NASA Should Phase Out Lower-Priority Aeronautics Activities, Focus on Higher Risk, Higher Payoff Projects
“At a time when NASA’s aeronautics funding is at a historic low, the agency needs to restart its highly successful flight research program, rather than devote most of its efforts to small-scale research, says a new report from the National Research Council. To accomplish this, the agency should phase out lower-priority aeronautics activities and select two to five programs with the greatest potential.”
It’s amusing to read the NRC recommendation and try to envision what the NRC has determined NASA’s aeronautics funding should be used for. Have the long standing and ongoing NASA aeronautics missions been to pursue dozens of low-risk, low-payoff or no-payoff projects? And only now it occurs to people that the projects should aim at high risk and high-reward? What a novel re-direct.
Per their scope, the NRC’s mission is only to improve government decision making, increase public understanding, and disseminate science, health and STEM related knowledge. The scope does not speak of a mandate to secure “payoffs”. NRC reports, at best only speak of generalized social benefits, which admittedly does work with a “new world order” theme. The NRC’s mission is largely exempt from payoffs or useful results; the mission being more at the lofty pursuit of pure science, endless studies, and the infinite perpetuation of academic science explorations. Given NRC’s mission, why would they recommend that NASA aeronautics and budget re-focus on high-risk, high-reward outcomes? Is it to make the aeronautics programs more visible or relevant or to secure more funding? Has our Nation decayed to the point where groups actually need to be productive to justify receiving millions in funding?
I can sympathize with this. As the NACA, the agency played a vibrant role in the development of aviation in the first half of the 20th century. While that role has been greatly diminished, NASA still does good work in the field. I’d like to see it re-emphasized and properly funded.
I also note recent news stories that both Russia and China are increasing their R&D budgets even as Congress trims ours. We literally can’t afford that kind of short sightedness.
I suggested in another thread that NASA’s aeronautics program and budget be spun off into a new independent NACA. With a mandate to help a new generation of small-to-medium aviation companies lower their R&D costs, pioneer radical aviation ideas, and partner with larger aeronautics companies on joint projects.
“agency needs to restart its highly successful flight research program”
Provide the money and we’ll restart. However, some of those “lower priority activities” may lead to high value benefits, unless politicos treat NASA like a corporation that needs to show quarterly earnings for stockholders.
Basic aero R&D has been gone for years. The seed corn is about gone and NASA is no longer at the forefront of most aero technologies. I can only wonder why many engineers would even consider starting a career at NASA.
Substantially increase the NASA budget! We need to be spending more on science and technology– not less– if we are to continue to advance our technology and grow our economy.
If Congress wants to– seriously– reduce deficit spending then:
1. close down some of our unnecessary foreign military bases (saving us at least tens of billions annually)
2. dramatically reduce the cost (by hundreds of billions annually) of Medicare and Medicaid through common sense reforms that create incentives for consumers to choose the best medical care and services at the lowest price directly from doctors, hospitals and clinics.
3. cut Congressional wages and the pensions of former Federal legislators by 10% (they don’t deserve it).
4. stop spending hundreds of billions of dollars annually extending unemployment insurance (the new welfare) and use those funds to create jobs by investing in more science and technology (like NASA) and in transportation (high speed rail) and energy infrastructure (clean energy bank to provide low cost loans to utilities and companies that want to build more carbon neutral nuclear and renewable energy power plants and carbon neutral synfuels from urban a rural biowaste).
5. end the tax cuts for the wealthy which has cost us trillions of dollars in lost revenue. We’re in an economic crisis. So now is not the time to coddle the wealthy– especially since they’re apparently sitting on about $2 trillion in potential investment dollars which they refuse to invest in creating jobs in America.
Marcel F. Williams
“3. cut Congressional wages and the pensions of former Federal legislators by 10%”
Wages are a small part of the cost of Congressmen. Base salary might be $174,000, but once you add in allowances you have a typical cost in the low millions each.
However, given the size of lobbying payments to congressmen (and Presidents), and the tendency for candidates to already be independently wealthy, do Federal politicians need to be paid at all any more? Raising a salary and office expenses, on top of the current millions already raised in re-election funding, shouldn’t be a stretch.
“2. dramatically reduce the cost (by hundreds of billions annually) of Medicare and Medicaid through common sense reforms that create incentives for consumers to choose the best medical care and services at the lowest price directly from doctors, hospitals and clinics.”
“incentives to choose…” this is usually code for vouchers. And voucher programs almost always raise the cost and overheads. Medicare is already surprisingly efficient (only VA has less administrative overhead). You’d gain a great benefit allowing Medicare to negotiate prices as a bulk-purchaser. (Currently it is prevented by law.) This has brought huge gains to both patients and tax-payers in Australia. (We pay about half as much per-person for medical care as the US, including tax-payer funding.)
Per your recommendations:
1. Which ones are unnecessary? Name them and why they should be closed. Justify the savings you quote.
2. Better yet, get Government out of health-care all together. There is more waste, fraud, and abuse in a given year than NASA spends in three (http://www.cbsnews.com/2100…
3. Not even a drop in the bucket
4. Agree on unemployment benefits (99 weeks! Really!?) but the last thing we need is more Solyndra’s. Better yet, get DOE out of the mix. Rather than Govt investing, get Govt out of the way (red-tape, burdensome regs, etc.) and let the private investment capital do its work. They will quickly weed out the bad technologies and/or business plans and reward the successful ones. Govt typically rewards the failures and punishes the successes.
5. Get over the wealth envy. Based on 2009 returns, the top 1% earned 16.9% of the income but paid 36.7% of the income taxes. The top 5% (~$155000 and up) earned 31.7% of the income but paid 58.7% of the income taxes. (http://www.taxfoundation.or… Overall, the top 10% paid 70% of the overall tax burden while ~49% of households got a free ride (no income taxes at all). (http://www.heritage.org/bud…. A better solution is to move to something like the Fair Tax that all but eliminates the lobbyist industry as there is no more tax-code rigging to reward favored donors.
You figures are correct only for income taxes. The poor pay a much larger share of income in sales and payroll taxes and the rich shield a larger percentage of their wealth. The actual percentage paid is about the same. The top 1% have 35% of the nation’s wealth and the bottom 50% less than 3%. Moreover the wealthy do _not_ invest income in job creation in the US; large companies like HP, GE and Walmart are moving their manufacturing and even R&D to China. The wealthy should pay a larger percentage of their income and their wealth in taxes, as they did in the 60’s. Unless they do, it is absurd to even think about flying missions as expensive as SLS/Orion.
Proof? Cite real numbers for sales taxes. Payroll taxes are apples to the discussion of oranges. Everyone pays the same rate up to the max allowable. Beyond that limit, no one pays more.
Wealth has already been taxed once, why should anyone have continue to pay taxes on it year after year?
Are you honestly saying that top-wage earners don’t invest their money? Cite proof. And why are you blaming the investor for where any company chooses to invest and expand their business? It is the company’s perogative to choose, not the Govt’s. If as a shareholder they (or you) disagree, then invest somewhere else. Or are you against free enterprise and capitalism?
SLS is a waste. It should be canceled along with most of HSF unless and until a valid economic or political can be found to justify the enormous expense.
Wealth has been taxed once? That’s nonsense, capital gains are not taxed at all unless sold and then at half the rate. Investors are free to invest as they wish, but Congress has the authority to raise taxes however it wishes (US Constitution, Article 1) and companies and individuals doing business in the US are required to pay the taxes that are enacted, whether they like it or not. Anyone who does not want to pay would be well advised to move to a country with no taxes. Somalia, perhaps? Even the hyperconservative Cato institute readily concedes that sales taxes are regressive:
http://www.cato.org/pubs/pa…
Rich people have no incentive to do anything with their income that benefits the US. I work daily with people from China who would be happy to describe how HP, GE, Walmart and Apple are creating jobs in China, not just in manufacturing but in research and development as well. So if you are Chinese, then you would see this as a positive development, but if you are American, and not a billionaire, you would see a bunch of rich people who are doing everything they can to ship your hard-earned skills overseas. Taxes, in contrast, are almost always spent in the US in ways that stimulate economic activity here. If they are well spent, they improve US industrial and commercial competitiveness.
However I fully agreeing with you on cancelling the extremely expensive SLS and Orion. Replacing them with more support for practical industrial/commercial R&D that industry is actually asking for would at least have some prospect of contributing to US manufacturing, jobs, exports, and living standards.
Aeronautics has become a shell of what it was even only 10 – 15 years ago. Facilities are being allowed to decay and there is a concerted and planned effort inside of NASA to close most facilities in the next decade or less. NASA simply does not have the funds but the real reason is priorities. Aeronautics is not sexy enough and politics drives NASA work, not what the country needs. After all how many aircraft and helicopters fly every day and how many rockets go up every day? See, airplanes and helicopters are essentially phased out. This new plan is basically what was the direction about 8-9 years ago and NASA simply bounces around from next big thing to next big thing. This is what happens when NASA “wheels” has no vision or leadership abilities. I hope no one is going ot be surprised when SLS is gone in a year or two and this aeronautics plan will just be another exercise in replanning, reshuffling, etc. How many NASA researchers, engineers, technicians, are fondly looking out a few years to retirement and moving on???
NASA and NRC should not be consumed by the vision of immediate riches, but neither should they forget to use common sense in deciding research priorities. We need to maintain the competitiveness of the US civil aircraft industry, and that isn’t something that a few SBIR grants will help, because SBIR grants do not go to the companies that we need to make more competitive.
NASA only listens to the NRC recommendations that fits its agenda. Just look at the NRC report on facilities as a recent example, the NASA facilities are falling apart while the program funds are being raided to pay for infrastructure, meanwhile the management is paying NASA employees to write proposals that they have less than 10% chance of winning, what a waste of talent. There is great talk of innovation, yet not a single program, especially those in NIAC and OCT actually organize or implement any programs following literature documented methods. The fact that both OCT directors left recently says a lot about the current state in the agency. There are way too many people managing, tracking, and monitoring the work of a few. NASA has plenty of smart engineers and scientists, put them to work on real projects that allows them to make discretionary decisions and judgements as the scientific results come in. You can predict breakthroughs and innovation via micromanaging!!