why was nasa created? do you think nasa's money could be used elswhere, could it stay at nasa,or go both ways?

Answer 1

NASA keeps the United States in the forefront of manned and unmanned space exploration. You might not feel like that benefits your everyday life, but it is important for many reasons:

1. Maintaining the nation's technical prowess.

2. National pride (do you want to know China is flying in space and we are incapable?)

3. Strategic concerns. Like it not, much of the infrastructure of a nation like the United States is located in space (communications and weather satellites, military satellites critical to our armed forces, GPS satellites, etc). This infrastructure must be maintained, improved, and defended. That means you need a space program and people well versed in how to accomplish tasks in space. While the Air Force is capable of doing some of this, there are very good reasons to have a civilian agency in the lead role. Also - NASA money mainly gets distributed to contractors who perform many functions. These are the same contractors the Air Force uses so the money benefits both sides of the fence and keeps a large skilled workforce engaged and proficient.

4. Internation Cooperation. NASA one of the leading agencies of the US government that is promoting positive interaction between the US and other countries.

So to use less than 1/2 of 1% of the budget to do all that: I say it is worth it.

Answer 2

NASA's budget for 2007 is only $16.8 billion (the government's total budget is $2.8 trillion). So no, NASA's money would not be better spent elsewhere. Satellite TV, radio, GPS, and all of that good stuff would not be possible without some kind of space exploration. In the future, it could be possible to gather resources from various places in our solar system. Also, by studying other planets we can learn more about our own.

If the human species survives for another million years, it will probably be necessary to find a new home on some planet other than Earth and we will probably have the technology to do so in the distant future.

Answer 3

NASA started ouut as an agency to promote R&D in aeronautics--in the late 50s it got its current name and its mission was expanded to includespace research.

NASA is probably the best investment of anything your taxmoney hasgone for in the last 50 years. We've gotten satellite communications and weather predictions, a whole range of medical technology--and most of the basic technology that makes your computer possible.

A lot of people who don't know any better like to pick on NASA because they don't want to take the trouble to understand what they do--or what the benefits are. But if we want to cut waste in government, we need to start with pork barrel projects like that $200 million "bridge to nowhare" in Alaska, or the billions of subsidies to corporations in the drug, oil, and even tobacco industries. Plus a few other things I could name.

But we need to take some of that money and give it TO NASA--they are one of the few government agencies that has paid for themselves several times over--are still doing so--and could do much more if they had enough money (which they don't--despite the public rhetoric, NASA's budget has been cut by the Republicans time after time for the last 12 years--though the Democrats haven't done much better).

Answer 4

How many deaths are you willing to cause to get rid of NASA? The weather satellites provide forecast data that saves lives every day. The land observation satellites provide crop forecasts that aid agriculture around the world. The medical spinoffs from NASA are countless. Kidney dialysis exists solely because of NASA's research. NASA's aeronautics program has improved aircraft safety, reliability, and efficiency.

All of these things are created by people trying to figure out how to explore space. You never know what will come of it.

Answer 5

NASA was created to manage and run the US space program. Some of NASA's tasks have been manned exploration of space (Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, ISS, etc.), some have been robotic exploration (Spirit, Odyssey, Viking, Cassini, etc.), some have been pure science (Hubble, Spitzer, SOHO, etc.) and some have been overtly commercial. Without NASA, we wouldn't have the weather satellites that help forecast the weather, the communications satellites that make international calling cheap and easy, DirecTV and Dish Network, satellites to route TV signals worldwide, imaging satellites to keep track of bad guys, and so on.

In the grand scheme of things, NASA doesn't cost very much, and returns huge benefits. For example, NASA's 2006 budget was $16.5 billion -- for all programs. The US paid $406 billion in 2006 just on INTEREST on the national debt, 24 times as much as NASA got. Now *that* money could surely be better spent...:)

Answer 6

NASA was created as a civilian oversight organization to explore the atmosphere and near space environments. I suppose it has its place, but it really should be phased out. The military has their own space program which is far in advance of NASA's rocket program. And now there are civilian organizations working on free enterprise flights. NASA is more of a figurehead now than anything else. It's time to privatize space, just as aircraft were privatized back around the 1930's.

What would be smart would be to transfer that money to alternative energy programs. Specifically, systems that use zero point energy, fusion, and space based solar energy production systems.

Answer 7

i think they should use the money for good causes such as solar powered cars, wind turbines, charities, hospitals, etc