4 ms·

Their budget during the Apollo program was 50% higher than it is today. I don't think funding is the primary problem.

• tormeh 12y ago
  Is that adjusted for inflation?
  • seanflyon 12y ago
    Yes
• fapjacks 12y ago
  Technology is more expensive. The projects themselves are more complex and machinery more expensive. You can build an antenna with pocket change that will let you talk to someone on the moon, but you need some serious hardware to talk to something on Mars, let alone further out. Plus the bureaucracy -- the oft-referenced bureaucracy -- is grinding more and more to a halt. It's more expensive from a bureaucratic standpoint, with more layers of management slapped on layers of management. The NASA of the 60s was an entirely different creature. We would do well to try to get that back, but honestly, really I think it's too late for that. I think honestly it's out of the American government's hands what happens in space over the next 50 years, barring another space race with China (fingers crossed). American commercial interests? Maybe. But our government just grinds to a halt when it needs to get anything done.
  • seanflyon 12y ago
    It seems that you agree with me that funding is not NASA's primary problem (I think I am actually more optimistic about NASA's competence). The point I disagree with is "Technology is more expensive". Technology has gotten dramatically cheaper (though I agree that current projects are more difficult). We have better materials, better manufacturing techniques, better computers and all of it more affordable than it was in the 1960's. Look at what SpaceX was able to do; in their first 10 years their total expenditures was only $1 billion, a small fraction of what it would have cost half a century ago.