Putting NASA's Budget Into Context
The Paradox of NASA Budget Cuts, IVN
“The estimated $1 trillion cost of the JSF program dwarfs that of NASA’s $25 billion Apollo program. Yet, despite NASA’s historical successes and technological breakthroughs, its budget will face another round of crippling cuts next year that is estimated to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars. These cuts are now becoming a trend for the White House based on recent fiscal budget proposals sent to Congress.”
While $1T expense for JSF in today’s dollars is still bigger than $25B in 1960 dollars inflated to today’s dollars…it’s nowhere near as big of a discrepancy as the numbers would suggest without factoring in an inflation adjustment. I think we spend too much on “defense” as a country, but I think that ultimately it’s appropriate that our country spends more on “defense” than we do on “exploration”.
~Jon
I think it would be easier for NASA to get a bigger budget if it did a better job of spending its current budget effectively. Right now an effectively run NASA could probably get more out of its current budget than a “1% for NASA” NASA could without any changes.
~Jon
You may be right but I am not sure anyone in NASA management has real authority to set budgets, goals or priorities for NASA’s major programs. Sometime Congress goes along, sometimes Congress decides NASA must continue a major program NASA wants to cancel. That hobbles decision making.
vulture4,
Absolutely, right on. NASA needs to tell Congress to: manage me every single day or go away and leave me alone. The inconstant meddling by Congress has caused more problems and losses than anything else.
Steve
NASA is at the mercy of Barbara Mikulski and the house SLS Republicans. In other words, NASA leadership is screwed when they have to funnel billions into a rocket they do not want and projects like EWST which are billions over budget and almost a decade behind schedule.
Hows that sun shield looking? #justaskin
If we’re unlucky we’ll repeat the mistakes of Japan budget cuts in 1997 and 2001. Cutting spending may put us in a defaltionary trap like Japan that will make the deficit even worse by tanking the economy.
I believe Apollo would be about $150B in present dollars. However the article blames the Obama Administration which asked for more money for NASA and ignores the unprecedented control Congress has had over both the NASA budget and its apportionment into individual programs. Congress is a poor manager because it is responsible to no one except an assortment of lobbyists. The House in particular often acts in opposition to the Administration on space.
The JSF program began decades ago and may be too late too be relevant. It is basically a tactical ground attack aircraft. Even today this mission is handled primarily by UAVs.
Even though the JSF is costing dearly, and delayed, and has not yet been given a specific role in US national defense operations, it has one basic thing that NASA does not — DOD is getting what it says it wants with JSF. The situation is different at NASA, where even “NASA” (or a representative majority of it) can’t agree on what they want, except more money, of course.
DOD will always get enough money to do whatever is put on its plate. NASA, on the other hand, is going to have to show that it can do a much better job of using the budget that it is getting before they can hope to ever get more, even to match inflation rates. And in all fairness, I don’t think that’s unreasonable.
What is unreasonable is the bias in Congress. In theory, budgets should be allocated according to how they benefit the country and the people. Personal likes and dislikes should not enter into it, any more than pork generation considerations, but these two factors seem to be paramount. Congress loves DOD and hates NASA, and that is something that’s going to have to be fixed somehow if NASA is ever again going to be anywhere near as effective as it could be.
Steve
It’s not just the jets. The Marines are going to get two special A/C carriers built to support the Marine JSF. They will be smaller than the normal Navy A/C carrier but still that will cost 2 Billion a piece or so.
Ouch!
Everyone’s fire at the military is wasted ammo. You should be targeting congress and telling them to GTFO of your chili. As long as congress doles out the cash based on districts, centers, and projects, its going to get worse.
It is what it is… and it ain’t pretty.
“There are plenty of things to point to as massive wastes the last few
years that huge sums of money have been thrown at that resulted in
nothing.”
And let me guess, none of them are in military, none whatsoever, god forbid?