17 ms·

What Is NASA for?

73 points by wikiburner 13y ago

Zigurd 13y ago
Tl;dr: NASA was only incidentally about science, it was cover for funding military/geopolitical goals. Once those goals (moon, shuttle) were achieved, NASA's risks and costs are exceedingly hard to justify.
- kubiiii 13y ago
  But then Chris Hadfield made his invaluable youtube videos to justify the cost.
- valarauca1 13y ago
  NASA was founded as a guise for science in the light of a cold war power play. There are several quotes even from Kennedy saying that the Space Race was a diplomatic framing of ICBM missile building and testing. What NASA does accomplish is economic growth of America as a whole. What most people don't realize is very dollar given to NASA roughly translates to 2-4 dollars of GDP growth of American research, development, and manufacturing. Really one of the most direct ways of the US Government putting additional money in the hands of the American is NASA's budget strangely.
  - SamReidHughes 13y ago
    Except no, you can't go and spout numbers about GDP growth ratios without considering the opportunity costs of not having NASA's employees work in other sectors.
    - valarauca1 13y ago
      I'm talking about government spending to money actually being used in the economy. In which NASA is largely the best program. On a person by person level yes there is likely some wasted talent at NASA, and their skills could be put to better use else where. But doing a micro-economic analysis of every 1 person's case over 300,000 employes and 18,000 contractors would be very time consuming then making boarder macro economic statements. Also remember micro-economics are wrong about certain things, macro-economics are wrong about things in general.
      - mcguire 13y ago
        "300,000 employees and 18,000 contractors" Assuming you're talking about the '60's, it's the other way around. If you're talking about today, it's still the other way around but the number of contractors is much smaller.
        valarauca1 13y ago
        Those numbers are taken from NASA itself, they have links to the size of their operations nasapeople.nasa.gov
        mcguire 13y ago
        Do you mean this: https://wicn.nssc.nasa.gov/c10/cgi-bin/cognosisapi.dll?b_action=powerPlayService&m_encoding=UTF-8&BZ=1AAABgNNr_f942m2PQWuDQBCF~8yOaS9hdlTUgwd1DRHamEahZ6NjCTFuUFOaf981KYTSzu7wHm__gV2ryJdFme~STIXjpAfO1BMQHSShS5TK2I89x~NXsYt24AfKd4Mg8mLHMM~WvJtGu2S9jcp1CLSqdT9xPxnX6q7hAdwYHOyrE4OtFttBt4eOgTC57HlcgKsMea7qY~XBv9F3PRxbPdQz~LM245YqkmWSbzZpUmZGotc0~Ae14rewRRQSEaVEIQQKFwWhmI8QUdcZOD2dO31lHgGDvDeBukxXI0DtPP0yP2m4MfaFq082kADygWwDsATaAwX3QD4C8afk7c7m~qBbP_obQJNj2A%3D%3D https://wicn.nssc.nasa.gov/c10/cgi-bin/cognosisapi.dll?b_act... (Aaahhhhhh! Cognos! Aaahhhhhhh!) I don't have a good source for the number of contractors, other than wikipedia. (...which cites http://employeeorientation.nasa.gov/contractors/default.htm http://employeeorientation.nasa.gov/contractors/default.htm. Huh.)
        tanzam75 13y ago
        > (Aaahhhhhh! Cognos! Aaahhhhhhh!) Aha! Now we know where NASA's IT budget went -- to IBM. IBM specializes in making sure that you spend your full IT budget each year, so that upper management isn't tempted to cut it next year.
        valarauca1 13y ago
        Yes but IBM also makes very damn reliable mainframes, also z-series can emulate system360's, which NASA had quiet a few of (the last one wasn't decommissioned until 2010). So likely to maintain payroll or tax data they kept IBM.
    - Zigurd 13y ago
      Some of the numbers I have seen for NASA's economic benefits are pretty spectacularly good. But you would have to then believe that the same holds true for SDI ("Star Wars") because it's pretty much the same thing without the science/exploration fig leaf.
danso 13y ago
This is a great essay...it illuminates the interplay between science, politics, idealism, and human endeavor better than most things I've read that bemoan the underfunding of NASA: Human-based missions are unfeasible if we want to expand space exploration....yet the public can't get behind robot-missions, and thus, the lack of funding and interest. This conflict mimics the technological dichotomy in the rest of society...how can we continue to value human contributions when computers can do things so much more efficiently and accurately? My opinion is that there are plenty of things that require a "human-in-the-middle" for the forseeable future, earthside. But in space, it's much harder to justify, based on the plain physics of sending a human into space.
ANH 13y ago
This is a kind of ridiculous article. It entirely ignores NASA's Earth Science work, which gets the largest allocation of science funding in the FY2014 budget (almost $2B). Caveat: I work with a team of NASA & contractor Earth scientists. I think they'd all tell you they don't need to go search for a justification; justifications are self-evident. Here's one: Maintain the climate record.
- __pThrow 13y ago
  Perhaps my memory is wrong, or the emphasis less that I recall, but I remember fundamental change in NASA's direction in the late 90s or early 2000s that explicitly focused NASA's work on Earth. Some of this was a result of remote sensing tech coming into it's golden age, some as a result of climate change needs, and a lot was a result of NASA needing to find a source of funding. But I can't find anything extensive about that on the web at this moment.
  - tanzam75 13y ago
    Earth Science is only 10% of NASA's budget. From NASA's 2014 budget request (in millions of dollars): http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/750614main_NASA_FY_2014_Budget_Estimates-508.pdf http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/750614main_NASA_FY_2014_Budget_Estim... Science 5,017.8 Aeronautics 565.7 Space Technology 742.6 Exploration 3,915.5 Space Operations 3,882.9 Education 94.2 Cross Agency Support 2,850.3 =============================== Total Request 17,715.4 To break down "Science": Earth Science 1,846.1 Planetary Science 1,217.5 Astrophysics 642.3 James Webb Space Telescope 658.2 Heliophysics 653.7 By comparison, most of the "Exploration" budget is spent on the development of the Space Launch System -- which some sarcastically refer to as the "Senate" Launch System, because it is designed to spread money among the states. Just the SLS alone is bigger than the Earth Science budget.
    - maaku 13y ago
      > which some sarcastically refer to as the "Senate" Launch System, because it is designed to spread money among the states I thought it was because the project was invented in the Senate version of the NASA budget, where Senate staffers made up arbitrary requirements for its design and functionality.
zwieback 13y ago
I don't get the fascination with manned space flight. To me it's such an obvious waste of money. I find the robots we send to space a million times more fascinating.
- pekk 13y ago
  Let me get this straight: sending a man to the moon was an obvious waste of money?
  - leoedin 13y ago
    Without the context of cold war one-upmanship, almost certainly. What did landing on the moon actually give us? A slightly better understanding of early earth geology perhaps? It was mostly an excercise in building national pride and sticking it to the Soviets. In that role, it was effective. Spaceflight has contributed very, very little technology to earth. The reality is that anything we fly into space is already generations behind the equivalent earth technology. Put it another way: What were the obvious benefits of the Apollo program?
    - MrMeker 13y ago
      Freeze drying is one of many it seems. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spin-off_technologies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spin-off_technologies What were the direct benefits of Amundsen's expedition to the south pole? Is exploration a waist even if its results are less than stellar? I would say that by its nature, exploration is a hard thing to waste money on. Necessity is the mother of invention and nothing provides necessity like pushing the envelope. For example, look at the picture that accompanies this article. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_algorithm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_algorithm
      - leoedin 13y ago
        Optimisation algorithms are used widely in all sorts of industries. That antenna was used in 2006. If you read the "History" section of the GA article you linked it talks about developments made since the fifties. Certainly it has space applications, but the technology wasn't developed for space uses. The photo was probably used because space is interesting to people and because NASA photos are in the public domain. You can't simply say that all exploration gives value for money. With finite resources, we have to direct spending to where it will result in the most benefit. Funding of human spaceflight means that there's less funding available elsewhere. I'm not familiar with who funded Amundsen's expedition, but I'd imagine that it cost a lot less than the trip to the moon did. There has been innovative developments in the space industry. Some of those spin-off technologies are definitely valid (although the question of whether the return they provide given the absolutely huge R&D budget is worth it) but others are less so. Freeze drying was apparently initially developed in 1938, long before the space program. I find it hard to believe that, in the absence of a space program, nobody would have invented the portable vacuum cleaner. There are benefits from a space program. Government R&D, when spent well, has a huge impact on technological progress (just look at the absolutely incredible technological step change that wars bring). What I think needs to end is the absolute idolisation of the space program. It's an investment, and one which has often shown a poor return.
Shivetya 13y ago
Go for the children. Go for the schools. Go for APPs and market NASA to kids that way. Engage schools by soliciting where to point a camera, where to send a rover. By allowing hundreds if not thousands of kids to vote/choose maybe they can interest them enough to get adults to wonder why Congress does not act. in other words, they need a strong marketing division that can take the droll numbers of science and present it to schools and online that anyone can understand. The get attached to some cereal boxes, cookies, and lunch boxes.
- BrandonMarc 13y ago
  NASA has always gone for the children. There's massive cooperation between NASA and the public schools, all over the country. NASA has, also, always been trying to market themselves. Visit any tourist trap and it's all about spin-offs, and dreams, and here's why we're doing this ... over and over and over, the same spiel. Years ago I wondered why they were constantly trying to remind and justify the whys of their existence; now it's pretty clear. When I was ~ 11 years old, my 5th grade classroom in rural Texas received some tomato seeds which had been exposed to space, and -- for science! -- I and other classmates grew some in our backyards and we reported back about how these plants grew vs normal ones. Many other classes did the same thing at the time. Oh, by the way ... that was 24 years ago.
todayiamme 13y ago
I think that the following comment I wrote on an analogous story a while ago helps to frame this in a better context: """ I have been obsessed with the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs since childhood and I've read the first hand accounts of astronauts, flight directors, engineers, administrators, and journalists covering the programs. What has consistently struck me is that although the programs were marketed - if you may - along the lines of their exciting thrust into the unknown, the programs were executed based upon a cold rational calculus that extended sabre rattling and the grounds of engagement beyond the surface of our planet. Yes, for me it might be one of the greatest achievements of humanity, but for the people paying for the show all of that work was for one thing and one thing only; to claim the high ground swiftly and decisively before the enemy. For anyone with the ability to put a capsule into orbit and to retrieve it, also possessed the ability to spy on the other party, safely launch and drop a nuclear warhead into the other party's major cities, and one-up the enemy in a show of technical prowess and strength - something that would persuade those on the fence to pick the right side if it were. That's what these programs were sadly all about and that's why they were ended once the high ground was decisively seized. The reason why there isn't an Apollo-esque or Manhattan-esque thrust towards landing on Mars is because there is no substantial tactical, economic, or political advantage to be gained from the act. Sure in the long term there will be amazing pay-offs if we open up the solar system and expand outwards, but right now in the minds of the people who are actually cutting the cheques that pay-off is too distant, too abstract, too foolhardy, and too unsettling to justify any kind of support. Now some people choose to rue the cause behind our current Earth-bound civilization, but I think this is actually a good thing. It ensures that when we do manage to find a way to reach out to the stars we will do it for the right reasons and our exploration will continue from one frontier to another because of that fact. """ Source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6653483 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6653483
- moccajoghurt 13y ago
  On a side note: Why do you quote """this way"""?
  - Pxtl 13y ago
lutusp 13y ago
The real irony of the article isn't the truth of what it says, but what it doesn't say -- no politician wants to vote for a change in NASA's status. Killing NASA lurks just below killing Social Security in the politically untouchable sweepstakes. This may all seem trivial ten or twenty years from now, when private enterprise has taken over 90% of what NASA does -- a process that's already begun.
- avmich 13y ago
  "Bread and circuses" calls are heard from millenia ago. Killing NASA is so hard perhaps because it's a pretty good circus.
washedup 13y ago
There is one thing I know for certain: all of life, including humans, are going to use up resources available to it until they are gone. We like to think we will eventually reach a point of awareness about the importance of sustainability and live a low-impact life; respecting each other, the environment, and the entire biosphere. We all accept the importance of this message; few of us are able or willing to make the necessary changes. How many of us use a computer for 8+ hours a day? NASA, and any space program or company trying to develop the necessary technologies to reach orbit and live in space, are doing us a great favor. There is going to be a point when we need resources outside of Earth. This includes water, places to grow food, metals, etc. It also includes going into orbit and conducting Earth Science research to help us use our current resources more efficiently. An exploding human population and desire to give everyone a fighting chance at a happy life require that we reach outside of our atmosphere. To say that NASA is no longer justified seems ignorant. That being said, as a government agency, there is a lot of wasted money at NASA. Obviously this is changing as they keep giving away private contracts (which is generally good).
agentultra 13y ago
I'm not much of an economist but isn't NASA's budget a drop in the bucket compared to what the United States spent on maintaining and improving its Navy fleet in 2009? Some quick checks of the Wikipedia pages for both budgets show that US military spending dwarfs NASA spending. I'm curious why this article seems to think that NASA is "too expensive," and needs to justify such a cost. The European aristocracy fueled explorations far and wide, killed many more people, and now a large percentage of humans travel around the world daily. If we sent more people to space far and wide would it not follow the same pattern if something eventually came of it? I'm not sure that anyone knew the early explorers would come back with boats filled with gold and precious resources but perhaps we will come back with ships filled with rare elements, minerals and gasses. I found this article to be rather pessimistic. I realize that military spending is a necessity so long as our geo-political situation continues to remain unstable. However it seems to my uneducated view of the subject that the US could cut a good fraction of its military spending, continue to dominate in conventional warfare and reduce the cost of space exploration greatly in the long term. Maybe someone who knows more about it can enlighten me. I, like many, get wide-eyed when I think of space and dream, hopelessly, of one day experiencing it for myself.
- maaku 13y ago
  Yes, NASA is pitifully small, even measured as a slice of the non-defense, discretionary spending pie. That doesn't stop politicians from focusing on it, however...
- fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
  >isn't NASA's budget a drop in the bucket compared to what the United States spent on maintaining and improving its Navy fleet in 2009? It's a pittance, but, it's what we get to spend on space programs; and we're spending it on NASA. I'm glad to see a criticism that isn't criticism of what we think NASA'a mission is, but instead a criticism of how NASA executes that mission.
- 7952 13y ago
  Beyond space exploration they continue to cut funding to earth observation. In tandem they spend vast quantities of money on secret military remote sensing that could have had massive public benefits if the data was made public ally available. NASA could have released global high resolution satellite and radar imagery for free which would have spawned thousands of new applications.
deleted 13y ago
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headcanon 13y ago
As negative as the article sounds, I agree with the overall premise. With the same amount of money that's currently being sucked into their manned program, infinitely more and better scientific endeavors can be funded. Imagine not only having a mars rover, but an entire robotic base on mars that could possibly fuel itself and send out dozens of missions with air-and-land-based drones. Or perhaps the same on Venus or Titan, or even better equipment for monitoring Earth. Far-fetched, sure, but with the kind of budget the manned program is pulling in, I believe things like that are possible. With that said, I'm OK with us still having a space station with people in it, because it keeps the engines of the national space machine greased. It won't be long before the United States is faced with a new contender for Global Superpower, and space will definitely become the place to be. If you want to control the land, you must control the sea, and if you want to control the sea, you must control space. As our military becomes more and more drone-heavy, I wouldn't be surprised if Space Command drastically increases its scope and reach as an organization. Its much faster to control a drone across the world in real time from space than it is from Virginia. Couple military need with the new blood of private contractors (spaceX and its like), I believe space will be a big deal once again in a few decades.
washedup 13y ago
Whether you agree with this article or not, it makes no difference. NASA is an extremely small portion of the US budget. If you want to cut waste, look at defense spending. It's OK to spend a small fraction of available money on research. NASA is changing. Most of it's work is now down by private contractors. There are ~60 launches scheduled for this year (http://spaceflightnow.com/tracking/ http://spaceflightnow.com/tracking/). Most are launching communication satellites, some are ISS resupply missions, and others are for research. China is developing a space station and private space companies are doing well. Year over year the amount of launches has been increasing and there is no reason to believe this trend won't continue, with or without NASA. NASA has served a great purpose, and it may or may not continue to do so. Calling it a tragedy seems loaded and misguided.
deleted 13y ago
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sbierwagen 13y ago
See also: "A Rocket To Nowhere" by Maciej Cegłowski. http://idlewords.com/2005/08/a_rocket_to_nowhere.htm http://idlewords.com/2005/08/a_rocket_to_nowhere.htm Future archaeologists trying to understand what the Shuttle was for are going to have a mess on their hands. Why was such a powerful rocket used only to reach very low orbits, where air resistance and debris would limit the useful lifetime of a satellite to a few years? Why was there both a big cargo bay and a big crew compartment? What kind of missions would require people to assist in deploying a large payload? Why was the Shuttle intentionally crippled so that it could not land on autopilot? ① Why go through all the trouble to give the Shuttle large wings if it has no jet engines and the glide characteristics of a brick? Why build such complex, adjustable main engines and then rely on the equivalent of two giant firecrackers to provide most of the takeoff thrust? Why use a glass thermal protection system, rather than a low-tech ablative shield? And having chosen such a fragile method of heat protection, why on earth mount the orbiter on the side of the rocket, where things will fall on it during launch?
- avmich 13y ago
  And of course all these questions have answers, so our smart future archaeologists will eventually dig it up.
- josefresco 13y ago
  The space shuttle was (too) many things to (too) many people. Mediocrity by committee.
gregors 13y ago
Just look here https://www3.orau.gov/NPDoc/Catalog https://www3.orau.gov/NPDoc/Catalog NASA does quite a bit of Earth Science and Aeronautics
austinz 13y ago
Rather than make the argument that human spaceflight is worthless because robots can do science better, I'd like to see someone make the (implied, underlying) argument that space programs should be primarily about basic scientific research, rather than all the other things assorted people seem to want them to be about (jobs, national prestige, technological spin-offs, exploiting space for economic or military purposes, off-world colonization for human survival, etc).
skywhopper 13y ago
I'd like to see NASA focus entirely on unmanned missions. To me, humans in space is mildly interesting, but the data from robotic missions to the outer planets and Mars as well as from the various space telescopes is nothing less than fascinating. And when you start comparing the relative costs, it seems like a no brainer. For the budget required to sustain manned spaceflight in its relatively trivial form, you could launch a space telescope, two Mars missions, an outer-planet mission, a comet mission, an asteroid mission, and a Sun mission, all robotic, every year. There'd be a constant stream of new data of interest to scientists and the public. The inevitable failed missions would just be blips on the radar, and technical progress on the exploratory robots would go faster than ever. Over the decades launch and return technology will improve, especially as private industry gets more involved in space travel, and once we have cheaper and more reliable ways to get into space, gradually it may make more and more sense for humans to return and live there (or it won't, which is okay, too).
- craigching 13y ago
  > I'd like to see NASA focus entirely on unmanned missions. While I agree mostly, I disagree with the "entirely" point. I think at some point with enough advances it becomes feasible and maybe even necessary to start colonies elsewhere (the moon, asteroids, mars, whatever). Robots will only get you so far if there's an existential reason to need to get off earth.
- rbanffy 13y ago
  > There'd be a constant stream of new data of interest to scientists and the public There would be no stories. No machine can tell you how it feels to be there. If, ultimately, the goal is to send people, then we should send people. Of course, we should send machines until we are sure it's safe to send people, but we can't forget why we are doing it. We (rightfully) complain NASA does too little with the money they have while military spending is orders of magnitude larger. And, as long as that money is used to fund fighters such as the F-35 (good luck for those who'll fly it) and the F-22 (is that O2 problem fixed?), there will be very little benefit from there except fat military contractors. BTW, those are the same companies that feed on NASA.
angersock 13y ago
In Houston, there are a lot of folks that work over at JSC or are involved with NASA stuff. There is the reminder of better days, and of great things that could've been but never were. It's really depressing to talk to experienced engineers (even if they're not NASA proper, but lend/leased from Lockheed or someone else) who are like "Yeah, we could build that, no question, but who will pay for it?" It's even more depressing to talk to normal engineers at any meetup or hackathon, because there's the same sort of awe and mystique about NASA and what it could be doing, but also the tacit acknowledgement that the agency is fucked in the head--you usually end up with a bunch of Boomers old enough to remember when NASA actually did things that were cool. The most frustrating thing is that the technology works and has been in production for half a century now, but the agency is unable or unwilling to fund manned missions to completion--and these questions of "Should we even put people in space? Why not robots lol?" could be rendered moot if somebody just cut a goddamn check. The people know this. The engineers know this. The astronauts know this. And yet, no check. Worse still, you can't keep sending robots into space because nobody cares. Sure, a few people here or there who love ~=science=~ can appreciate the pursuit of knowledge for its own means, but for everyone else there needs to be a payoff. The only payoffs come, though, in either moving people off-planet to start colones or moving material back on-planet (which is fairly silly in its own way). If you don't do either of those things, then no shit everyone would rather your funding go to aging Boomers or poor urban youths or starving hillbillies or students loans or fighting the war on drugs or any number of more immediate short-term pains our democracy faces. At least we've got a few folks funding this privately--as for NASA, though, the best thing to do would be bow out of space all together and open-source and make public domain all of their research and patents.
jjtheblunt 13y ago
What is Slate.com for?
njharman 13y ago
Science.
bubbleRefuge 13y ago
Cost should never be an issue since NASA is an arm of the federal government. Have the Federal Reserve fund NASA directly. Double the budget. Hire STEM majors. Pay them well. NASA's achievements should only be limited by technical capabilities. Leave finance out of it.

73 points by wikiburner 13y ago

Tl;dr: NASA was only incidentally about science, it was cover for funding military/geopolitical goals. Once those goals (moon, shuttle) were achieved, NASA's risks and costs are exceedingly hard to justify.

kubiiii 13y ago
But then Chris Hadfield made his invaluable youtube videos to justify the cost.
valarauca1 13y ago
NASA was founded as a guise for science in the light of a cold war power play. There are several quotes even from Kennedy saying that the Space Race was a diplomatic framing of ICBM missile building and testing. What NASA does accomplish is economic growth of America as a whole. What most people don't realize is very dollar given to NASA roughly translates to 2-4 dollars of GDP growth of American research, development, and manufacturing. Really one of the most direct ways of the US Government putting additional money in the hands of the American is NASA's budget strangely.
- SamReidHughes 13y ago
  Except no, you can't go and spout numbers about GDP growth ratios without considering the opportunity costs of not having NASA's employees work in other sectors.
  - valarauca1 13y ago
    I'm talking about government spending to money actually being used in the economy. In which NASA is largely the best program. On a person by person level yes there is likely some wasted talent at NASA, and their skills could be put to better use else where. But doing a micro-economic analysis of every 1 person's case over 300,000 employes and 18,000 contractors would be very time consuming then making boarder macro economic statements. Also remember micro-economics are wrong about certain things, macro-economics are wrong about things in general.
    - mcguire 13y ago
      "300,000 employees and 18,000 contractors" Assuming you're talking about the '60's, it's the other way around. If you're talking about today, it's still the other way around but the number of contractors is much smaller.
      - valarauca1 13y ago
        Those numbers are taken from NASA itself, they have links to the size of their operations nasapeople.nasa.gov
        mcguire 13y ago
        Do you mean this: https://wicn.nssc.nasa.gov/c10/cgi-bin/cognosisapi.dll?b_action=powerPlayService&m_encoding=UTF-8&BZ=1AAABgNNr_f942m2PQWuDQBCF~8yOaS9hdlTUgwd1DRHamEahZ6NjCTFuUFOaf981KYTSzu7wHm__gV2ryJdFme~STIXjpAfO1BMQHSShS5TK2I89x~NXsYt24AfKd4Mg8mLHMM~WvJtGu2S9jcp1CLSqdT9xPxnX6q7hAdwYHOyrE4OtFttBt4eOgTC57HlcgKsMea7qY~XBv9F3PRxbPdQz~LM245YqkmWSbzZpUmZGotc0~Ae14rewRRQSEaVEIQQKFwWhmI8QUdcZOD2dO31lHgGDvDeBukxXI0DtPP0yP2m4MfaFq082kADygWwDsATaAwX3QD4C8afk7c7m~qBbP_obQJNj2A%3D%3D https://wicn.nssc.nasa.gov/c10/cgi-bin/cognosisapi.dll?b_act... (Aaahhhhhh! Cognos! Aaahhhhhhh!) I don't have a good source for the number of contractors, other than wikipedia. (...which cites http://employeeorientation.nasa.gov/contractors/default.htm http://employeeorientation.nasa.gov/contractors/default.htm. Huh.)
        tanzam75 13y ago
        > (Aaahhhhhh! Cognos! Aaahhhhhhh!) Aha! Now we know where NASA's IT budget went -- to IBM. IBM specializes in making sure that you spend your full IT budget each year, so that upper management isn't tempted to cut it next year.
        valarauca1 13y ago
        Yes but IBM also makes very damn reliable mainframes, also z-series can emulate system360's, which NASA had quiet a few of (the last one wasn't decommissioned until 2010). So likely to maintain payroll or tax data they kept IBM.
  - Zigurd 13y ago
    Some of the numbers I have seen for NASA's economic benefits are pretty spectacularly good. But you would have to then believe that the same holds true for SDI ("Star Wars") because it's pretty much the same thing without the science/exploration fig leaf.

danso 13y ago

This is a great essay...it illuminates the interplay between science, politics, idealism, and human endeavor better than most things I've read that bemoan the underfunding of NASA: Human-based missions are unfeasible if we want to expand space exploration....yet the public can't get behind robot-missions, and thus, the lack of funding and interest. This conflict mimics the technological dichotomy in the rest of society...how can we continue to value human contributions when computers can do things so much more efficiently and accurately? My opinion is that there are plenty of things that require a "human-in-the-middle" for the forseeable future, earthside. But in space, it's much harder to justify, based on the plain physics of sending a human into space.

ANH 13y ago

This is a kind of ridiculous article. It entirely ignores NASA's Earth Science work, which gets the largest allocation of science funding in the FY2014 budget (almost $2B). Caveat: I work with a team of NASA & contractor Earth scientists. I think they'd all tell you they don't need to go search for a justification; justifications are self-evident. Here's one: Maintain the climate record.

__pThrow 13y ago
Perhaps my memory is wrong, or the emphasis less that I recall, but I remember fundamental change in NASA's direction in the late 90s or early 2000s that explicitly focused NASA's work on Earth. Some of this was a result of remote sensing tech coming into it's golden age, some as a result of climate change needs, and a lot was a result of NASA needing to find a source of funding. But I can't find anything extensive about that on the web at this moment.
- tanzam75 13y ago
  Earth Science is only 10% of NASA's budget. From NASA's 2014 budget request (in millions of dollars): http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/750614main_NASA_FY_2014_Budget_Estimates-508.pdf http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/750614main_NASA_FY_2014_Budget_Estim... Science 5,017.8 Aeronautics 565.7 Space Technology 742.6 Exploration 3,915.5 Space Operations 3,882.9 Education 94.2 Cross Agency Support 2,850.3 =============================== Total Request 17,715.4 To break down "Science": Earth Science 1,846.1 Planetary Science 1,217.5 Astrophysics 642.3 James Webb Space Telescope 658.2 Heliophysics 653.7 By comparison, most of the "Exploration" budget is spent on the development of the Space Launch System -- which some sarcastically refer to as the "Senate" Launch System, because it is designed to spread money among the states. Just the SLS alone is bigger than the Earth Science budget.
  - maaku 13y ago
    > which some sarcastically refer to as the "Senate" Launch System, because it is designed to spread money among the states I thought it was because the project was invented in the Senate version of the NASA budget, where Senate staffers made up arbitrary requirements for its design and functionality.

zwieback 13y ago

I don't get the fascination with manned space flight. To me it's such an obvious waste of money. I find the robots we send to space a million times more fascinating.

pekk 13y ago
Let me get this straight: sending a man to the moon was an obvious waste of money?
- leoedin 13y ago
  Without the context of cold war one-upmanship, almost certainly. What did landing on the moon actually give us? A slightly better understanding of early earth geology perhaps? It was mostly an excercise in building national pride and sticking it to the Soviets. In that role, it was effective. Spaceflight has contributed very, very little technology to earth. The reality is that anything we fly into space is already generations behind the equivalent earth technology. Put it another way: What were the obvious benefits of the Apollo program?
  - MrMeker 13y ago
    Freeze drying is one of many it seems. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spin-off_technologies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spin-off_technologies What were the direct benefits of Amundsen's expedition to the south pole? Is exploration a waist even if its results are less than stellar? I would say that by its nature, exploration is a hard thing to waste money on. Necessity is the mother of invention and nothing provides necessity like pushing the envelope. For example, look at the picture that accompanies this article. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_algorithm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_algorithm
    - leoedin 13y ago
      Optimisation algorithms are used widely in all sorts of industries. That antenna was used in 2006. If you read the "History" section of the GA article you linked it talks about developments made since the fifties. Certainly it has space applications, but the technology wasn't developed for space uses. The photo was probably used because space is interesting to people and because NASA photos are in the public domain. You can't simply say that all exploration gives value for money. With finite resources, we have to direct spending to where it will result in the most benefit. Funding of human spaceflight means that there's less funding available elsewhere. I'm not familiar with who funded Amundsen's expedition, but I'd imagine that it cost a lot less than the trip to the moon did. There has been innovative developments in the space industry. Some of those spin-off technologies are definitely valid (although the question of whether the return they provide given the absolutely huge R&D budget is worth it) but others are less so. Freeze drying was apparently initially developed in 1938, long before the space program. I find it hard to believe that, in the absence of a space program, nobody would have invented the portable vacuum cleaner. There are benefits from a space program. Government R&D, when spent well, has a huge impact on technological progress (just look at the absolutely incredible technological step change that wars bring). What I think needs to end is the absolute idolisation of the space program. It's an investment, and one which has often shown a poor return.

Shivetya 13y ago

Go for the children. Go for the schools. Go for APPs and market NASA to kids that way. Engage schools by soliciting where to point a camera, where to send a rover. By allowing hundreds if not thousands of kids to vote/choose maybe they can interest them enough to get adults to wonder why Congress does not act. in other words, they need a strong marketing division that can take the droll numbers of science and present it to schools and online that anyone can understand. The get attached to some cereal boxes, cookies, and lunch boxes.

BrandonMarc 13y ago
NASA has always gone for the children. There's massive cooperation between NASA and the public schools, all over the country. NASA has, also, always been trying to market themselves. Visit any tourist trap and it's all about spin-offs, and dreams, and here's why we're doing this ... over and over and over, the same spiel. Years ago I wondered why they were constantly trying to remind and justify the whys of their existence; now it's pretty clear. When I was ~ 11 years old, my 5th grade classroom in rural Texas received some tomato seeds which had been exposed to space, and -- for science! -- I and other classmates grew some in our backyards and we reported back about how these plants grew vs normal ones. Many other classes did the same thing at the time. Oh, by the way ... that was 24 years ago.

todayiamme 13y ago

I think that the following comment I wrote on an analogous story a while ago helps to frame this in a better context: """ I have been obsessed with the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs since childhood and I've read the first hand accounts of astronauts, flight directors, engineers, administrators, and journalists covering the programs. What has consistently struck me is that although the programs were marketed - if you may - along the lines of their exciting thrust into the unknown, the programs were executed based upon a cold rational calculus that extended sabre rattling and the grounds of engagement beyond the surface of our planet. Yes, for me it might be one of the greatest achievements of humanity, but for the people paying for the show all of that work was for one thing and one thing only; to claim the high ground swiftly and decisively before the enemy. For anyone with the ability to put a capsule into orbit and to retrieve it, also possessed the ability to spy on the other party, safely launch and drop a nuclear warhead into the other party's major cities, and one-up the enemy in a show of technical prowess and strength - something that would persuade those on the fence to pick the right side if it were. That's what these programs were sadly all about and that's why they were ended once the high ground was decisively seized. The reason why there isn't an Apollo-esque or Manhattan-esque thrust towards landing on Mars is because there is no substantial tactical, economic, or political advantage to be gained from the act. Sure in the long term there will be amazing pay-offs if we open up the solar system and expand outwards, but right now in the minds of the people who are actually cutting the cheques that pay-off is too distant, too abstract, too foolhardy, and too unsettling to justify any kind of support. Now some people choose to rue the cause behind our current Earth-bound civilization, but I think this is actually a good thing. It ensures that when we do manage to find a way to reach out to the stars we will do it for the right reasons and our exploration will continue from one frontier to another because of that fact. """ Source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6653483 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6653483

moccajoghurt 13y ago
On a side note: Why do you quote """this way"""?
- Pxtl 13y ago

lutusp 13y ago

The real irony of the article isn't the truth of what it says, but what it doesn't say -- no politician wants to vote for a change in NASA's status. Killing NASA lurks just below killing Social Security in the politically untouchable sweepstakes. This may all seem trivial ten or twenty years from now, when private enterprise has taken over 90% of what NASA does -- a process that's already begun.

avmich 13y ago
"Bread and circuses" calls are heard from millenia ago. Killing NASA is so hard perhaps because it's a pretty good circus.

washedup 13y ago

There is one thing I know for certain: all of life, including humans, are going to use up resources available to it until they are gone. We like to think we will eventually reach a point of awareness about the importance of sustainability and live a low-impact life; respecting each other, the environment, and the entire biosphere. We all accept the importance of this message; few of us are able or willing to make the necessary changes. How many of us use a computer for 8+ hours a day? NASA, and any space program or company trying to develop the necessary technologies to reach orbit and live in space, are doing us a great favor. There is going to be a point when we need resources outside of Earth. This includes water, places to grow food, metals, etc. It also includes going into orbit and conducting Earth Science research to help us use our current resources more efficiently. An exploding human population and desire to give everyone a fighting chance at a happy life require that we reach outside of our atmosphere. To say that NASA is no longer justified seems ignorant. That being said, as a government agency, there is a lot of wasted money at NASA. Obviously this is changing as they keep giving away private contracts (which is generally good).

agentultra 13y ago

I'm not much of an economist but isn't NASA's budget a drop in the bucket compared to what the United States spent on maintaining and improving its Navy fleet in 2009? Some quick checks of the Wikipedia pages for both budgets show that US military spending dwarfs NASA spending. I'm curious why this article seems to think that NASA is "too expensive," and needs to justify such a cost. The European aristocracy fueled explorations far and wide, killed many more people, and now a large percentage of humans travel around the world daily. If we sent more people to space far and wide would it not follow the same pattern if something eventually came of it? I'm not sure that anyone knew the early explorers would come back with boats filled with gold and precious resources but perhaps we will come back with ships filled with rare elements, minerals and gasses. I found this article to be rather pessimistic. I realize that military spending is a necessity so long as our geo-political situation continues to remain unstable. However it seems to my uneducated view of the subject that the US could cut a good fraction of its military spending, continue to dominate in conventional warfare and reduce the cost of space exploration greatly in the long term. Maybe someone who knows more about it can enlighten me. I, like many, get wide-eyed when I think of space and dream, hopelessly, of one day experiencing it for myself.

maaku 13y ago
Yes, NASA is pitifully small, even measured as a slice of the non-defense, discretionary spending pie. That doesn't stop politicians from focusing on it, however...
fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
>isn't NASA's budget a drop in the bucket compared to what the United States spent on maintaining and improving its Navy fleet in 2009? It's a pittance, but, it's what we get to spend on space programs; and we're spending it on NASA. I'm glad to see a criticism that isn't criticism of what we think NASA'a mission is, but instead a criticism of how NASA executes that mission.
7952 13y ago
Beyond space exploration they continue to cut funding to earth observation. In tandem they spend vast quantities of money on secret military remote sensing that could have had massive public benefits if the data was made public ally available. NASA could have released global high resolution satellite and radar imagery for free which would have spawned thousands of new applications.

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headcanon 13y ago

As negative as the article sounds, I agree with the overall premise. With the same amount of money that's currently being sucked into their manned program, infinitely more and better scientific endeavors can be funded. Imagine not only having a mars rover, but an entire robotic base on mars that could possibly fuel itself and send out dozens of missions with air-and-land-based drones. Or perhaps the same on Venus or Titan, or even better equipment for monitoring Earth. Far-fetched, sure, but with the kind of budget the manned program is pulling in, I believe things like that are possible. With that said, I'm OK with us still having a space station with people in it, because it keeps the engines of the national space machine greased. It won't be long before the United States is faced with a new contender for Global Superpower, and space will definitely become the place to be. If you want to control the land, you must control the sea, and if you want to control the sea, you must control space. As our military becomes more and more drone-heavy, I wouldn't be surprised if Space Command drastically increases its scope and reach as an organization. Its much faster to control a drone across the world in real time from space than it is from Virginia. Couple military need with the new blood of private contractors (spaceX and its like), I believe space will be a big deal once again in a few decades.

washedup 13y ago

Whether you agree with this article or not, it makes no difference. NASA is an extremely small portion of the US budget. If you want to cut waste, look at defense spending. It's OK to spend a small fraction of available money on research. NASA is changing. Most of it's work is now down by private contractors. There are ~60 launches scheduled for this year (http://spaceflightnow.com/tracking/ http://spaceflightnow.com/tracking/). Most are launching communication satellites, some are ISS resupply missions, and others are for research. China is developing a space station and private space companies are doing well. Year over year the amount of launches has been increasing and there is no reason to believe this trend won't continue, with or without NASA. NASA has served a great purpose, and it may or may not continue to do so. Calling it a tragedy seems loaded and misguided.

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sbierwagen 13y ago

See also: "A Rocket To Nowhere" by Maciej Cegłowski. http://idlewords.com/2005/08/a_rocket_to_nowhere.htm http://idlewords.com/2005/08/a_rocket_to_nowhere.htm Future archaeologists trying to understand what the Shuttle was for are going to have a mess on their hands. Why was such a powerful rocket used only to reach very low orbits, where air resistance and debris would limit the useful lifetime of a satellite to a few years? Why was there both a big cargo bay and a big crew compartment? What kind of missions would require people to assist in deploying a large payload? Why was the Shuttle intentionally crippled so that it could not land on autopilot? ① Why go through all the trouble to give the Shuttle large wings if it has no jet engines and the glide characteristics of a brick? Why build such complex, adjustable main engines and then rely on the equivalent of two giant firecrackers to provide most of the takeoff thrust? Why use a glass thermal protection system, rather than a low-tech ablative shield? And having chosen such a fragile method of heat protection, why on earth mount the orbiter on the side of the rocket, where things will fall on it during launch?

avmich 13y ago
And of course all these questions have answers, so our smart future archaeologists will eventually dig it up.
josefresco 13y ago
The space shuttle was (too) many things to (too) many people. Mediocrity by committee.

gregors 13y ago

Just look here https://www3.orau.gov/NPDoc/Catalog https://www3.orau.gov/NPDoc/Catalog NASA does quite a bit of Earth Science and Aeronautics

austinz 13y ago

Rather than make the argument that human spaceflight is worthless because robots can do science better, I'd like to see someone make the (implied, underlying) argument that space programs should be primarily about basic scientific research, rather than all the other things assorted people seem to want them to be about (jobs, national prestige, technological spin-offs, exploiting space for economic or military purposes, off-world colonization for human survival, etc).

skywhopper 13y ago

I'd like to see NASA focus entirely on unmanned missions. To me, humans in space is mildly interesting, but the data from robotic missions to the outer planets and Mars as well as from the various space telescopes is nothing less than fascinating. And when you start comparing the relative costs, it seems like a no brainer. For the budget required to sustain manned spaceflight in its relatively trivial form, you could launch a space telescope, two Mars missions, an outer-planet mission, a comet mission, an asteroid mission, and a Sun mission, all robotic, every year. There'd be a constant stream of new data of interest to scientists and the public. The inevitable failed missions would just be blips on the radar, and technical progress on the exploratory robots would go faster than ever. Over the decades launch and return technology will improve, especially as private industry gets more involved in space travel, and once we have cheaper and more reliable ways to get into space, gradually it may make more and more sense for humans to return and live there (or it won't, which is okay, too).

craigching 13y ago
> I'd like to see NASA focus entirely on unmanned missions. While I agree mostly, I disagree with the "entirely" point. I think at some point with enough advances it becomes feasible and maybe even necessary to start colonies elsewhere (the moon, asteroids, mars, whatever). Robots will only get you so far if there's an existential reason to need to get off earth.
rbanffy 13y ago
> There'd be a constant stream of new data of interest to scientists and the public There would be no stories. No machine can tell you how it feels to be there. If, ultimately, the goal is to send people, then we should send people. Of course, we should send machines until we are sure it's safe to send people, but we can't forget why we are doing it. We (rightfully) complain NASA does too little with the money they have while military spending is orders of magnitude larger. And, as long as that money is used to fund fighters such as the F-35 (good luck for those who'll fly it) and the F-22 (is that O2 problem fixed?), there will be very little benefit from there except fat military contractors. BTW, those are the same companies that feed on NASA.

angersock 13y ago

In Houston, there are a lot of folks that work over at JSC or are involved with NASA stuff. There is the reminder of better days, and of great things that could've been but never were. It's really depressing to talk to experienced engineers (even if they're not NASA proper, but lend/leased from Lockheed or someone else) who are like "Yeah, we could build that, no question, but who will pay for it?" It's even more depressing to talk to normal engineers at any meetup or hackathon, because there's the same sort of awe and mystique about NASA and what it could be doing, but also the tacit acknowledgement that the agency is fucked in the head--you usually end up with a bunch of Boomers old enough to remember when NASA actually did things that were cool. The most frustrating thing is that the technology works and has been in production for half a century now, but the agency is unable or unwilling to fund manned missions to completion--and these questions of "Should we even put people in space? Why not robots lol?" could be rendered moot if somebody just cut a goddamn check. The people know this. The engineers know this. The astronauts know this. And yet, no check. Worse still, you can't keep sending robots into space because nobody cares. Sure, a few people here or there who love ~=science=~ can appreciate the pursuit of knowledge for its own means, but for everyone else there needs to be a payoff. The only payoffs come, though, in either moving people off-planet to start colones or moving material back on-planet (which is fairly silly in its own way). If you don't do either of those things, then no shit everyone would rather your funding go to aging Boomers or poor urban youths or starving hillbillies or students loans or fighting the war on drugs or any number of more immediate short-term pains our democracy faces. At least we've got a few folks funding this privately--as for NASA, though, the best thing to do would be bow out of space all together and open-source and make public domain all of their research and patents.

jjtheblunt 13y ago

What is Slate.com for?

njharman 13y ago

Science.

bubbleRefuge 13y ago

Cost should never be an issue since NASA is an arm of the federal government. Have the Federal Reserve fund NASA directly. Double the budget. Hire STEM majors. Pay them well. NASA's achievements should only be limited by technical capabilities. Leave finance out of it.