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Okay, but you're still missing my point. It's not about the specific amount of money that is spent. Ever. It's about what the money is spent on and where it go

Okay, but you're still missing my point. It's not about the specific amount of money that is spent. Ever. It's about what the money is spent on and where it goes. I very much suspect that the Republicans who are in favour of increasing NASA's budget are doing it to secure 'jobs' in their own districts and are not doing out of the goodness in their hearts or their desire for more knowledge in the USA about science or space. They often say as much in their speeches. "We will bring jobs!" etc. NASA is a means to an end for a lot of Republicans specifically, as they focus on economy and jobs from the spending bills, not the resources developed or the knowledge learned or the science experiments done or the kids they have inspired to become engineers or anything like that at all. Republicans rarely support basic research, even at NASA.

Consultant32452 9y ago
>NASA is a means to an end for a lot of Republicans specifically, as they focus on economy and jobs from the spending bills, not the resources developed or the knowledge learned or the science experiments done or the kids they have inspired to become engineers or anything like that at all. So... they only fund science because they care about how investment in science improves our lives? I find it much harder to fault them for that than you do.
- jacobsheehy 9y ago
  > So... they only fund science because they care about how investment in science improves our lives? I'm not sure how you arrived at that conclusion from what I wrote. I wrote the opposite. Many Republicans are seemingly interested in funding NASA only because of misunderstood economics and logical fallacies. Perhaps you arrived at the conclusion you did by thinking that by default, job creation and decisions based on expected economic outcome are things that "improve our lives"? But that simply isn't true. Jobs for the sake of jobs makes no sense and creates massive waste and inefficiencies in the world. Republicans chanting "jobs jobs jobs!" are hurting their constituents, not helping them. This is especially true of the current batch of Republican politicians in power, who chanted about bring back the dying and polluting coal jobs for years and years. Those jobs and policies are not helping the people they claim to be. Back to NASA. Sure, if someone gets a job that helps them out. But the policies in place are not meant to help that person. The policies in place are meant to entrench the Republican in power, for better or worse, and are not made while considering the actual well being of the people who live there. This is evidenced more clearly in other policies, that keep the poor poor and the uneducated uneducated. The policies implemented by Republican politicians in the name of "jobs" are rarely good for the people who live there.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - Consultant32452 9y ago
    Being at the forefront of science and technology is what helps to maintain our position as a/the global financial leader. This is what Republicans understand and care about and why science is funded. Of course that's also viewed through the lens of wanting to make sure some of that funding happens in their own districts. FWIW, the crazy "omnibus" spending bill that just passed by a Republican Congress included a $2 Billion increase to NIH and $1.3 Billion increase to NASA.
    - jacobsheehy 9y ago
      > Being at the forefront of science and technology is what helps to maintain our position as a/the global financial leader. This is what Republicans understand and care about and why science is funded. Your post here specifically states that Republicans care about being #1 in the world financially, and you imply here it is not about helping their constituents live good lives or anything like that. The Republican apparatus here is specifically an attempt at a short-term money-making one, not one that improves lives or even makes money in the long run. If you are right and Republicans are funding science because they want the US to be the global financial leader, that is massively fucked up and massively wrong. It will also backfire, because funding things for the reason of being a leader is like making a startup to try to become a billionaire. It will fail. You must work on the core things like basic science, quality of life, etc, to improve the country's stability and economics across the board.
      - Consultant32452 9y ago
        You're seriously straw-manning here. You can remove the chip from your shoulder any time. They want their constituents to have good jobs. In order to do that they must support the sciences so that our economy can grow.
mturmon 9y ago
> ...are doing it to secure 'jobs' in their own districts... In 2004, the GWB administration created an initiative ("Vision for Space Exploration" = VSE, see [1,2]) that substantially refocused NASA on human spaceflight. Significant money was redirected from technology research to launch vehicle development. This is (partly) visible in the dip in the gray portion of the funding strip-chart in [2] ("aeronautics and science"). It looks small, but its effect was much larger. The original VSE implementors were highly motivated, but attention wandered, after a few years the launch vehicle effort (Orion/Constellation) stalled, and the BHO administration cancelled Constellation. Outside observers wondered whether the GWB administration really cared about the VSE, or just wanted to do a favor for the large manned spaceflight centers in Houston and Florida. It is probably not a coincidence that GWB is a Texan, then-House-Majority-Leader Tom DeLay's home district abuts Johnson Space Center in Houston, and Florida was in the GWB camp in the prior election by just 537 votes. [1] https://www.nasa.gov/missions/solarsystem/aldridge_commission.html https://www.nasa.gov/missions/solarsystem/aldridge_commissio... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vision_for_Space_Exploration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vision_for_Space_Exploration

Consultant32452 9y ago

>NASA is a means to an end for a lot of Republicans specifically, as they focus on economy and jobs from the spending bills, not the resources developed or the knowledge learned or the science experiments done or the kids they have inspired to become engineers or anything like that at all. So... they only fund science because they care about how investment in science improves our lives? I find it much harder to fault them for that than you do.

jacobsheehy 9y ago
> So... they only fund science because they care about how investment in science improves our lives? I'm not sure how you arrived at that conclusion from what I wrote. I wrote the opposite. Many Republicans are seemingly interested in funding NASA only because of misunderstood economics and logical fallacies. Perhaps you arrived at the conclusion you did by thinking that by default, job creation and decisions based on expected economic outcome are things that "improve our lives"? But that simply isn't true. Jobs for the sake of jobs makes no sense and creates massive waste and inefficiencies in the world. Republicans chanting "jobs jobs jobs!" are hurting their constituents, not helping them. This is especially true of the current batch of Republican politicians in power, who chanted about bring back the dying and polluting coal jobs for years and years. Those jobs and policies are not helping the people they claim to be. Back to NASA. Sure, if someone gets a job that helps them out. But the policies in place are not meant to help that person. The policies in place are meant to entrench the Republican in power, for better or worse, and are not made while considering the actual well being of the people who live there. This is evidenced more clearly in other policies, that keep the poor poor and the uneducated uneducated. The policies implemented by Republican politicians in the name of "jobs" are rarely good for the people who live there.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- Consultant32452 9y ago
  Being at the forefront of science and technology is what helps to maintain our position as a/the global financial leader. This is what Republicans understand and care about and why science is funded. Of course that's also viewed through the lens of wanting to make sure some of that funding happens in their own districts. FWIW, the crazy "omnibus" spending bill that just passed by a Republican Congress included a $2 Billion increase to NIH and $1.3 Billion increase to NASA.
  - jacobsheehy 9y ago
    > Being at the forefront of science and technology is what helps to maintain our position as a/the global financial leader. This is what Republicans understand and care about and why science is funded. Your post here specifically states that Republicans care about being #1 in the world financially, and you imply here it is not about helping their constituents live good lives or anything like that. The Republican apparatus here is specifically an attempt at a short-term money-making one, not one that improves lives or even makes money in the long run. If you are right and Republicans are funding science because they want the US to be the global financial leader, that is massively fucked up and massively wrong. It will also backfire, because funding things for the reason of being a leader is like making a startup to try to become a billionaire. It will fail. You must work on the core things like basic science, quality of life, etc, to improve the country's stability and economics across the board.
    - Consultant32452 9y ago
      You're seriously straw-manning here. You can remove the chip from your shoulder any time. They want their constituents to have good jobs. In order to do that they must support the sciences so that our economy can grow.

mturmon 9y ago

> ...are doing it to secure 'jobs' in their own districts... In 2004, the GWB administration created an initiative ("Vision for Space Exploration" = VSE, see [1,2]) that substantially refocused NASA on human spaceflight. Significant money was redirected from technology research to launch vehicle development. This is (partly) visible in the dip in the gray portion of the funding strip-chart in [2] ("aeronautics and science"). It looks small, but its effect was much larger. The original VSE implementors were highly motivated, but attention wandered, after a few years the launch vehicle effort (Orion/Constellation) stalled, and the BHO administration cancelled Constellation. Outside observers wondered whether the GWB administration really cared about the VSE, or just wanted to do a favor for the large manned spaceflight centers in Houston and Florida. It is probably not a coincidence that GWB is a Texan, then-House-Majority-Leader Tom DeLay's home district abuts Johnson Space Center in Houston, and Florida was in the GWB camp in the prior election by just 537 votes. [1] https://www.nasa.gov/missions/solarsystem/aldridge_commission.html https://www.nasa.gov/missions/solarsystem/aldridge_commissio... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vision_for_Space_Exploration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vision_for_Space_Exploration