Where does NASA get there money from?

Question

Do they get it from taxes? If so don't we (taxpayers) have a right to say that spending trillions of dollars to see if there is life on other planets to much. It just makes me a lil mad because there is so much that could be done with that money that is really needed like running water and medications and food all kinds of things.....

Answer 1

NASA gets its money from the US Government which gets it from American working men and women in the form of income taxes and other levies.

Answer 2

To begin with, the amount is only a few million . Barely noticible in a 3 trillion dollar buget or a 6 trillion dollar economy. In addition, what NASA is doing is nothing less than the salvation of human kind. If we remain on this planet we are extinct. We MUST leave. This is going to take a lot of time and we are already late.

The scary part is that anytime in the next few years, we can be wiped by a cosmic catastrophe. We are sweating one right now. It is called Apophos. An asteriod the size of a football field. It is suppose to barely miss us according to current calculations. Only thing is the results change slightly everytime it is recalculated. We will know one way or another in 2036 unless NASA intercepts it before then.

NASA wants to move it a bit, just to see if they can. We know there is another bigger one out there that's to due smack us and we would like to know we have a way to deal with it before it gets here.

Answer 3

Some is from taxes, some from private donations, some from fund-raising initiatives, and some from the sale of patents on technology NASA has developed.

You could get angry over your tax dollars being spent on space exploration, but I would think most Americans would be more upset over the hundreds of times more tax money being spent on war.
With the money spent in the last 3 years on the war in Iraq alone, the US could have health care for the 47 million Americans currently without health insurance, and provide medicines and food for every poor child in America (and a lot of other countries).

Answer 4

Yep. I think NASA is cool and all but we need that money for other things right now. Space exploration is important but we aren't benefiting from it really, not as much as we once did, or not as much as we possibly could if things were better directed. As a teacher, I can tell you education is in dire need of more funds, at least in VA. Healthcare reform, too.

But that doesn't really make me so mad. I get a little (a lot) mad that my tax dollars are being used to fund a pointless, illegal, and tragic war. I'd rather NASA have my money than Bush. At least NASA is trying to do progressive, scientific things.

Answer 5

Yes, they get it from taxes. And no, you don't have a say in it. And it's not trillions, like we spend on the war - it's only 17 billion, the smallest budget of any gov't agency. Frankly, if we could choose what our tax money supported, I'd give it all to NASA.

Yeah, as if we dropped NASA all the money would go to straight to charity. Or maybe just to the war, do you think?

Answer 6

Space research is much more important than anything you have just enumerate, but very few persons, know how much it is important to support this researchs. If we don`t do it, then another country will do it, and when research in the field will reach a certain plateau, this country will dominate the world, and if this country happen to be a totalitarian one, then its influences will spread over here and finish the job to enslave every Americans!!

to give you an exemple, China is pushing their space programs and want to establish a lunar base in the next few decades... CHina does have much more poors to take care than USA has or ever has, but they do push this, in order to positioned themselves over the Americans... So letting this down, then China own the space, and all of its ressources...
So this is strategic geopolitical field of study, that REALLY needs to be pushed further, in the interest of all mankinds, not just the few...

Answer 7

It's very little of your tax money, not 2% as someone implied. The benefits from space exploration have many trickle down effects which benefit everybody, from electronics to medication, communication, even agriculture.
Much much more money is spent for example on dog food every year than on space. And little is spent on trying to find extraterrestrial life.

Answer 8

Little green men from Mars periodically land at Cape Canaveral with bags of gold and turn them over to the astronauts, but only on moonless nights. On the other hand, the US Military gets all of its money from US taxpayers. I would be more worried about their budget than I would about NASA's.

Answer 9

About Two Cents of every tax dollar goes to fund the NASA budget.

Answer 10

like what? educating children who'd rather be playing video games or listening to their ipods, or just hanging out? Who wants to try to teach kids like that? You could throw billions more at our education system, and they wouldn't get any more literate or smarter. No one would teach them, if you paid them more, because there is no discipline in schools, because we are too politically correct. So what would you spend this money on? You may as well give it all back to the wealthy, if you're not going to spend it on the space program......