NASA rovers will explore Mars for six more months

Houston Chronicle ^ | 04/09/22

[from occupied ga]

One of the functions of a successful government is to support basic research and development.

And your source for this opinion stated as a fact is what? Government web sites?

Now most of the time government investment in the sciences pays off

Like the National Endowment for the Arts pays off. Like the war on poverty is paying off? Like the war on drugs is paying off? Like the semi-auto ban paid off? Like AIDS research is paying off? The single largest kille of under 65 is cancer the single largest killer of over 65 is vascular disease. Government spending on AIDS research has topped spending for either of these because of political pressures - some payoff

Most people realize that government spending is probably the least efficient and least effective way to get anything done.

[from occupied ga]

EEEEWW! Why did you have to go and do a thing like that?

[PatrickHenry]

One of the functions of a successful government is to support basic research and development.

To be strict about it, "research" isn't one of the enumerated powers delegated to Congress. Nevertheless, from the very beginning of the republic, when the gov't was run by people who were very well aware of the Constitution's meaning, the feds have funded research via the military. The best-known example is Jefferson's Lewis & Clark expedition. Aside from that, the Navy was always mapping shorelines, charting ocean currents, and making exploratory voyages. These were not profit-making activities; and no private shipowner could afford to undertake them. The long-range benefits were in the areas of defense, opening new trade routes, etc. The analogy to NASA's activities is obvious. Unfortunately, NASA spends too much on razzle-dazzle stuff, like manned missions, but maybe that's a political necessity.

If we weren't so brutally taxed, a lot more research would be done by the private sector. But probably not in the areas of pure research that NASA does. I wish it were otherwise, but shareholders would regard it as an unprofitable use of their assets. If private companies could have clear title to other worlds, they might be scrambling to spend their funds to get there. But that doesn't seem to be the way we're going.

If NASA bends the Constitution a bit, it's hardly the worst example, and the long-range benefits are immense. Their current budget is about $16 billion, which isn't much; and although that kind of rationale is used to justify everything the feds do (like funding of the arts), I don't object to NASA, at least in principle. There's a lot of tradition behind defense-oriented research. But I do, of course, object to almost all other federal spending.