Petition: Setting NASA's Budget at No Less Than 1%
Enact Legislation to Restrict the NASA Budget to No Less than 1.00% of Federal Funding, as of FY2014, We The People Petition
“In 1961, at the height of the space race, the NASA budget was 4.41% of federal outlays. In 2005, despite the federal government spending only ~$15 billion on NASA, $180 billion of economic activity was created by this outlay . The 2013 budget expects ~$19 billion of funding for NASA (Guardian link above), or half of a percent of spending; truly this is a pittance, but one that yields vast economic and scientific rewards. NASA advances our nation when well-funded; by guaranteeing that no less than 1% of federal spending will be on NASA, we promote job creation, encourage creativity in the economy, and gain insight on our universe.”
Lame. Another way to bootstrap throwing more money at NASA without fixing NASA.
NASA gets half a penny on every dollar spent by the
Government. It has brought about countless discoveries that have
transformed the way we live. More money for NASA would be
SPECTACULAR. A great astronaut from a great NASA program bouncing around
on the moon could only describe his unworldly experience as SPECTACULAR.
Unless you want the next words transmitted from another celestial body to be
anything other than great American English, you should be wiling to put in at
least a whole penny. It does not take a scientist to understand the
importance of NASA to our future as a nation.
Pretty much nailed it Doug.
This will not happen – either. It would just be wasted in more government bureaucracy enforcement jobs. You know…
#jobs
Doug,
I understand where you’re coming from, but I have to point out that I think it’s a two-way street — NASA has been doing some things (not all) very poorly for the money that they are getting, but at the same time, many NASA programs are being poorly executed, at least partially, because they are seriously underfunded.
So, I don’t see how the situation can be as simple as either 1) fix NASA first, then we’ll talk about more money; or 2) more or less money will make NASA perform better or worse.
Unfortunately, I think things have to be evaluated by center, by directorate, and even by program to get a meaningful assessment of where money is being reasonably spent and where it’s not.
Perhaps what NASA really needs is an Internal Affairs department (like the TV cop shows) that both does genuine investigations and has the teeth (authority) to enforce corrective measures, and even “punish” (in some appropriate form) bad/wrong performance.
As a side note, I’m reminded of something I saw many years ago. This fairly small company had a standard Employee-of-the-Month plaque that hung prominently in the front lobby. Right beside it was a Problem-Project-of-the-Month plaque (which most of the employees seemed to refer to as the Screw-Up plaque). The Marketing Manager told me that people worked at lot harder at keeping their team/program off the second plaque than anyone did trying to get on the first one. I thought it was a great idea. Perhaps NASA needs something like that at HQ and in the lobbies of all the centers. Just a thought.
I’m a big fan of spending lots more money on space, and on human spaceflight in particular.
But why do we have to exaggerate the economic benefit? Come on, people! Spending on space should be done for its own sake, not for ridiculous claims about how much it helps the greater economy. Sure, spending on NASA has effects on the larger economy, but no more or less than most other government spending, and no more or less than tax breaks that would cause the same amount of spending by the private sector.
The only people who believe NASA spending has greater benefit to the economy as a whole than other government spending are those who want to believe it because they are in favor of space exploration for its own sake. So the economic argument won’t convince anyone who wasn’t already convinced. Instead, it just puts off the people who aren’t already strong fans, who might be persuaded if we would just use the real reasons we should spend on space for its own sake.
Also, while I’m strongly in favor of government spending on space exploration, I’m not in favor of sending more money to NASA as it exists today. The majority of the human spaceflight budget at NASA is wasted on political pork. I see no reason to believe additional billions sent to NASA would go to the parts of NASA that spend it effectively rather than the parts that waste it.
Chris,
The catch I see is that the people who decide the NASA budget are the same people who are distributing the pork, and I don’t think that most (any?) of them particularly care about either exploration for its own sake or its effect on the economy. So the only way for NASA to benefit from more money is if legislation was put in place saying that pork could not exceed some fixed percentage of the budget. However, the people who make and pass (or don’t pass) legislation are the same people who decide the NASA budget, who are the same people who are distributing the pork………….