why not get rid of nasa?

Question

that money can be used to cut the national debt in half

Answer 1

Have you looked at the size of the national debt and the budget of NASA? If you do, you will find that NASA's budget is a small drop compared to the military and entitlement programs. It would not help in any significant way with the debt.

Answer 2

NASA's entire yearly budget is about 21 billion dollars. That would make the smallest of dents in the almost 10 trillion dollar national debt. Considering the many benefits, (including medical) that come from NASA research there are much better candidates for the budget axe. How about cutting the 500 billion dollar missile defense program that will never work, or revoking the tax breaks for the top 10% that cost about 400 billion a year, or the hundreds of billions we are spending on a boondoggle war in Iraq?

Answer 3

Beside the financial miscalculation others have pointed out.

On the point someone made about our millitary, ours is still ranked #1.. by a good margin, too. We're stronger than the next 20 or so Millitarys COMBINED.

One would think we wouldn't be risking that much by cutting back a little, since it would take the force of all of the next 20 most powerful nations to even match ours.

Anyhow, not only does NASA provide a lot of useful services, like being *the* standard of excelence among Space Programs, increasing our knowlege of not only the Universe but or own world exponentialy, but for every dollar NASA gets, it is putting seven dollars of business into the economy.

These guys are REALLY efficent and good at getting things done inexpensively. A billion dollars sounds like a lot until you start pricing the rocket fuel and the next generation of shuttles.

We don't need to get rid of NASA, we need to get rid of everything else and let the guys at NASA take a crack at it.

Answer 4

No way! The NASA budget is way, WAY less than half the national debt. Sadly, your belief that NASA spends a large part of the government's money is a common misconception. You are hearing that they spent a billion or two and that sounds like a lot of money, so you ASSUME, without checking, that it is most of the federal budget.

You know what happens when you, ASSuME, right?

Answer 5

The national debt is in the trillions of dollars. The annual budget of NASA is about 20 billion. That's not even 1%. That means you can't do math - so you obviously could have benifited from the educational resources NASA offered. Too bad their budget wasn't big enough. We should give them more money.

Answer 6

As others have pointed out, the portion of the national debt attributed to NASA is miniscule. If you really want to cut the debt, then you need to turn your attention to entitlement programs and congressional pork spending. The biggest single drain on the federal budget is probably the military, but warfare aside, even the military provides us with constant technological advances and improvements in life (such as cell phones, interstate highways, GPS, etc). Nope, the things that need to go are the social programs whereby money is given to the unproductive dregs of society who contribute nothing in return.

Answer 7

You need to check your facts.

Nasa's 2007 budget is only $16.8 billion.

The national debt is about $8.5 trillion.

That means Nasa's budget is 0.19% of the national debt.

Assuming the debt stopped growing, and you spent all of Nasa's budget on it, it would take over 500 years to pay it off.

Answer 8

It gives jobs to American people. It puts money into the American economy. NASA is very necessary. You'll never be employed at NASA with that grammar. Maybe mopping the floors.

Answer 9

There are better things to worry about than the national debt!

Answer 10

If your real concern is the national debt, then NASA's budget is small compared to our military budget. If we cut our military budget, we would pay off the debt much faster. Space exploration does bring benefits...