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Why should NASA try to provide jobs? They are funded by taxpayer money (i.e. our money) and we have given them money to do research not to provide jobs. Even i

Why should NASA try to provide jobs? They are funded by taxpayer money (i.e. our money) and we have given them money to do research not to provide jobs. Even if I were to believe that providing jobs is a worthy goal , there are cheaper ways for government to provide jobs than for NASA to create these jobs out of thin air. And could you care to explain why you take offense about the 'out of context slide'? What's the missing context which will justify this slide's contents?

gloob 17y ago
Why should NASA try to provide jobs? They are funded by taxpayer money (i.e. our money) and we have given them money to do research not to provide jobs. They try to provide jobs because they are funded by taxpayer money. Their primary stakeholder is the American public; it is their job to benefit their stakeholders. Employment is a benefit, in the eyes of the great majority of people. Secondly, this is hardly "out of thin air." Assessing the manpower needs of a project proposal and selecting for the ones that rank higher on the scale is very different than the government going "Break some rocks, collect a paycheck lol."
- solutionyogi 17y ago
  They try to provide jobs because they are funded by taxpayer money. Their primary stakeholder is the American public; it is their job to benefit their stakeholders Let me get this straight. You want government to take money from people (by taxing them), creating organizations like NASA and give money to people (by providing jobs). My questions to you is, why go through all the trouble? Why not reduce taxes and let people keep their money thereby eliminating waste.
  - gloob 17y ago
    I didn't comment on whether or not I approved of the reasoning, I just stated that I wouldn't be surprised if that is part of the reasoning. Whether I want it to be that way or not is immaterial.
gjm11 17y ago
As others have said: they should (or, rather, it's perfectly reasonable if they do) try to provide jobs because they are funded by taxpayer money. As someone who pays taxes, I am very happy for some of that money to be used to provide jobs. (Of course, jobs doing something; if you have evidence that NASA is in fact paying people to do nothing, or to do useless things, then please feel free to provide it.) I didn't take offence about anything. I mentioned that the slide was taken out of context because, er, it was, and that might be relevant -- e.g., because there is a considerable difference between "we decide whether a project is worth while by looking at whether it will provide jobs" and "we decide whether a project is worth while by looking at a dozen things, one of which is whether it will provide jobs". For instance: Suppose one of the other slides says that a criterion they use is some measure of efficiency: useful stuff achieved per unit money or time spent. Then what seems to me to be the only reason for objecting to "more jobs => better" largely goes away. (Let's have an even more specific, albeit rather artificial, example: suppose two of their metrics are "jobs provided" and "likely stuff achieved per job provided", and suppose the way they combine them is to multiply together. Then that is exactly equivalent to the single metric "likely stuff achieved", which I hope you would not object to.)

gloob 17y ago

Why should NASA try to provide jobs? They are funded by taxpayer money (i.e. our money) and we have given them money to do research not to provide jobs. They try to provide jobs because they are funded by taxpayer money. Their primary stakeholder is the American public; it is their job to benefit their stakeholders. Employment is a benefit, in the eyes of the great majority of people. Secondly, this is hardly "out of thin air." Assessing the manpower needs of a project proposal and selecting for the ones that rank higher on the scale is very different than the government going "Break some rocks, collect a paycheck lol."

solutionyogi 17y ago
They try to provide jobs because they are funded by taxpayer money. Their primary stakeholder is the American public; it is their job to benefit their stakeholders Let me get this straight. You want government to take money from people (by taxing them), creating organizations like NASA and give money to people (by providing jobs). My questions to you is, why go through all the trouble? Why not reduce taxes and let people keep their money thereby eliminating waste.
- gloob 17y ago
  I didn't comment on whether or not I approved of the reasoning, I just stated that I wouldn't be surprised if that is part of the reasoning. Whether I want it to be that way or not is immaterial.

gjm11 17y ago

As others have said: they should (or, rather, it's perfectly reasonable if they do) try to provide jobs because they are funded by taxpayer money. As someone who pays taxes, I am very happy for some of that money to be used to provide jobs. (Of course, jobs doing something; if you have evidence that NASA is in fact paying people to do nothing, or to do useless things, then please feel free to provide it.) I didn't take offence about anything. I mentioned that the slide was taken out of context because, er, it was, and that might be relevant -- e.g., because there is a considerable difference between "we decide whether a project is worth while by looking at whether it will provide jobs" and "we decide whether a project is worth while by looking at a dozen things, one of which is whether it will provide jobs". For instance: Suppose one of the other slides says that a criterion they use is some measure of efficiency: useful stuff achieved per unit money or time spent. Then what seems to me to be the only reason for objecting to "more jobs => better" largely goes away. (Let's have an even more specific, albeit rather artificial, example: suppose two of their metrics are "jobs provided" and "likely stuff achieved per job provided", and suppose the way they combine them is to multiply together. Then that is exactly equivalent to the single metric "likely stuff achieved", which I hope you would not object to.)