It could be a lot more efficient if they stopped trying to be subtle and instead spent more time thinking. Openly admit NASA is a basic infrastructure assuranc

It could be a lot more efficient if they stopped trying to be subtle and instead spent more time thinking. Openly admit NASA is a basic infrastructure assurance program, much like the Interstate highway system is. (Yes, it's Military capable infrastructure, for moving troops and stuff around. It turns out that useful infrastructure improves overall economic fitness and activity as well.) Then group up all of the infrastructure spending and make sure it gives every citizen roughly equal value. Sometimes this can be justified in lower shipping costs for produced items from farms and backbone redundancy across the country. Other times it's connecting land and sea ports to the cross country grid. Evaluating a fair share of the commons and of resources to maintain the commons is a hard problem. NASA also falls under various civic services the government proves because it makes sense for just one place to do the work; or at least for a baseline that private entities can compete against. The distribution of these programs also forms part of the weight to balance government improvements programs among areas.