should NASA continue?

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Gravity_Ray

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I'm not trying to be melodramatic, but NASA was created with a specific task in mind. Beating the USSR to the moon. That task was completed and the USSR doesn't even exist any more. NASA plans keep changing from one administration to another with no long term plans that I see. Plans are made and then scrubbed and much money is being wastes. This has caused the country to lose interest in any thing space related. Plans are made but then scrrubed again to "save" money. Wouldn't we save the most money by simply closing down NASA? Since we do not have a clear plan for space it may be best to stop wasting time and money with pretending to do something in space when the majority of Americans don't even care about a space program. A space program will continue through private funding or by another country so the question must be asked? Is NASA still relevent?

If our priority is a national health care, getting a balanced budget, bringing our deficit under control, healing our economy while fighthing two wars is NASA still relevent?
 
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MeteorWayne

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This is not related to a mission or a Launch, so will be moved to Space Business and Technology.
 
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SpacexULA

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Gravity_Ray":afquvvg5 said:
If our priority is a national health care, getting a balanced budget, bringing our deficit under control, healing our economy while fighting two wars is NASA still relevant?

Put in that light NASA should be canceled, along with many other federal programs, or Taxes need to be increased by 40%. Our nation needs a balanced budget amendment like the states... good luck instituting the tax increases and budget cuts nessary.

The problem for me is I don't want US HSF to end, I like the rest of the national (and almost all of us) are emotionally attached to the idea.
 
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Boris_Badenov

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Exactly how much money do you think can be saved by eliminating NASA?
NASA Spinoffs - Apollo Inventions
How much do you think we'd lose by eliminating NASA?
When making decisions like giving a program the axe, please always keep in mind the "Law of Unintended Consequences".
 
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neutrino78x

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I definitely think NASA should continue. You need both private/merchant space industry and a government space agency. NASA serves the function in space that the Navy/Coast Guard serves in the sea. The function of a government space agency, in my opinion, is the following:

  • Pure science missions that for-profit companies wouldn't do (primarily with robots/probes)
  • "Lewis & Clark" type missions intended to facilitate colonization (humans on Mars for example)
  • Safety and security in space, rescue (of humans) missions, etc. (this is not realized yet, but will be important in the future)

Right now, NASA also does research on spacecraft propulsion, but I think NASA should only be doing that where it is directly applicable to missions they actually intend to fly. If it is research for something that may be done in the future, that should be funded through the National Science Foundation.
 
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access

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The single largest reason that nasa won't be axed i the short term is the number of jobs involved in their efforts.
 
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Gravity_Ray

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Boris don't get me wrong. I am a space enthusiast, and my point Is not about saving money per se, just that the biggest reason sited by various administrations when they under fund NASA is "saving money". With out a "reason" to be in space, just going to space for the heck of it allows the government to sight money as a reason to under fund NASA. The various spin offs are a by product of the space program and can also be had by a healthy science program. The question I have is do you think NASA is relevant. Shouldn't we as a country decide why we are going to space before we go there? The attitude of most Americans towards the space program is apathy at best. Therefore the program has no real backers, except a political reason shown by a few states where jobs for several thousand people is at stake. This is a weak reason to under take this kind of endevour. Do you think NASA is relevent in todays world?
 
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neutrino78x

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Gravity_Ray":351yqsig said:
Do you think NASA is relevant in today's world?

Yes; at the very least, there are always science questions which can only be answered with some kind of space mission, and since there is normally no immediate profit involved in finding the answer, NASA is the actor to find it. If the earth is threatened by a celestial object, the military and NASA would jointly address the issue.

But I would also just reiterate what I said in my previous post about the three reasons why I think we need a government space agency! :)

--Brian
 
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halman

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The National Aeronautics and Space Administration was created out of the earlier National Aeronautics Commission, which had been established to promote aviation by studying things that caused problems in aviation, like icing, weather analysis, Instrument Landing Systems, radio location aids, and other aspects of aviation that were not likely to be investigated by the private sector. The reason that NASA came to be was to oversee the program to send men to the Moon. The Soviet Union had never stated, nor did they ever state, the intent of landing men on the Moon. When the American program began having success, and was obviously moving quickly, the USSR did begin a secret program to try to beat the Americans, but it failed.

Government is supposed to be the collective will of the people embodied in agencies which work towards improving the lives of the citizens. Government is supposed to do those things which are necessary, but which do not generate great profit, are too risky and expensive to experiment with, and other actions which nobody else wants to do. Government had been paying next to no interest in space flight, because it was not something that anybody saw a need for at the time. Then, along comes the USSR, which had been extremely interested in space exploration, and which had invested in developing rockets that were large enough to not only send people into space, but to launch nuclear weapons at any country in the world.

The culture of the United States has become so focused on making money that the future has little or no importance. Research and development used to be a major part of most companies, as new products, new methods of production, and whatever else the folks in the labs could come up, with were considered essential to the long-term health of the company. But maximizing profits has become so vital that R & D has almost vanished. But the Future seems to have ways that make it impossible to ignore. Energy costs, resource scarcity, environmental changes, and others make it unlikely that we will be able to avoid change.

The success that the US experienced with the Apollo program was not followed up by anything, because making profits the old fashioned way was too important to threaten. The military-industrial complex of the US did not see space as a reliable way of generating government spending, and so defense was returned to the spotlight for appropriations. Space was suddenly cut off from any major funding, and NASA almost shut down manned space flight. Somehow, NASA administers where able to wheedle a few million here and there for manned space flight activities, and got Congress to agree to build a reusable launch system so that the US would have means of reaching space.

But there was no national imperative, no mandate, for space. Everyone seems to recognize that the Future is going to include space, but they don't have any idea about what should be done to work towards that future. The US developed the most advanced space craft in the world, but had no where to send it. American leaders didn't seem to know what to do with this wonderful asset, and refused to articulate any kind of goals for the space program. Eventually, it came to be realized that the advanced technology companies in the space program could not survive without government programs, because the work that they did was so far beyond consumer products. So NASA was able to continue, but not to grow or develop.

Now, we are at the point where, if appropriations for space exploration are not increased, the US will not be able to continue being active in space. So little money is being spent on space that we can not do anything of value. Yet, the future of our nation, and of our planet, is directly tied to our efforts to broaden the sphere of human activity. The finite resources of this planet are becoming increasingly expensive to extract and process, while the energy we need for our daily lives is rapidly rising in price to produce. And only a small fraction of the world's population is currently enjoying high standards of living. What will happen if more and more people try to live as those in the US do?

If humanity is going to survive, at some time the energy intensive, resource dependent heavy industries that produce so many vital products for our lives will have to be moved off-planet. All of the resources that we find on Earth, plus many more, are available somewhere in our Solar System. The energy output of our local star, the Sun, is beyond imagination. We can no more pollute outer space than we can make water wetter. Earth is the only place in all the hundreds of light years that we can see where we can walk unprotected under the open sky. It must be preserved, guarded, because there are people who are so greedy that they will destroy the Earth, completely and utterly, merely to enrich themselves.

I say, let these people expend their energy developing the Moon, the asteroids, building space stations, and reaping the rewards of preparing for the future before it gets here. But somehow, we have to develop the means to get to space, means that are not so primitive and unreliable as the ones that we have now. This is the task that needs to be given to NASA, to the scientists who study engines, aerodynamics, astrogation, high temperature physics, and on and on. The mission of NASA is not to build rockets to fly people into space, it is not to build mines on the Moon to extract resources from, it is not to send colonists to Mars. The mission of NASA is to LEARN how to do these things, and then to hand that knowledge over to the private sector. Right now, we are learning how to live and work in space, with the International Space Station. In a few years, what is being learned on this first major space station will be in use on several other space stations, space stations owned by private companies who are out to make money. That is what NASA is supposed to be doing.
 
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Gravity_Ray

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Brian
Allow me to play the devils advocate a moment. If I read your post correctly you are saying that NASA is needed mainly for science which is is what hal is saying as well. This can be accomplished with out a manned program very well. Currently NASA's budget is about half of one percent of the GDP. Compare that with 70 percent for military and you see that it's a shoe string budget. This is like only giving a catatonic patient a heart beat and saying that the patient is "alive".
We can accomplish a Great deal of science for this money, but this is nothing for manned missions as risk averse as we have become. Would we not accomplish a lot more science if we just get rid of all manned missions? If people want a manned mission then they will be more willing to fund those missions. I have noticed giving something important to a child doesn't engender that thing to a child, but if a child wants something and you make them work for it makes that thing much more desirable.
If NASA keeps building manned space ships and then trying to come up with something to do with them, they will keep getting the budget axe with the next in comming administration, accomplishing nothing. Science fiction movies aside, in the real space world you come up with a desired mission/goal then you build a ship, not the other way around.
Tell people outside of our country about any of our government programs and you will get a blank stare but tell them about the Hubble and you will see a broad smile of recognition.
 
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Booban

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Good points and counter points, everyone is correct!

As the Hal-man said, long term thinking used to be intrinsic in culture, everyone appreciated the long term value of something even if it was so far off it couldn't be quantified. I think something happened, business became a science, and things that couldn't be quantified or broken up didn't count.

The regular business plan is 5 years, basically how long an exec expects to sit in the same chair, like a elected or Presidential term of office, everything after that isn't your concern anymore because you are unlikely (or cant as President) to continue. If you look at other countries, Japan where the ruling party has basically governed all of post-war Japan, or China where, well, communist old men sit till they die, the continuity allows for longer term planning. In the US it's almost as if one outgoing party leaves a mess just to stick it to the next guy so they can blame them and get elected next time.

Well, I'm actually not knocking 5 year plans, they are easier to grasp, and guess what, you can have several 5 year plans in a row...

So I am saying, even though we have this feeling of fragility on the planet and want to be a space faring race, we need to be cunning and break things up into small 5 year plans that you can take to the President with some kind of carrot at the end so he can get elected with it.

I don't mean to be just politically shallow, I mean things have to make sense now as well as generations in the future.

Gravity_Ray is correct about the cart before the horse thinking. You accept that building a space ship is a goal in of itself because there are several underlying thoughts about the necessity of being a space faring race. But you said it yourself Halman, the US made the most advanced space craft in the world, but had no where to send it.

As you said, we seem rather aimless. We need goals, NASA needs a reason for it's existence, and whatever long term goal NASA comes up with, it needs to broken up and answerable to this generation as well.
 
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Eman_3

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It's amazing how much science NASA generates each year. It's even more amazing how little the general population know about NASA's goals and contributions. All most see are the stuff that makes the television headlines, and remain blissfully ignorant of all the science projects underway. Maybe that's the core problem, ignorance.

NASA was created not to get a man on the moon, but instead to replace NACA. The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) was a U.S. federal agency founded on March 3, 1915 to undertake, promote, and institutionalize aeronautical research. On October 1, 1958 the agency was dissolved, and its assets and personnel transferred to the newly created National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

Ever since the creation of NACA research has continued uninterrupted. And it's a lot more than just the stuff featured in the headlines. Just do a simple google of NASA research, and you find find volumes and volumes of papers and data.
 
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pleed

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Hello, This is my first time posting here but I have been lurking these forums for a while. I am not a space fanatic, or even don't consider my self that well endowed in the art of science. So please forgive my naivety. My belief is that if there is something you desire but can't get to it because of financial reasons, procrastination is the normal symptom that goes along with that particular situation. If you keep putting off things to do until "later" then you will find it more and more difficult to get that task done. "Why go to Mars when we have so much to do down here on Earth" is what people would say. Indifference and ideology are a couple of reasons why NASA haven't been getting most respect in terms of budget and enthusiasm. If we keep putting these things off, (the tasks the NASA is there for), Then we will never get it done.

Also halman booban, what is this most advance spacecraft? please enlighten me. Is it the space shuttle? Because I here of analyst and engineering specialist putting it down. Is it the Saturn V because it took men to the moon. once again please forgive my naivety.
 
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access

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pleed":23rtxhfz said:
Also halman booban, what is this most advance spacecraft? please enlighten me. Is it the space shuttle? Because I here of analyst and engineering specialist putting it down. Is it the Saturn V because it took men to the moon. once again please forgive my naivety.

The "most advanced spacecraft" that they're talking about is the space shuttle because it has the ability to be launched into space manned, orbit for extended durations, glide in the atmosphere, and be reused for many flights. There is also a viable argument that many other spacecraft could be more advanced such as much of the Apollo hardware or Voyager 1(tough sell), the ISS, ...

As for the argument at hand I would say that at the moment space is rarely profitable for commercial interests and so NASA remains necessary although we are starting to see companies with more advanced goals than launch NASA as a science organization will always be viable although we may be approaching the time where they will leave building hardware (not to mean cancelling the next generation but maybe the one after that)
 
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Eman_3

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The acronym NASA stands for "National Aeronautics and Space Administration". It's important to realize that NA stands for national aeronautics, because NASA is involved in researching lots of science issues. Not only space, but what happens in the air close to the ground. If you only think that NASA only does space-related work, then you are missing the point.

Each piece of space hardware is designed and constructed according to technical requirements and budgeting. So it's not fair to attempt to designate one as the 'best". Additionally, each componenmt is part of a system, and thus it could be assessed in partnership with the system to determine it's accomplishments, or failures. For example, let's give a rough examination to three high-profile missions.

Space shuttle. Although a magnificent piece of engineering, it was designed in the 70's and made it's first spaceflight in 1981. Although it has received upgrades over the years, bottom line is that it's ancient. And something that has to be taken into account is that it is a killer. Two out of a fleet of five have suffered catastrophic failures, and fourteen people have died.

Hubble Space telescope. This piece of engineering got off to a rocky start first by long delays before launch, then an error in the primary mirror. But it was constructed to be repairable, and was fixed. It has received upgrades, and presently is delivering science. The Hubble has revolutionized the science of astronomy and revealed many secrets of the universe.

Mars Exploration Rovers. The story of these two little robotic explorers is nothing short of amazing. Designed to last 90 days, instead these have been functioning and delivering data since 2003. yup, I need to repeat this amazing fact. Designed for a 90 day mission, and still functioning (albeit with reduced and failing systems) five years later. Personally my favorites, and my canditate for inclusion in any dictionary as "overachiever".

But who knows, it may be the James Webb Space telescope. It just may be the instrument to identify and confirm the existence and location of a planet similar to earth.
 
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