A slightly different view of the space program.

[cornermouse]

Don't get me wrong. I like the space program, but as I listened to the interview of retired astronauts today I wondered...

As less people have health insurance, how much benefit and who will actually benefit from the pharmaceutical discoveries that they alway like to use as justification of the space program?

As more jobs are outsourced and replaced with lower wage jobs, who's going to pay for the great and grand space program that was thought up and mapped out during times when Americans were getting paid more money and were paying more taxes into the pool?

How necessary is the space program?

[acmejack]

1. I am a strong supporter of any scientific exploration

But I do think we need to address the problems on this planet first. This is especially true now that we are unilaterally trying to militarize space.

I think it is unconscionable to expend billions there while children starve here on earth and die from the lack of basic immunizations and the most rudimentary medical care.

[cornermouse]

3. Yep. Me too.

[deadparrot]

28. 100% agree. nt

[babylonsister]

2. I think it should be scrapped and problems on

planet Earth should be dealt with.

[pitohui]

4. jobs in aerospace are higher pay jobs

getting rid of high pay jobs in space exploration and replacing them with jobs waiting tables hell of a way to reward kids who invest tens of thousands of dollars and ten years of study to get a doctorate

no wonder smart kids won't study science

we cut their legs out from under them

keep the space program

expand it

that is how you get more high pay jobs in america

[cornermouse]

7. You're right. Jobs in aerospace are higher paying jobs.

The problem is that aerospace is a limited field that has a relatively small hiring capability. The amount of time required to develop it into a solid area of employment, is much too far in the future.

Americans need a massive return of good paying jobs and a reinstatement of the tax code pre-2000 now if you want to continue with the space program.

[pitohui]

31. don't understand your logic

your answer to poverty is create more poor people

get rid of some good paying jobs we already have

this is your proposal

that don't compute to this HAL 9000

[zanne]

5. The news media likes the space program

Every once in awhile, the news media gets hold of a story and tries to get us all interested. We've been hearing about NASA all week, especially on CNN. You'd think we'd never heard of the Space Shuttle and they had to explain it to us over and over and over again. It trumped all other news stories, and it's not over yet.

[Pepperbelly]

6. I don't think they put enough money it to make a dif in those problems ...

you cited.

A drop in the bucket, so to speak. But possible benefits FAAAAR exceed the minimal costs.

[cornermouse]

9. The benefits which I cited are their talking points.

As we de-evolve into a third world country, we aren't going to have the jobs or the tax structure to support a continuation into space. The continually decreasing pool of those who have health insurance may benefit from we've discovered, but I suspect the majority of us will not.

[Pepperbelly]

10. my point is that ...

if you eliminated NASA entirely and put the money into a single-pay h.c. system, it would not pay for very many people's expenses. It is a drop in the bucket moneywise.

[cornermouse]

12. A pond is full of individual drops.

At some point, we will not be able to fund it any more if we continue as we're going now.

Let the wealthy fund it by themselves. Its primarily going to benefit them anyway and Bush gave them multiple tax cuts.

[Pepperbelly]

24. so the problem is one of taxes ...

not one of resources.

I thinkwe could pretty well fund both if we would get the f out of Iraq.

[cornermouse]

27. Yep. I do too.

[leeroysphitz]

29. Exactly

If everyone, rich and poor alike were taxed FAIRLY and those revenues
managed FAIRLY we might just be able to have an ambitious space program and universal health care and more besides.

I saw and asshole in an SUV driving down a publicly built and maintained
highway with a "taxes are theft" bumper sticker. I don't even know where to begin pointing out the ironies...

[Lannes]

8. Nasa takes up a very small percentage of the budget.

About the same as 3 months in Iraq.

Id rather trim waste from the military or recind those tax cuts for the wealthy.Also focus more on deep space probes or building a new hubble telescope.

[OrlandoGator]

11. The NASA budget is 3.7% of the Defense budget.

$16 billion for NASA vs. $433 billion for Defense in FY2005.

[Lannes]

14. I believe that NASA's budget is separate from defense

As a whole and is listed in another category although there are some joint projects.

[OrlandoGator]

17. They are indeed separate...I was just comparing amounts budgeted.

n/t

[Lannes]

18. My bad OrlandoGator

Your point was spot on about the defense budget as compared to NASA's.

[democrat in Tallahassee]

13. NASA Jobs are US jobs

Until corporate Amreica figures a way to outsource NASA I see all those jobs staying in America and any money spent is recirulated into the economy.

[Massacure]

15. NASA only receives 16 billion of the 2.4 trillion dollar budget.

About 2/3 of 1%.

Maybe the government should raise taxes and stop building a national debt that costs us $300 billion in interest annually. That could pay for 20% of our annual healthcare cost.

[leftofthedial]

16. I've always been an advocate

but the space program presently is an indefensible waste of resources we need right here on the ground.

healthcare
unemployment
hunger
environmental melt-down

[ThomWV]

19. NASA's Main Mission Has Always Been Delivery of Nukes

All this space exploration nonsense is just a cover for the main mission of NASA, which has always been the developer of transportation systems for military hardware. Spy satellites, advanced communications systems, advanced location systems, and of course the mother of all purposes, to haul an H-Bomb aloft and bring it back down with pin-point precision. That's what NASA is all about and the silly science stuff is just a fluff cover for the real mission.

[RC]

20. Quit paying for bu$h's war and there would be plenty of money

for everything else. Space exploration is a good thing with a high rate of return. What is learned up there is applied here on the ground. Ball point pens that write upside down on butter to the computer you are using to read this.

[gulfcoastliberal]

21. Scrap manned space flight entirely. Only send robot probes

Look at the reams of valuable data from the comet impacter, the cassini/hugens probes, the mars rovers, the gallileo satellite, hubble, etc, ad nauseum. Now look at the data we get from putting people in low earth orbit. Zero zilch nada. Only tragedies and boxes of mice sent up from elementary schools. Wow.

[TroubleMan]

22. Cut the pork-barrel defense budget, and you've got all of the money

you could ever want.


Keep the space program....we're gonna need it eventually and having it exponetially increases our knowledge in many areas.

The last war we really needed to fight was WWII....after that all of the wars have been our choice. We could stop fighting wars any time, and it would makes us a hell of a lot safer than our currently policy now.

[cornermouse]

23. Ending the war and cutting the military budget to pre-Bush levels

to continue the space program would be my choice too.

[TroubleMan]

25. We should cut it to pre-reagan levels or more

I've been in the military (USMC 1992-200)....the troops see little, if any, of the billions that are spent. Defense contractors get all of the money.

I'd like to increase military pay, but cut defense spending in half. We don't need star-wars, we don't need any more nukes, we don't need any new bombs, we don't need that death-trap Osprey, we don't need the black ops, and we don't need Halliburton. The troops did all the same jobs Halliburton does now, and we did it for less and did it much better.

We could cut the damn defense budget in half, and we'd still have the best military. In fact, we'd even improve it, if we concentrated on the right things.

[cornermouse]

26. Agree 100%.

[Sgent]

30. Quick calculation

At 16 billion a year, that's enough to provide decent (but not great) health coverage for about 5.3 million people.

But, we have eliminated one of the greatest achievements of our country to fund about 10% of our needs in health care.

Take it from the military, take it from the recently passed 15billion in the energy bill, etc.

[wuushew]

32. I believe you are framing a false choice

You assume that by eliminating NASA the extra money would be spent on debt relief or health care. Given that the American people had clear choice to elect a candidate that would move in a direction towards universal healthcare and did not do so, I seriously doubt that any new political capital for humanitarian works would be evident in Washington. Sixteen billion more dollars would be available for killing Muslims a year.

That said if we choose to continue a space program it really should involve scrapping the space shuttle and relying more on unmanned missions, if not simply for providing more scientific return per dollar spent.

Any manned capability left should be devoted to a manned mission to Mars. Besides being extremely scientifically fruitful I would like to as soon as possible setup a viable and self-sustaining branch of the human race on Mars. Even if we get our act together on this planet, there is little humanity can do against the awesome power of an an extinction class asteroid impact.

[Conservativesux]

33. Putting spy satellites into space is a poor excuse for all the money

wasted on this program. These ships are old design and falling apart at the seams.

Until we have space ships that can travel 1/10th the speed of light, manned exploring of the planets is worthless.