Posted on 03/11/2012 9:50:21 PM PDT by prisoner6
This is for everyone who doesn't understand why NASA was created and why so many people think it is imperative to continue supporting them. All credit for this video goes to Scrunchthethird.
Not sure what to make of this. The Daily Show in the credits.
Needs fact checking. Could it be true that the bank bail out is greater than the entire 50 year NASA budget?
FWIW I enjoyed the video.
Since NACA?NASA has never received mre than about 1 cent of every tax dollar every spent since its inception I think it is entirely probable that the banl bail outs have totaled far more than the space agency has ever spent. The total budget this year is something less than 10 billion....even if the budget had ALWAYS been that high ( and it hasn’t been) since NACA came around in the 40s that would be at most 70 years which would put the tool at around 700 billion. That is way more than they have spent ( or has been budgeted because my numbers are based on the current budget—— which come to think of it is more like 7 or 8 billion)
ping
I agree that our dreams have been lost there, but I think a lot of that happened when the agency was hijacked for political purposes and lost sight of what in the public eye had been its mission...as trite as it sounds...
"To boldly go where no man has gone before..."
You're right, it does make me think. It makes me think we're broke and this is the kind of stuff that falls along the wayside when you're broke and you have to make cuts. Space programs, public television, the arts, ad nauseum. There are hundreds of programs that can make a case for themselves when times are good. Times aren't good anymore. Sorry.
If being great is valuable, and exploring space makes us great, and being broke prevents us from exploring space (thus being great) stop those things which make us broke. Unless of course, we can achieve the same valued greatness (vis a vis other cultures) by not exploring space.
This begs the question...does it matter who does it?
American enthusiasm for the space program was not for nothing.
Nothing is great when you're broke except doing the things that keep you from financial ruin. That is our reality until we manage to dig ourselves out of the hole we are in. I realize that in the age of Obama this may seem like some sort of pipe dream but when the bills become due our creditors won't be wearing the same set of rose colored glasses. We're broke, as in out of money for anything but servicing our debt. Do you have some sort of logical explanation that can claim otherwise?
How's that working out?
After all, we have the fattest poor people on the planet.
We're broke for a reason, and NASA isn't it.
We need to quit subsidizing the parasite class, and by that I do not mean the old or the genuinely infirm, but the millions who just suck the substance out of America without lifting a finger, and with no intention of doing so.
We need to fire about half of the Government, dump a pile of ridiculous regulations, and get back to producing our own stuff, for export if nothing else, so we won't be broke--individually, or as a nation.
We have exported jobs and factories for decades and quit making the basics.
I'd bet you and I could sit down with the Federal Budget, line item by line item, and cut close to 50 million a day in pork items for months and never touch NASA.
For now, the new American Dream is to find three different baby daddys and get child support out of one or two while collecting welfare and living in subsidized housing with a taxpayer paid cell phone, internet, and medical, utilities, and a food card.
As long as that is the dream, the moon will remain a bright dot in the sky for part of the month, and sooner or later our descendents will look out of their cave and wonder about it, all over again.
Well said!
NASA fully embraced Affirmative Action and is full of minorities that are doing little except drinking coffee and reading web pages. They are not the best and brightest at all and will not be going back to space anytime soon without Russian help. The agency should be dissolved, it is a 100% loss now.
>>...We’re broke for a reason, and NASA isn’t it...<<
So you accept the fact that we are broke, yet you refuse to make the logical connection that NASA costs money that we do not have.
It matters not one whit that NASA is not the reason we are broke — what matters is that: “we are broke”. “Greatness” may hold some value and bragging-rights, but it does not pay the bills. That is an unfortunate, unavoidable fact.
Here is another axiom of Govt that a bunch of folks just refuse to accept or understand: US Govt entities exist solely to burn through taxpayer money at a high rate of speed.
Nobody is saying NASA is a waste of time. But understand they are not only saying NASA is *currently* unaffordable, I think they are saying pretty much *ALL* govt is currently unaffordable, given our financial situation.
Once we get our financial house back in order, *THEN* we can think about giving NASA a blank-check, or whatever increased spending folks want.
The only action I noted was to “stop those things which make us broke”. I don’t see a disagreement here.
You said: “We’re broke, as in out of money for anything but servicing our debt. Do you have some sort of logical explanation that can claim otherwise?”
I have no such explanation, only a few if/then points about greatness and exploration.
Thanks prisoner6. An “extra, extra” to the APoD members.
*if every person on earth paid 1 penny we would have a 3billion dollars for nasa*
*it would actually be like 7 billion with all the people that we have on earth*
....and THAT my FRiends, is why the dream is lost!
Yes and YES! Run the numbers. What is the definintion of a penny today?
Wow. Americans get dumber by the day. Maybe the 2nd comment on that video was trying to account for the 1/2 of people who don’t pay such taxes.......
It takes money to make money, and unless you have some thing to sell, you will make no money.
The title speaks to you ... you no longer dream, instead settling ... for navel contemplation.
As people has said, since the 40’s we've spent at most 700B on space ad aeronautics ... that has produced most of the products we use everyday, in every walk of life - ROI: priceless.
You can no longer dream, can no longer take risks, can do nothing but say no.
To let dreams die because you are too shirt sighted and too weak to envision any future which does not encompass you in a warm cocoon is your lot in life, and the rewards you, your families, and children will reap in the future yet unborn.
Last I checked, you don’t need a government paycheck to dream. You don’t even need one to actually accomplish something in space either.
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