sure WHAT they do up there. To try and find life in other forms is a waste of money. I'm of two minds.
I really have enjoyed and followed the space program for decades. I'm old enough to have stayed up and seen the moon landing! And the space program has thrown off a lot of inventions that we sue on Earth.
I'm NOT old enough to remember what people did before there were weather and communications satellites. Maybe you were talking about the manned missions.
There are some experiments, I'm sure, that can only be done in space and have resulted in medical and scientific advances on Earth.
Truth be told, it's also an offshoot of our military, and we need to keep up that research.
But it is a great deal of money, and I think the real problem is that it has been poorly spent.
The Space Shuttle is a lemon. We've been stuck with it for decades. And there's nothing really good to replace it on the drawing board.
So the answer to your question is MAYBE. Ummm...WD 40, Velcro, Tang, Memory Metal, plus ton and tons of other stuff developed by the space program. Well Nasa gives us the ability to use satellites to look at weather and environmental damage to the planet.
Being able to predict the weather, which is greatly helped by satellites, helps us able to deal with some of the problems here on the earth. Imagine how bad the hurricane Katrina would have been if there had been no warning. 100,000 deaths? More? The warning came from Nasa satelites.
That was not the "goal" when Nasa started but it was a result of the technology. Nasa has helped with a lot of research into materials science such as solar power that can help the environment.
As for starvation, being able to look at the climate and growth from space allows us to predict famines in advance and begin to deploy food aid where it is needed. Waiting for the reports of starvation to come is often too late to deploy the food in time, but a bad year for crops can be seen from space. Giving the world time to react.
As for things like racism, aids and violence. Sure they are big problems. But they are not going to go away if we throw the tiny Nasa buget at those problems.
As for racism, among the best ways to confront it is to have high visibilty people who are not the "stereotype". A minority astronaut can do lot to help change minds.
Drug addiction, part of the solution is the source fields, of coca and opium poppies. Those fields can (and are) identified from space allowing better deployment of resources to stop and reduce the trade, and to accurately identify the sources to pressure the local govenrments to crack down on the trade.
Another thing the space program does is provide "hope" that mankind is progressing. That very indirrectly goes on to help reduce problems who's root cause is dispair. It makes a small contribution to the reduction of violence and homelesness. While it may be doing little of that now, when we landed a man on the moon the country was full of optimism and can-do attitude due to the landing. A landing on Mars may be similar.
The US bugdet spends about 1.5 trillion dollars on medical care, poverty programs, education and other such issues. It spends less than 10 billion on NASA.
The "big" problems are not going to go away if funding on them increases by less than 1%, and many of them are not completely solvable if we spent 10 times as much on them as we do now. In many ways the money spent on NASA is was among the more productive to confront some of those "big" problems, due to some of the examples I cited. The solution to "big" problems are multifacited and the direct solutions may not always work best but indirect efforts can nibble away at the problems. No, but I believe spending more on our military than all other nations COMBINED is a BIG waste of taxpayer money. And that doesn't include the $700,000,000,000 blown on Iraq. yes |
