NASA...why does the American Government see it as being worthless?

Question

I just don't get it...why must we be so selfish? Why must the American government, continually give a smaller and smaller budget to the NASA space program? It is, THE most important part of the entire budget.
Even for the people do not place learning and discovery above pointless wars, think about it. With the newfound knowledge of Helium-3, and the Moon's large reservoir of said material...we could successfully replace the non-renewable Oil and Petroleum, with a fuel that is like Nuclear power, only with no harmful by-products, and no risk of meltdown. If we harvested Helium-3 from the Moon, it could sustain as our energy source, (adjusting for the population rise) for the next 6000 years!

I could debate this forever, but, my main question today is,
Why aren't we making much progress (as we could) in the Space exploration field? The NASA director said himself that if NASA had the equivalent funds of 1 year in Iraq, we'd be living on the Moon by now. So my friends...why aren't we?

Answer 1

I think there are numerous problems. During the space race, we were motivated to beat the Russians, it was all about ego. Fiscal conservatives, by and large, are only concerned with making money for themselves. They have little interest in anything other than what can make them a profit in the short term. Science is about a constant search for knowledge. Profitability is not a concern. When we went to the moon, they talked a lot about Science and they did do that, but the real reason for it was ego. The money that can be made is space, is primarily from satellites for communications. There are now a number of private companies that can do that. Very few people are interested in Science fo science sake. There is almost always an ulterior motive, be it economic or military. So the budgets get smaller. Compounding this problem is the private companies with the NASA contracts, are getting lazy. They have found out they can make money without actually building anything or in some cases, completing the project. Numerous programs have been almost operational, only to be dropped. I think most of these companies are building paper spacecraft. It's easy to design something, and never have to prove that it actually works. I hope these private space projects are a kick in the pants to NASA and the established aerospace companies.

Man did not originally know how to make steel. It fell from the sky as meteors. I think it would be quite something if we discovered a meteor that was made almost of pure gold, copper or other metals. Imagine what would happen if they could detect a house sized meteor made entirely out of gold. I bet then we would see more interest in space.

Answer 2

Please repost your question (as-is) to your congressman/woman and both of your senators. Only they have a shot at answering the 'why'.

I'll give you my take, though. During the Apollo program, portions of it were distributed across a wide number of congressional districts, making 'everyone happy', because 'everyone' got a piece of the budget 'pie' (read this a most every congressman got to bring some pork home to their districts).

Today, NASA's budget is spent in a few select districts and the money is not nearly as wide-spread as it has been, or possibly could be. If there was some way to spread the money around so that each congressional district got a piece of the NASA budget, then you can bet that budget would be a lot larger than it is.

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Answer 3

The people that run for office are after only two things, money and power, and they can't see past the nose on their face.
Here is something that you and others can do, start sending emails to all the branches of the Federal Government telling them to start giving more money to NASA for research in space travel.

Here is just how dumb people in the past Congress and Senate we, right after world war one we only had two aircraft carriers, and the Congress wanted them to be destroyed, and not build any more, but it's a good thing that one Admiral did get enough funds to build three aircraft carriers, they were the only thing that kept us from losing WW2

Answer 4

Talk to Congress. They approve NASA's budget every year.

Answer 5

It beats me... The space program has spun off plenty of useful things. It is worth every penny we put into it. Just jerks in charge I guess.

Answer 6

It is easier for politicians to give money to people who vote for them. All other spending is done by the bosses.

Answer 7

NASA cover-ups and cover-ups..