Sunday, December 9, 2007

Space Exploration is Important

I’m mad, not as in crazy but rather angry, upset, and quite disappointed. An elderly gentleman that I respect greatly for his wisdom and knowledge said that he felt all the money that the government spent on the space program was an absolute waste. He feels that “all that money could have been put to better use solving problems here in our country”.

This is not the first time I’ve heard someone say this. I know that many people feel this way. However, have any of them actually taken the time to look in to the issue? How much money does NASA get every year? What is that money used for? How much money does the Federal Government put to other programs? How much money have we spent on our latest “war”?


OK, let’s tackle these questions:


Has anybody really checked out the facts? In my opinion, no. If they had, they would see how little goes to NASA, how much the space program benefits EVERYONE, how much useful technology we’ve gotten as a spin-off, and how much more money the Federal Government manages to waste (ever heard of ‘pork-barrel’ spending?) in other areas.


How much money does NASA get every year? Not much, especially compared with the overall budget. Wikipedia has a very interesting article on this.
NASA has received an average of $12.681 billion dollars (adjusted for inflation) per year over its forty-nine year history. That’s barely a drop in the budgetary bucket. For comparison, lets look at what the Federal budget spent on other things in 2007:
  • $586.1 billion for Social Security
  • $548.8 billion for Defense (not including the “war”)
  • $394.5 billion for Medicare
  • $367 billion for Unemployment and Welfare
  • $76.9 billion for Veterans’ benefits
  • $33.1 billion for natural resources and the environment
  • $26.8 billion for community and regional development
Check out this other Wikipedia article for a full breakdown plus links for additional information. And here’s one fact for you: Americans spent over 19 times as much at restaurants in 1997 as the federal government spent on NASA that year.

What does NASA spend ‘all that money’ on? Well, among other things, NASA has procurements, grants, and awards that go to businesses, educational institutions, and non-profit organizations throughout all 50 United States. Millions of dollars are spread throughout the country. Check out this map showing the disbursements.
As for all their space exploration programs, research centers, aeronautical programs, etc., you should check out this site by NASA.

I’ve already addressed the issue of how much money the Federal Government puts to other programs, so let’s look at our “war” spending. Much of the money for the war does not come out of the annual Federal budget, instead it is done as ‘Supplemental Funding’. For example, in FY 2006 $153 billion in Supplemental Funding was added to the base budget of which the War on Terror received $120 billion and a massive $33 billion went to events such as Hurricane Katrina. My source for this information is here.
Total estimates for our “War on Terror” go as high as $2.4 trillion. TRILLION. Check out this CNN Money article and be sure to follow their link in the middle of the article.

Right now this lovely little planet is our only home. The environment is not in the best shape right now and many feel the future is only going to deteriorate. Personally, I’d like to see humanity expand beyond Earth. Our future, if we have one, is in space. Check out these folks.


Scotty, where are you when I need you?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Too bad some elderly gentleman never sits down and comments that he thinks the U.S. spends too much unnecessary money on pork barrel issues. But that never seems to happen, does it?
You mention some big sums of budgeted money that go to worthwhile agencies, such as Social Security, Veterans, etc. I wonder what the "pork" actually costs us?
My thought on NASA spending coincides exactly with your ending paragraph.

Lee Cantrell said...

Frances,
Your comment reminds me of a series of short stories written by Robert Heinlein about a very rich 'elderly gentleman, D. D. Harriman, who got humanity off this planet and in to space. Most of those stories have been published in the book "The Past Through Tomorrow" - excellent reading.
You have also made me realize that I neglected to include information on that "pork" spending. This I promise to include in another post ASAP.
Thanks for pointing that out!
Lee

Anonymous said...

Finally someone knows what I'm thinking about with all of the money we're spending on Earth, especially the war, compared to very little money being used to discover things in outer space that may matter someday.