Yeah, the old "everything not specifically authorized by the Consitution is unconstitutional" thing gets trotted out but basically everyone advocating it is a hypocrite; they've either advocated. or had benefit from, from a wide variety of government activities just as absent from the Consitution as Census surveys other than every ten years....
NASA is a good example. Do they feel the Apollo Moon Landings were unconstitutional? Not a scrap in the Constitution authorizing that or even hinting at authorizing that.
If the sole means of data collection by the government was an every 10 year headcount, there'd basically would be no ability for government to make a decision about anything.
That would be a good thing, if you ask me.
This would be a bad thing because...
Gee, they might have to come back home and meet and actually talk to the people instead of the lobbyist fact finding trips to Aspen and ...
Well then, why do they need to know what time I go to work?
Nonsense. They could purchase the results of market research conducted legitimately and voluntarily by any of a number of organizations.
Actually the U.S. Contitution may or may not allow the feds to write laws to spend money on space exploration/etc. Here is the clause found in Article 1, Section 8:
The Congress shall have power ... To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;
Personally, I interpret this narrowly to mean that the feds can create patent laws and spend money directly on space applications that have military uses. This is because other clauses allow them to finance the military. They should be required to stay out of the financing civilian space exploration, imo.
That said, and even though my mother was one of the very first female engineers ever employeed by NASA, I think NASA is a gigantic money pit that is long overdue to be scrapped from the federal budget.