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NASA Cannot Answer A Simple, Basic Question on Its Value

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
July 7, 2016
Filed under , ,
NASA Cannot Answer A Simple, Basic Question on Its Value

Keith’s 7 July update: A week Two weeks Three weeks ago I sent NASA Chief Scientist Ellen Stofan (and NASA HQ PAO) a simple question about her statement regarding NASA’s value to America’s economy i.e.“there was a report that showed that for ever $1.00 you spend on NASA you get $4.00 returned to the economy”. NASA has still not gotten back to me with an answer. Either NASA refuses to answer or (more likely) they cannot answer – because their answer would reveal that they have no idea where their claims come from.
After 20 years I can totally understand that some people at NASA are loathe to respond to NASAWatch questions like this – especially ones with a high gotcha quotient. I get that. But you’d think that such a basic talking point – one repeatedly used by senior agency personnel to explain the purported value of NASA to our economy – would be one that is strongly grounded in research data – data that should be at everyone’s finger tips. Guess again. If NASA is unable to answer such a simple, basic question about a commonly-used talking point, why should anyone take agency staff seriously when they start to talk about commerce, economics, and return on investment?
NASA has no idea what it is talking about when it comes to its economic value to our nation. So they just make stuff up and hope that no one asks any questions.
NASA has been getting ready for visits from presidential campaign transition teams in the coming weeks. Based on my sources agency leadership is under some collective pervasive delusion that space is actually an issue that campaigns intend to pay attention to prior to the election. Moreover, their aim is to tell the campaigns that NASA is doing what it should be doing, to please just let NASA do whatever it is doing, and not ask too many questions as to why NASA is doing what it is doing. Among the things NASA would normally do is drop the whole dollar-invested/dollar-returned thing into the briefing charts. If NASA cannot answer a simple media question about NASA’s numerical claim of value added benefits to the economy, I am not certain that they should be perpetuating these urban factoids by telling them to representatives of the next administration.

Keith’s 16 June note: I was listening to a local NPR radio station, WAMU today at 1:15 pm EDT when NASA Chief Scientist Ellen Stofan was being interviewed. At one point she said “there was a report that showed that for ever $1.00 you spend on NASA you get $4.00 returned to the economy”. I have heard variations on this line from NASA – about NASA – for decades. Sometimes it is $6.00 – even $8.00. And there is always a “study” or “report” cited as the source of these return on investment (ROI) numbers. Yet unfailingly when you ask NASA for the actual report – or a valid citation or reference – they can’t give you one. I have even had NASA respond by pointing to NASA reports that repeat the same claim but never cite an actual report with numbers, metrics, etc. As many of you know if you repeat an apocryphal number like this NASA ROI often enough it becomes a fact at NASA. So I just sent Dr. Stofan and NASA PAO a request for a report citation. I think I already know their answer – if they reply, that is.
Keith’s update: I did some Googling and found this recent report NASA paid for which calls into question the $4.00 figure Stofan used – as well as the whole notion of actually measuring what NASA’s impact on the economy in terms of dollars. But NASA still does so anyway.
NASA Socio-Economic Impacts, The Tauri Group (prepared for NASA) April 2013
“No single metric can capture the returns from NASA’s activities, given their many dimensions. This report organizes NASA’s socio-economic impacts into six categories and highlights important outcomes in each one. … An input/output analysis using IMPLAN (a widely used input-output modeling software) shows that every dollar NASA spends on employees, businesses, universities, and others generates $2.60 of output in the economy, as compared to the federal non-military average of $2.30 and the federal military average of $2.00. … Accurately estimating revenue generated from technology transfers is difficult. … There is currently no systematic process in place to gather data related to revenues generated from NASA’s transferred technologies. Ad hoc surveys provide limited data that typically capture cumulative rather than annual revenues.”
Keith’s second update: One of our readers noticed this 2011 paper A Sustainable Method for Quantifying the Benefits of NASA Technology Transfer online at NASA which states:
“Studies have indicated discounted rates of return from 33% to 43%, and include ratios from around 7 up to a 23.4 multiplier effect depending on the study, its criteria, and its methodology. Another ratio often calculated in past studies is the number of jobs created as a result of investment in NASA”.
Hmm: “7 up to a 23.4 multiplier effect”. That is certainly a nice point spread. I wonder where Stofan got the 4:1 number she used. Alas, all of the studies that the authors are re-studying were conducted between 1971-1997. Apparently NASA is more interested in rehashing older data and less interested in doing similar studies using more recent economic data.
Curiously the NASA paper adds this disclaimer about its conclusions: “It is important that any use of the findings, data, methodologies, previous studies and data cited, and conclusions in this study be placed in context. The use of these sources should include a disclaimer explaining that this study and all previous and cited studies on this subject were conducted using limited and carefully selected data samples, and that the findings from these samples cannot be extrapolated to encompass, explain, or make predictions concerning the full range and scope of benefits that can be attributed to the U.S. government’s investment in, and the general existence and activities of, NASA.”
Alas, you never hear NASA people mentioning these caveats. They just like to use that sentence “For every dollar that is spent on NASA [pick a number] is put back into the economy.” Caveat emptor.
Dazed and Confused About Space Commerce At NASA, earlier post
Earlier spinoff posts

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

49 responses to “NASA Cannot Answer A Simple, Basic Question on Its Value”

  1. Bob Mahoney says:
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    I found this study about all those studies, dating from 2011…

    https://spinoff.nasa.gov/pd

    Agree that future projections are probably of little if any use.

    Spin-offs are gravy, and ROI is a spin-off. They will indeed come, but pursuing goals in space should not be justified with them, past or future.

    • kcowing says:
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      Hmm: “7 up to a 23.4 multiplier effect”. That is certainly a nice point spread. I wonder where Stofan got the 4:1 number she used. Alas, all of the studies that the authors are restudying were conducted between 1971-1997. Apparently NASA is more interested in rehashing older data and less interested in doing similar studies using more recent economic data.

  2. Ken Davidian says:
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    Keith, et al.,

    With these kind of statements and studies, folks should keep some things in mind:

    1. The ROI on any type of R&D is less than one. That’s the nature of R&D. R&D emerged as a systematized way to create a steady stream of scientific innovation in the late 1800s. A great example of this is Bell Labs. (Mirowski, 2011)

    2. Quantitative research on ROI from scientific and R&D spending, let alone the funding of high-technology, government missions, is inconclusive and contradictory (Mirowski, 2011). It is also fraught with uncertainty. The sources and size of this uncertainty are rarely, if ever, reported.

    3. Innovation, the result of R&D, is the source of entrepreneurship. There are many types of entrepreneurship, and while the type called “innovative productive” entrepreneurship has little quantitative evidence that it leads to economic growth (that elusive “ROI>1” value), there is plenty of qualitative research to support that conclusion (Baumol and Strom, 2010).

    4. A Stanford study (Schofer, et al., 2000) concludes that the actual economic effect of R&D spending is significantly NEGATIVE (i.e., ROI<1) but that’s not the only benefit of R&D spending. The economic effect of the human resource development, the highly advanced and specific training that is provided to students and professors performing the R&D, is SIGNIFICANTLY POSITIVE. That’s where the real benefit of R&D spending lies. I’m not sure how we measure this dimension, however, unless we embed all PhD students with microchips that can track their financial lives for 2-3 decades after they’ve graduated… 😀
    There’s probably more to say, but I’ve rambled on too long already…
    Thanks!
    Ken

    REFERENCES

    Baumol, W. J., & Strom, R. J. (2010). “Useful knowledge” of entrepreneurship: Some implications of the history. In D. S. Landes, J. Mokyr, & W. J. Baumol (Eds.), The Invention of Enterprise: Entrepreneurship from Ancient Mesopotamia to Modern Times (1st Ed., pp. 527–542). Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.

    Mirowski, P. (2011). Science-mart. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Schofer, E., Ramirez, F. O., & Meyer, J. W. (2000). The effects of science on national economic development, 1970 to 1990. American Sociological Review, 65(6), 866–887. http://doi.org/10.2307/2657517

    • kcowing says:
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      Thanks Ken. I can understand the need for NASA folks to have a simple way to quickly state the impact that NASA has on our economy but as you note these impacts are difficult to characterize as a simple number and often, as you also note, the numbers are distinctly negative in terms of immediate or directly identifiable monetary benefit. That is not to say that NASA has no – or negative – impact on the econoy. Quite the contrary. Just that these simple soundbite numbers should be avoided without some background. But when you have 90 seconds on a radio interview sometimes you can only toss out simple answers.

    • fcrary says:
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      I suspect the studies in question, showing a ROI over 2 for both NASA and the federal government as a whole, are looking at economic benefits in general. There are economic theories which say any form of government is beneficial to the economy, since it keeps money in circulation. I have no idea how that could estimated, but it’s the only was I an imagine which would give a high ROI to government spending or R&D.

      • kcowing says:
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        I suspect NASA is not alone in this regard – NIST, NSF, NOAA, etc. probably have similar numbers.

        • fcrary says:
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          Definitely, and I find this depressing at times. The usual practice is not to actually do good work, it is to invent a meaningless metric which will convince people, who don’t know the details, that you are doing good work. On the other hand, I am less pessimistic when I’m in a.better mood. Maybe I should stop posting tonight and just see if Peru can score on Columbia in the second half.

    • Michael Spencer says:
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      Great food for thought. What do we make though about the obvious outliers– Apple certainly comes to mind, among others?

      • fcrary says:
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        I think Mr. Davidian’s description covers that. Apple does not make money from R&D. It looses money on that. But, in return, it obtains technology which allows it to make profitable products. In other words, the return on the research investment is not directly financial. Arguably, that approach does only considers investment and returns which have a dollars sign in front of them. However, it avoids having to figure out the exchange rate between dollars and knowledge.

        • Michael Spencer says:
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          If one does not compare the eventual value of research products to the cost of discovering those products, how else would the comparison be made?

          • fcrary says:
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            That’s the problem. A comparison involving all the benefits would be very difficult to calculate, and probably subject to all sorts of debate about what was, and was not, included. If a product involved two different new technologies and some good marketing, which would be credited for the profits? On the other hand, if you use a very much more restrictive definition of the benefits, then the calculation is easy and accurate. It involves going through bank statements and adding. Do you want an uncertain measure of the most relevant value, or a precise measure of something that isn’t as relevant?

          • Michael Spencer says:
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            Certainly true; when accountants look at the research department they find no counter-balancing ‘Goods Sold’ to ‘Cost of Goods Sold’. Research only makes sense in the context of an entire enterprise.

            In some ways it’s our inadequate method of valuing company functions solely via the mechanism of dollars. There’s also benefit to be had in corporate social policy, for instance, a benefit to the company and to the environment in which the company operates.

    • RocketScientist327 says:
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      This is frigging brilliant stuff. Thank you for sourcing and validating some of the thoughts MANY of us have but could not quantify in a way to present it to said congressional critters.

      +1

  3. Paul451 says:
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    When I first became interested in aerospace, in the late ’70s, early ’80s, the imaginary number being thrown around was $7 for every $1 spent. Now the imaginary number is $4. Even our imaginary NASA is delivering less value for money!

    (What’s interesting is that these numbers originally came from analysis of the economic stimulus from any government spending. The 7:1 was meant to be the average multiplier across government, and had nothing to do with technology development or spin-offs from NASA particularly, but was purely about economic stimulus.)

  4. Henry Hertzfeld says:
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    There are a lot of variations in these numbers because most of the studies have tried to measure different things ranging from economy-wide impacts to narrow returns from specific spin-offs. The comments below are accurate–quantifying returns to an R&D agency that does many different things is difficult and almost impossible task because the data are frequently unavailable in enough detail the calculate statistical results that are verifiable and accurate. Furthermore, NASA spending is about 0.5% of the Federal Budget and only about 0.01% of the nation’s GDP. On a macroeconomic basis, this spending is so small that it is within the “noise” (error) figures that GDP can’t account for and it is no surprise that econometric studies can’t reliably measure NASA returns.

    But, the most important thing to remember is that most of NASA missions and projects fall into the category of public goods–goods and services that are non-rivalous and have characteristics that are non-excludable (i.e. they are not competitive nor can anybody be excluded from the benefits). It can also be argued that many of NASA’s programs have mixed public/private benefits. The bottom line is that a lot of what NASA does and the purchasing decisions NASA makes are not solely price oriented. As such, they are not directly comparable to private sector ROI models and calculations. These often evaluate risky new R&D investments and require much higher short-run returns to get funding from private investors.

    In fact, NASA has been a very successful agency over time in developing new complex technologies in many fields as well as completing successfully missions (Apollo, Shuttle, Hubble, etc.). Therefore one sould consider any additional measurable returns to the economy as icing on the cake, and any measurable overall results greater than 1:1 indicate real benefits.

    For the record, the 7:1 return number comes from a 1975 Chase Econometric study done for NASA. In the same time-frame there was a Midwest Research Institute Study that measured a 9:1 return. In Europe ESA had a study that was closer to 3:1 but took a very different approach and therefore was not comparable in methodology to the U.S. studies. More recent studies have not added much to our knowledge in this area. And, all economic studies have measured the average returns over time and can say very little about the marginal (additional) returns to new investments with unknown future returns.

    Cost/benefit analyses have also been done, but measuring costs and allocating them to specific projects is very difficult (as is measuring benefits), so the results of those studies tend to look at the cumulative economic value of whatever has been measured. Usually those studies have shown returns that are robust and significant both at the regional and industry levels. Of course, most of those studies have focused on technologies which are known to have been marketable or have increased the quality of life and not on those technologies that have not been commercially useful or profitable.

    • kcowing says:
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      Thanks for the thoughtful explanation (you have been writing about this for a long time). Alas, NASA is unable to answer my question. Also, it is odd that the agency relies of studies of old studies but does not seem to be interested in more recent, present, and future (anticipated) economic impacts. But they love to cite old numbers without any supporting references or context.

  5. kcowing says:
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    Scott Hubbard was quoted as saying different things just 2 years apart:

    Estimates Vary On The Effect of the NASA Stimulus, NextGov (2010)

    “Some early academic and other studies “made very ‘generous’ assumptions about the spinoffs, goods and services produced as a result of NASA’s investments,” G. Scott Hubbard, a consulting professor at Stanford University, said in an e-mail. A study commissioned by Hubbard in the mid-2000s when he was director of NASA’s Ames Research Center in California on the center’s local economic impact found a “more conservative” 2- to 3-to-1 ratio.”

    NASA Research Finds Way Into IT, Consumer Products, Computer World (2008)

    “”Scott Hubbard, who worked at NASA for 20 years before joining the faculty at Stanford University, where he is a professor in the aeronautics and astronautics department, said that NASA research has had a significant impact on the IT industry over the past 40-plus years. Overall, Hubbard added, $7 or $8 in goods and services are produced for every $1 that the government invests in NASA.”

  6. kcowing says:
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    Even back in 1977 the GAO was doubtful about claims about NASA’s reports on the impact fo its research spending:

    NASA Report May Overstate the Economic Benefits of Research and Development Spending PAD-78-18: Published: Oct 18, 1977

    “The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) contracted with Chase Econometrics Associates, Inc., to evaluate how research and development (R&D) spending affects the U.S. economy. The Chase report “The Economic Impact of NASA R&D Spending” concluded that this spending produced many benefits between 1960 and 1974, although it did not try to evaluate how effectively NASA carried out its primary objectives, such as space exploration and satellite communication. Although the study is useful as exploratory research, other types of studies are necessary to provide a complete evaluation of NASA research and development. The most significant conclusion of the Chase study was that “. . . a $1 billion sustained increase in NASA R&D spending will raise real GNP $23 billion by 1984 . . . .” Of this estimated increase, $21 billion would result from improved technology and productivity and the rest would result from increased Government spending which would stimulate spending in different parts of the economy. The Chase study did not prove convincingly that the benefits of R&D spending are as large as stated.”

  7. Steven Rappolee says:
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    What’s helpful for me to think about is commercial crew and cargo and the new USAF EELV contracts requirement to contribute to R&D by the contractor with a promise of future service contracts

  8. Daniel Woodard says:
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    In a few cases, primarily in aeronautics, NASA has worked directly with industry to accelerate development of commercial technology. NASA investment also contributed to the commercial success of SpaceX.

    However commercial success is often put forward as a “free” fringe benefit of NASA R&D that was actually funded to support the internal “NASA mission”. Assumed commercial benefits are then used as a retrospective justification for the NASA programs. This is inevitably a bit speculative.

    IMO it would be more effective to return at least to some degree to the NACA model and target some or most NASA R&D directly toward making American commercial industry more productive and competitive, not as an inadvertent byproduct, but as a primary goal.

  9. Bob Mahoney says:
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    Keith,

    I fear you are potentially pursuing a lost cause, i.e., seeking to establish/confirm legitimate authoritative justification for the content of a sound bite. Fragmented, baseless information exchange is becoming the norm of our e-convenient culture/society and, most disturbingly, our cyber-immersed youth. Fewer and fewer persons genuinely care about the factual foundation of the ‘information’ they hear/see because fewer and fewer persons today are willing to be bothered with the effort required to (a) actually think about such things…and (b) be concerned with the importance of such things.

  10. montagna_lunga says:
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    Heck many of us are seemingly unable to defend the obvious $1 spent = $1 put into the economy, let along the strange smoke and i/allusion numbers like 1=4…

    • Michael Spencer says:
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      The notion that a dollar spent by the government has a multiplier effect is well-understood but poorly quantized.

      But as some of my more conservative friends will point out, it is also the case that all of the money spent by any government is money not spent by tax payers. It’s not 100% the case, of course; the last dollar is not always spent.

      • Jeff2Space says:
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        True, not every dollar is spent. Some is invested or saved. It’s actually arguable that some money saved in the US is (directly or indirectly) lent back to the government through the purchase of US Treasury Bills. So some money not taxed by the government is actually lent to the government. It’s all very confusing to this space guy with an engineering degree.

  11. mfwright says:
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    There is the “why spend money on space when there’s so many problems here on earth” meme that’s been kicking around for decades. However, that money is spent on earth (where it is spent on this planet is arguable). One space first that has not been done is actual spending money in space, that is, buy a capsule and stuff it full of cash then blast this BEO. LEO wouldn’t exactly count because it will eventually come back to earth (and the money would not go into space). I know, a silly application, maybe just put a few dollars into a cubesat.

  12. Darrin Taylor says:
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    Lets say for the sake of argument that it would take 1 Trillion 2016 dollars to fully colonize Mars so that it is fully independent. Lets take the present value of the entire planet at ~4 Trillion 2016 Dollars based on future colonization growing to millions of people and all the future trade and innovation developed for all time. All spending to NASA that is small compared to a Trillion dollars drops out.

    If you believe Mars can be colonized for a total of 1 Trillion and that an entire planet is worth at least 4 Trillion dollars then I think you have your answer.

  13. Neal Aldin says:
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    In my view the real issue here is, while the value numbers are certainly not straightforward nor easily computed, the NASA leadership needs to get a grip on how to answer such obvious questions as the value of NASA R&D and they need to do it in an honest, straightforward, and believable manner. A lot of the top management, like Ellen Stofan or Charlie Bolden, no longer do “real” technical work-they are there manly as spokes-people. If they are supposed to be doing real technical work, then there are no signs of it. But bogus information like espoused by Stofan, means she is not doing her spokesperson job and really leads us to question the veracity of the NASA people and the value proposition of NASA. They ought to know how to answer these questions and how to state the value proposition.They have no shortage of people to help them compose this stuff.

    If they cannot handle a true supporter, like Keith, how are they going to deal with the people who don’t want them to get a realistic budget or to succeed?

    NASA management has seen better days. The current bunch are clueless.

  14. John C Mankins says:
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    I personally believe — and deeply hope — that the value of NASA is not limited to its economic return to the US economy.

    However, in terms of the economic return: as I recall there was a study done way back in the 1970s that indicated that any dollar spent had an impact of 4-5 dollars overall as the dollar was spent by the people who received the dollar initially. (In other words, a dollar spent at Rockwell, is used to pay employees, who in turn buy food, clothes, rent, etc., and those who receive that dollar in turn spend it on other goods and services, etc. etc.

    I don’t know if a more recent version of this old, old study has been done.

    best…

    • Michael Spencer says:
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      Indeed. The trend these days to assess the value of education in terms of future earnings is a similarly flawed calculation.

    • kcowing says:
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      Yea it was a Chase Econometrics report. GAO issued a follow-up report – on that report – debunking what it said. NASA staff were scrambling to try and find the answer, so I am told. They could not find the reports or validate the numbers. They refuse to respond to my question.

  15. Daniel Woodard says:
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    Many forms of government spending have been shown to have GDP multipliers, although not as high as those ascribed to NASA. SNAP (the USDA Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program) has a multiplier of 1.79 for example because the money is spent immediately and recirculates. The data supporting this is fairly detailed: http://www.ers.usda.gov/med… This is considered relatively high for a GDP multiplier; for tax cuts for example it is only about .32.

    I think it would be helpful for NASA to distinguish between the return on different types of programs, i.e. those specifically focused on assisting industry with advancing a commercial technology as compared to those in which a NASA organizational goal resulted in incidental development of commercial technology. There have been some really positive examples of NASA mission-developed technology being commercialized but in my experience it takes a lot of resources to go from an idea to something industry can actually use, and the requirement that technology first be needed to meet a NASA internal mission can be a roadblock to some R&D that would have great value to the nation.

    Here’s an idea, if NASA really wants to boost GDP. NASA could ask US industry what technology it needs, and then help industry to develop it, not as an inadvertent byproduct, but as a primary goal. Isn’t that what the NACA did?

    • unfunded_dreams says:
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      I agree with the sentiment that “GDP multiplier” is not a great measure of NASA’s success, at least not as calculated. If the figure took into account how many NASA technologies rolled into commercial products manufactured in the US, how many NASA research projects matured concepts enough for corporate R&D teams to pick them up, etc – that would be an interesting measure. Unfortunately, I don’t know how that would be reasonably calculated, and I don’t know if the calculated value would be high enough for boasting rights.

    • Erik says:
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      “Here’s an idea, if NASA really wants to boost GDP. NASA could ask US industry what technology it needs, and then help industry to develop it, not as an inadvertent byproduct, but as a primary goal. Isn’t that what the NACA did?”

      Right, because a state run economy works so well. If you think you know what technology is most valued (or who to ask to find out), do it yourself and enter the capital markets to fund it. Otherwise, get your hand out of my wallet.

      • Michael Spencer says:
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        So, are we saying that, say, NASA experimentation with winglets is flawed because at the outset nobody knew if they would be as effective as they turned out?

        This is the nature of pure research or indeed research into product development. There’s a benefit to society as a whole often not measurable by dollars- the only metric recognized by some.

        We live in curious times.

        • Erik says:
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          You cherry picked a result. Winglet research occurred alongside federal research in how to make Chinese prostitutes drink more responsibly on the job (yes, that is real).

          Pure research is fine (and is done appropriately by a number of private companies) as long as the researcher has skin in the game.

          • Daniel Woodard says:
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            I’ve tried many times to persuade private industry (i.e. drug companies) to support pure research. As soon as they find out you don’t have a drug ready to go to market within two years (and oh, by the way, it has to be patentable, a new use for a cheap generic doesn’t count) their eyes roll back into their heads and they stop listening. If it has a market and a patent, then whether it actually helps anyone is irrelevant.

            Please provide a reference to the actual published results of the Chinese prostitute study. It’s not that I oppose such research, its that I suspect all you have to go on is Fox News and the spicy images they added, which probably were from their own “research”. The links in the Fox story lead nowhere.

            As for NACA, please read Engineer in Charge

          • Erik says:
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            Again, if you think your pure research is a good thing, invest your own capital or enter the capital markets to fund it. Just because you can’t convince someone to fund your idea doesn’t make it a good (or a bad) idea. It also doesn’t justify using force to fund it either.

            Here is your reference: http://prognosis.med.wayne….

          • Daniel Woodard says:
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            “A $2.6 million grant will help a Wayne State University School of Medicine researcher establish and evaluate whether an alcohol and HIV intervention center can assist in reducing the spread of HIV/AIDS among sex workers in China.”

            As a physician, yes, this is vital research with millions of lives at stake and this study will provide more benefits to US taxpayers than a similar amount added to the budget to accelerate human flight to Mars. The spread of HIV remains one of the most critical public health problems in the world today. If you don’t think so you of course have every right to make your opinion known.

            As I pointed out, private capital almost never funds basic research, because venture capitalists require a quick and sure return on their investments. Whether tax dollars should be provided to aid this research is a matter of convincing the funding agencies. If you can convince them not to fund it that is f course your right, but if I and other physicians and scientists can persuade our government that this is an appropriate use of tax dollars, then by our laws you have to chip in.

          • Erik says:
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            No, we do not live in a government run by scientists nor do we live in a democracy. We live in a republic. There is a enumerated list of things in our Constitution that Congress (not Executive branch agencies) can raise tax dollar for. Research into the drinking habits of Chinese prostitutes is, not surprisingly, not on the list.

          • Daniel Woodard says:
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            Neither is sending Americans to Mars. Actually it is included under the “general welfare” clause. The goal of the research is not to change the drinking habits of Chinese prostitutes, it is to help prevent the spread of AIDS. You may not feel that is an important goal, but many Americans do. If you are opposed to spending tax dollars on AIDS research you are welcome to write to Congress, but they may or may not listen.

          • Erik says:
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            Well at least your first sentence is correct. Your invocation of the general welfare clause tells me all I need to know about your viewpoint towards and understanding of the Constitution. Cheers.

  16. Dewey Vanderhoff says:
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    Who was it that said you could lay all the world’s Economists end to end and they still wouldn’t reach a conclusion ?
    Every time I hear a study cited that uses an economic multiplier per dollar spent, I cringe. In order to accept the postulated figure , it would require me to start believing in Voodoo.
    But maybe there is a worthwhile NASA benefit analogy in American history. Once the young United States shrewdly acquired the 800,000 square miles of the terra incognita called the Louisiana Purchase, it was necessary to explore it. President Thomas jefferson strongarmed Congress to get a whopping $ 2500 for the Lewis and Clark Expedition to run with . The Corps of Discovery eventually cost the US Treasury 15 times that sum…$ 39,000 dollars.
    Quantitatively , that was a huge budget bust and government extravagance … terms often used to tar and feather NASA programs such as SLS.
    Qualitatively ? Forty grand to explore the interior continent from Missouri over the Rockies and down the Columbia to the Pacific Ocean , and back , and basically open it all up to future settlement and development : Priceless.

    • mfwright says:
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      “Corps of Discovery eventually cost the US Treasury 15 times that sum…”

      Another budget buster and extravagance was purchase of Alaska. What was Seward thinking? C’mon you guys we have to rebuild the country after this nation’s most devastating war.

  17. NASAdude says:
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    Uhm…there is at least one publicly available report that shows NASA Ames generating $2.50 for every dollar spent –probably a more realistic figure. The $5 to $6 buck return for every NASA dollar could only be true if you count the salary impacts of high paid scientists and engineers, not all the support staff and contractors. Here is the link to the report:

    https://www.nasa.gov/sites/

    Every NASA Center produces these reports, so it should be hard to find figures for other centers!

  18. Bob Mahoney says:
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    I’ve been reading Volume 1 of NASA’s “Selected Documents in the History of the U.S. Civil Space Program”. Taking a break between Oberth & Goddard (fascinating but dense reading,,,), I found deeper in something just as fascinating: a “handover note” from Administrator Fletcher to Administrator Frosch (Nixon/Ford to Carter transition) highlighting what he felt were critical items for the Administrator-to-be. Among them (keeping MSFC alive was one of them, pursuing alternate ways of bringing payloads back to Earth (besides wings/shuttle configurations) another) was the need to improve NASA’s PR (mentioning that the coverage of the actual missions during Apollo had previously provided a strong engagement of the public but wasn’t there any more) in terms of justifying NASA’s activities.

    He cited two of the economic studies (which occurred during his term, I think) that helped started this on-going effort; I think they were in the list in one of the ‘study of the studies’ we cited in the old discussion thread. He strongly encouraged further efforts along these lines. Was this perhaps touching on the ‘birth’ of NASA’s ‘Spin-Offs’ series of publications (which happened in 1976…the very time-frame of this transition)?