
What Is NASA for? - wikiburner
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/mysteries_of_the_universe/2014/02/nasa_s_mission_its_search_for_meaning_has_limited_its_science_and_damaged.html
======
agentultra
I'm not much of an economist but isn't NASA's budget a drop in the bucket
compared to what the United States spent on maintaining and improving its Navy
fleet in 2009? Some quick checks of the Wikipedia pages for both budgets show
that US military spending dwarfs NASA spending. I'm curious why this article
seems to think that NASA is "too expensive," and needs to justify such a cost.

The European aristocracy fueled explorations far and wide, killed many more
people, and now a large percentage of humans travel around the world daily. If
we sent more people to space far and wide would it not follow the same pattern
if something eventually came of it? I'm not sure that anyone knew the early
explorers would come back with boats filled with gold and precious resources
but perhaps we will come back with ships filled with rare elements, minerals
and gasses.

I found this article to be rather pessimistic. I realize that military
spending is a necessity so long as our geo-political situation continues to
remain unstable. However it seems to my uneducated view of the subject that
the US could cut a good fraction of its military spending, continue to
dominate in conventional warfare and reduce the cost of space exploration
greatly in the long term.

Maybe someone who knows more about it can enlighten me. I, like many, get
wide-eyed when I think of space and dream, hopelessly, of one day experiencing
it for myself.

~~~
fnordfnordfnord
>isn't NASA's budget a drop in the bucket compared to what the United States
spent on maintaining and improving its Navy fleet in 2009?

It's a pittance, but, it's what we get to spend on space programs; and we're
spending it on _NASA_. I'm glad to see a criticism that isn't criticism of
what we think NASA'a mission is, but instead a criticism of how NASA executes
that mission.

------
ANH
This is a kind of ridiculous article. It entirely ignores NASA's Earth Science
work, which gets the largest allocation of science funding in the FY2014
budget (almost $2B).

Caveat: I work with a team of NASA & contractor Earth scientists. I think
they'd all tell you they don't need to go search for a justification;
justifications are self-evident. Here's one: Maintain the climate record.

~~~
__pThrow
Perhaps my memory is wrong, or the emphasis less that I recall, but I remember
fundamental change in NASA's direction in the late 90s or early 2000s that
explicitly focused NASA's work on Earth.

Some of this was a result of remote sensing tech coming into it's golden age,
some as a result of climate change needs, and a lot was a result of NASA
needing to find a source of funding.

But I can't find anything extensive about that on the web at this moment.

~~~
tanzam75
Earth Science is only 10% of NASA's budget.

From NASA's 2014 budget request (in millions of dollars):

[http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/750614main_NASA_FY_2014_Budget_Estim...](http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/750614main_NASA_FY_2014_Budget_Estimates-508.pdf)

    
    
       Science               5,017.8
       Aeronautics             565.7
       Space Technology        742.6
       Exploration           3,915.5
       Space Operations      3,882.9
       Education                94.2
       Cross Agency Support  2,850.3
      ===============================
       Total Request        17,715.4
    

To break down "Science":

    
    
      Earth Science              1,846.1
      Planetary Science          1,217.5
      Astrophysics                 642.3
      James Webb Space Telescope   658.2
      Heliophysics                 653.7
    

By comparison, most of the "Exploration" budget is spent on the development of
the Space Launch System -- which some sarcastically refer to as the "Senate"
Launch System, because it is designed to spread money among the states. Just
the SLS alone is bigger than the Earth Science budget.

~~~
maaku
> which some sarcastically refer to as the "Senate" Launch System, because it
> is designed to spread money among the states

I thought it was because the project was invented in the Senate version of the
NASA budget, where Senate staffers made up arbitrary requirements for its
design and functionality.

------
todayiamme
I think that the following comment I wrote on an analogous story a while ago
helps to frame this in a better context:

""" I have been obsessed with the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs since
childhood and I've read the first hand accounts of astronauts, flight
directors, engineers, administrators, and journalists covering the programs.
What has consistently struck me is that although the programs were marketed -
if you may - along the lines of their exciting thrust into the unknown, the
programs were executed based upon a cold rational calculus that extended sabre
rattling and the grounds of engagement beyond the surface of our planet.

Yes, for me it might be one of the greatest achievements of humanity, but for
the people paying for the show all of that work was for one thing and one
thing only; to claim the high ground swiftly and decisively before the enemy.
For anyone with the ability to put a capsule into orbit and to retrieve it,
also possessed the ability to spy on the other party, safely launch and drop a
nuclear warhead into the other party's major cities, and one-up the enemy in a
show of technical prowess and strength - something that would persuade those
on the fence to pick the right side if it were. That's what these programs
were sadly all about and that's why they were ended once the high ground was
decisively seized.

The reason why there isn't an Apollo-esque or Manhattan-esque thrust towards
landing on Mars is because there is no substantial tactical, economic, or
political advantage to be gained from the act. Sure in the long term there
will be amazing pay-offs if we open up the solar system and expand outwards,
but right now in the minds of the people who are actually cutting the cheques
that pay-off is too distant, too abstract, too foolhardy, and too unsettling
to justify any kind of support.

Now some people choose to rue the cause behind our current Earth-bound
civilization, but I think this is actually a good thing. It ensures that when
we do manage to find a way to reach out to the stars we will do it for the
right reasons and our exploration will continue from one frontier to another
because of that fact. """

Source:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6653483](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6653483)

~~~
moccajoghurt
On a side note: Why do you quote """this way"""?

~~~
todayiamme
I got the idea from python and I use repeating double quotes ( " ) or chevrons
( > ) to demarcate the quoted text without spoiling the quotes within the
text. It just feels cleaner in a way.

~~~
nether
The pretentiousness of HN amazes me. It's incorrect syntax, mind you; Python
isn't English.

~~~
BlackDeath3
I'm not sure if your "pretentious" comment was directed at todayiamme or not.
If so:

If the idea of triple-quotes holds utility, what does it matter if it's
"improper syntax" or not? I find your need to squabble over quotation styles
pretentious.

~~~
sabbatic13
Well, I think the idea that one can deform natural language at will to conform
to usage in code, and that this is somehow analytically superior is what
strikes people as pretentious. Natural language is rather more complex than
artificial language. The inability to understand what rules it has and deal
with its ambiguities is simply a failure.

I don't personally care, unless it's in a context where the expectation is
that the language will be, well, "normal." I just thought I'd tease out what I
think is being the criticism.

In any event, this is a matter of punctuation, not syntax. As for nesting
quotations, you want to alternate between single and double quotation marks.
It's pretty rare that we go beyond two levels of nested direct quotations in
English, so it's rarely ambiguous.

~~~
BlackDeath3
I agree with the sentiment that natural language is not something to be
manipulated at-will for any old reason, but I don't see how somebody's
preference for code-style disambiguation is either pretentious or a failure. I
think it did what it needed to do, and provided the post with the author's own
sort of "flair". I didn't actually know for sure what the quotes were there to
do in the first place, but it doesn't really matter. Perhaps that was _my_
failing.

The poster explained their preference for the triple-quotes in a clear and
completely non-inflammatory way, and then got shit on for being pretentious. I
don't find that to be acceptable.

------
sbierwagen
See also: "A Rocket To Nowhere" by Maciej Cegłowski.
[http://idlewords.com/2005/08/a_rocket_to_nowhere.htm](http://idlewords.com/2005/08/a_rocket_to_nowhere.htm)

    
    
      Future archaeologists trying to understand what the Shuttle 
      was for are going to have a mess on their hands. Why was 
      such a powerful rocket used only to reach very low orbits, 
      where air resistance and debris would limit the useful 
      lifetime of a satellite to a few years? Why was there both 
      a big cargo bay and a big crew compartment? What kind of 
      missions would require people to assist in deploying a 
      large payload? Why was the Shuttle intentionally crippled 
      so that it could not land on autopilot? ① Why go through 
      all the trouble to give the Shuttle large wings if it has 
      no jet engines and the glide characteristics of a brick? 
      Why build such complex, adjustable main engines and then 
      rely on the equivalent of two giant firecrackers to provide 
      most of the takeoff thrust? Why use a glass thermal 
      protection system, rather than a low-tech ablative shield? 
      And having chosen such a fragile method of heat protection, 
      why on earth mount the orbiter on the side of the rocket, 
      where things will fall on it during launch?

~~~
josefresco
The space shuttle was (too) many things to (too) many people. Mediocrity by
committee.

------
headcanon
As negative as the article sounds, I agree with the overall premise. With the
same amount of money that's currently being sucked into their manned program,
infinitely more and better scientific endeavors can be funded. Imagine not
only having a mars rover, but an entire robotic base on mars that could
possibly fuel itself and send out dozens of missions with air-and-land-based
drones. Or perhaps the same on Venus or Titan, or even better equipment for
monitoring Earth. Far-fetched, sure, but with the kind of budget the manned
program is pulling in, I believe things like that are possible.

With that said, I'm OK with us still having a space station with people in it,
because it keeps the engines of the national space machine greased. It won't
be long before the United States is faced with a new contender for Global
Superpower, and space will definitely become the place to be. If you want to
control the land, you must control the sea, and if you want to control the
sea, you must control space. As our military becomes more and more drone-
heavy, I wouldn't be surprised if Space Command drastically increases its
scope and reach as an organization. Its much faster to control a drone across
the world in real time from space than it is from Virginia.

Couple military need with the new blood of private contractors (spaceX and its
like), I believe space will be a big deal once again in a few decades.

------
skywhopper
I'd like to see NASA focus entirely on unmanned missions. To me, humans in
space is mildly interesting, but the data from robotic missions to the outer
planets and Mars as well as from the various space telescopes is nothing less
than fascinating.

And when you start comparing the relative costs, it seems like a no brainer.
For the budget required to sustain manned spaceflight in its relatively
trivial form, you could launch a space telescope, two Mars missions, an outer-
planet mission, a comet mission, an asteroid mission, and a Sun mission, all
robotic, every year. There'd be a constant stream of new data of interest to
scientists and the public. The inevitable failed missions would just be blips
on the radar, and technical progress on the exploratory robots would go faster
than ever.

Over the decades launch and return technology will improve, especially as
private industry gets more involved in space travel, and once we have cheaper
and more reliable ways to get into space, gradually it may make more and more
sense for humans to return and live there (or it won't, which is okay, too).

~~~
rbanffy
> There'd be a constant stream of new data of interest to scientists and the
> public

There would be no stories. No machine can tell you how it feels to be there.
If, ultimately, the goal is to send people, then we should send people. Of
course, we should send machines until we are sure it's safe to send people,
but we can't forget why we are doing it.

We (rightfully) complain NASA does too little with the money they have while
military spending is orders of magnitude larger. And, as long as that money is
used to fund fighters such as the F-35 (good luck for those who'll fly it) and
the F-22 (is that O2 problem fixed?), there will be very little benefit from
there except fat military contractors.

BTW, those are the same companies that feed on NASA.

~~~
greeneggs
Why wouldn't there be stories? Haven't Hubble and the Mars missions gotten a
lot of stories? At least in my media bubble, they've gotten much more
attention than the order-of-magnitude more expensive ISS. If the unmanned
space program got as much funding as the manned space program gets today, I
think it would generate far more news and interest.

I'm not sure manned versus unmanned is the right distinction to make for media
attention, though. More important is whether a mission is TV-ready (like a
manned moon landing), or not (like an unmanned Mars landing where after
landing we spend six months calibrating each instrument one at a time, before
rolling forward six inches).

Right now, science is barely on the radar of the manned mission planners.
While for unmanned missions, science is the highest priority. If this were
only tweaked slightly, and media appeal made another priority for unmanned
missions, then I think you could get cost-effective unmanned missions that are
both media- and science-friendly.

------
danso
This is a great essay...it illuminates the interplay between science,
politics, idealism, and human endeavor better than most things I've read that
bemoan the underfunding of NASA: Human-based missions are unfeasible if we
want to expand space exploration....yet the public can't get behind robot-
missions, and thus, the lack of funding and interest.

This conflict mimics the technological dichotomy in the rest of society...how
can we continue to value human contributions when computers can do things so
much more efficiently and accurately? My opinion is that there are plenty of
things that require a "human-in-the-middle" for the forseeable future,
earthside. But in space, it's much harder to justify, based on the plain
physics of sending a human into space.

------
Zigurd
Tl;dr: NASA was only incidentally about science, it was cover for funding
military/geopolitical goals. Once those goals (moon, shuttle) were achieved,
NASA's risks and costs are exceedingly hard to justify.

~~~
valarauca1
NASA was founded as a guise for science in the light of a cold war power play.
There are several quotes even from Kennedy saying that the Space Race was a
diplomatic framing of ICBM missile building and testing.

What NASA does accomplish is economic growth of America as a whole. What most
people don't realize is very dollar given to NASA roughly translates to 2-4
dollars of GDP growth of American research, development, and manufacturing.

Really one of the most direct ways of the US Government putting additional
money in the hands of the American is NASA's budget strangely.

~~~
SamReidHughes
Except no, you can't go and spout numbers about GDP growth ratios without
considering the opportunity costs of not having NASA's employees work in other
sectors.

~~~
valarauca1
I'm talking about government spending to money actually being used in the
economy. In which NASA is largely the best program.

On a person by person level yes there is likely some wasted talent at NASA,
and their skills could be put to better use else where. But doing a micro-
economic analysis of every 1 person's case over 300,000 employes and 18,000
contractors would be very time consuming then making boarder macro economic
statements. Also remember micro-economics are wrong about certain things,
macro-economics are wrong about things in general.

~~~
mcguire
" _300,000 employees and 18,000 contractors_ "

Assuming you're talking about the '60's, it's the other way around. If you're
talking about today, it's still the other way around but the number of
contractors is much smaller.

~~~
valarauca1
Those numbers are taken from NASA itself, they have links to the size of their
operations nasapeople.nasa.gov

~~~
mcguire
Do you mean this: [https://wicn.nssc.nasa.gov/c10/cgi-
bin/cognosisapi.dll?b_act...](https://wicn.nssc.nasa.gov/c10/cgi-
bin/cognosisapi.dll?b_action=powerPlayService&m_encoding=UTF-8&BZ=1AAABgNNr_f942m2PQWuDQBCF~8yOaS9hdlTUgwd1DRHamEahZ6NjCTFuUFOaf981KYTSzu7wHm__gV2ryJdFme~STIXjpAfO1BMQHSShS5TK2I89x~NXsYt24AfKd4Mg8mLHMM~WvJtGu2S9jcp1CLSqdT9xPxnX6q7hAdwYHOyrE4OtFttBt4eOgTC57HlcgKsMea7qY~XBv9F3PRxbPdQz~LM245YqkmWSbzZpUmZGotc0~Ae14rewRRQSEaVEIQQKFwWhmI8QUdcZOD2dO31lHgGDvDeBukxXI0DtPP0yP2m4MfaFq082kADygWwDsATaAwX3QD4C8afk7c7m~qBbP_obQJNj2A%3D%3D)

(Aaahhhhhh! Cognos! Aaahhhhhhh!)

I don't have a good source for the number of contractors, other than
wikipedia. (...which cites
[http://employeeorientation.nasa.gov/contractors/default.htm](http://employeeorientation.nasa.gov/contractors/default.htm).
Huh.)

~~~
tanzam75
> _(Aaahhhhhh! Cognos! Aaahhhhhhh!)_

Aha! Now we know where NASA's IT budget went -- to IBM.

IBM specializes in making sure that you spend your full IT budget each year,
so that upper management isn't tempted to cut it next year.

~~~
valarauca1
Yes but IBM also makes very damn reliable mainframes, also z-series can
emulate system360's, which NASA had quiet a few of (the last one wasn't
decommissioned until 2010). So likely to maintain payroll or tax data they
kept IBM.

------
austinz
Rather than make the argument that human spaceflight is worthless because
robots can do science better, I'd like to see someone make the (implied,
underlying) argument that space programs should be primarily about basic
scientific research, rather than all the other things assorted people seem to
want them to be about (jobs, national prestige, technological spin-offs,
exploiting space for economic or military purposes, off-world colonization for
human survival, etc).

------
washedup
There is one thing I know for certain: all of life, including humans, are
going to use up resources available to it until they are gone. We like to
think we will eventually reach a point of awareness about the importance of
sustainability and live a low-impact life; respecting each other, the
environment, and the entire biosphere.

We all accept the importance of this message; few of us are able or willing to
make the necessary changes. How many of us use a computer for 8+ hours a day?

NASA, and any space program or company trying to develop the necessary
technologies to reach orbit and live in space, are doing us a great favor.
There is going to be a point when we need resources outside of Earth. This
includes water, places to grow food, metals, etc. It also includes going into
orbit and conducting Earth Science research to help us use our current
resources more efficiently. An exploding human population and desire to give
everyone a fighting chance at a happy life require that we reach outside of
our atmosphere.

To say that NASA is no longer justified seems ignorant. That being said, as a
government agency, there is a lot of wasted money at NASA. Obviously this is
changing as they keep giving away private contracts (which is generally good).

------
lutusp
The real irony of the article isn't the truth of what it says, but what it
doesn't say -- no politician wants to vote for a change in NASA's status.
Killing NASA lurks just below killing Social Security in the politically
untouchable sweepstakes.

This may all seem trivial ten or twenty years from now, when private
enterprise has taken over 90% of what NASA does -- a process that's already
begun.

~~~
avmich
"Bread and circuses" calls are heard from millenia ago. Killing NASA is so
hard perhaps because it's a pretty good circus.

------
washedup
Whether you agree with this article or not, it makes no difference. NASA is an
extremely small portion of the US budget. If you want to cut waste, look at
defense spending. It's OK to spend a small fraction of available money on
research. NASA is changing. Most of it's work is now down by private
contractors.

There are ~60 launches scheduled for this year
([http://spaceflightnow.com/tracking/](http://spaceflightnow.com/tracking/)).
Most are launching communication satellites, some are ISS resupply missions,
and others are for research. China is developing a space station and private
space companies are doing well. Year over year the amount of launches has been
increasing and there is no reason to believe this trend won't continue, with
or without NASA. NASA has served a great purpose, and it may or may not
continue to do so. Calling it a tragedy seems loaded and misguided.

------
zwieback
I don't get the fascination with manned space flight. To me it's such an
obvious waste of money. I find the robots we send to space a million times
more fascinating.

~~~
pekk
Let me get this straight: sending a man to the moon was an obvious waste of
money?

~~~
leoedin
Without the context of cold war one-upmanship, almost certainly. What did
landing on the moon actually give us? A slightly better understanding of early
earth geology perhaps? It was mostly an excercise in building national pride
and sticking it to the Soviets. In that role, it was effective.

Spaceflight has contributed very, very little technology to earth. The reality
is that anything we fly into space is already generations behind the
equivalent earth technology.

Put it another way: What were the obvious benefits of the Apollo program?

~~~
MrMeker
Freeze drying is one of many it seems.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spin-
off_technologies](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spin-off_technologies)

What were the direct benefits of Amundsen's expedition to the south pole? Is
exploration a waist even if its results are less than stellar? I would say
that by its nature, exploration is a hard thing to waste money on. Necessity
is the mother of invention and nothing provides necessity like pushing the
envelope. For example, look at the picture that accompanies this article.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_algorithm](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_algorithm)

~~~
leoedin
Optimisation algorithms are used widely in all sorts of industries. That
antenna was used in 2006. If you read the "History" section of the GA article
you linked it talks about developments made since the fifties. Certainly it
has space applications, but the technology wasn't developed for space uses.
The photo was probably used because space is interesting to people and because
NASA photos are in the public domain.

You can't simply say that all exploration gives value for money. With finite
resources, we have to direct spending to where it will result in the most
benefit. Funding of human spaceflight means that there's less funding
available elsewhere. I'm not familiar with who funded Amundsen's expedition,
but I'd imagine that it cost a lot less than the trip to the moon did.

There has been innovative developments in the space industry. Some of those
spin-off technologies are definitely valid (although the question of whether
the return they provide given the absolutely huge R&D budget is worth it) but
others are less so. Freeze drying was apparently initially developed in 1938,
long before the space program. I find it hard to believe that, in the absence
of a space program, nobody would have invented the portable vacuum cleaner.

There are benefits from a space program. Government R&D, when spent well, has
a huge impact on technological progress (just look at the absolutely
incredible technological step change that wars bring). What I think needs to
end is the absolute idolisation of the space program. It's an investment, and
one which has often shown a poor return.

------
angersock
In Houston, there are a lot of folks that work over at JSC or are involved
with NASA stuff. There is the reminder of better days, and of great things
that could've been but never were.

It's really depressing to talk to experienced engineers (even if they're not
NASA proper, but lend/leased from Lockheed or someone else) who are like
"Yeah, we could build that, no question, but who will pay for it?"

It's even more depressing to talk to normal engineers at any meetup or
hackathon, because there's the same sort of awe and mystique about NASA and
what it could be doing, but also the tacit acknowledgement that the agency is
fucked in the head--you usually end up with a bunch of Boomers old enough to
remember when NASA actually did things that were cool.

The most frustrating thing is that the technology works and has been in
production for half a century now, but the agency is unable or unwilling to
fund manned missions to completion--and these questions of "Should we even put
people in space? Why not robots lol?" could be rendered moot if somebody just
cut a goddamn check. The people know this. The engineers know this. The
astronauts know this. And yet, no check.

Worse still, you can't keep sending robots into space because nobody cares.
Sure, a few people here or there who love ~=science=~ can appreciate the
pursuit of knowledge for its own means, but for everyone else there needs to
be a payoff. The only payoffs come, though, in either moving people off-planet
to start colones or moving material back on-planet (which is fairly silly in
its own way). If you don't do either of those things, then _no shit_ everyone
would rather your funding go to aging Boomers or poor urban youths or starving
hillbillies or students loans or fighting the war on drugs or any number of
more immediate short-term pains our democracy faces.

At least we've got a few folks funding this privately--as for NASA, though,
the best thing to do would be bow out of space all together and open-source
and make public domain all of their research and patents.

------
Shivetya
Go for the children. Go for the schools. Go for APPs and market NASA to kids
that way. Engage schools by soliciting where to point a camera, where to send
a rover. By allowing hundreds if not thousands of kids to vote/choose maybe
they can interest them enough to get adults to wonder why Congress does not
act.

in other words, they need a strong marketing division that can take the droll
numbers of science and present it to schools and online that anyone can
understand.

The get attached to some cereal boxes, cookies, and lunch boxes.

~~~
BrandonMarc
NASA has always gone for the children. There's massive cooperation between
NASA and the public schools, all over the country. NASA has, also, always been
trying to market themselves. Visit any tourist trap and it's all about spin-
offs, and dreams, and here's why we're doing this ... over and over and over,
the same spiel.

Years ago I wondered why they were constantly trying to remind and justify the
whys of their existence; now it's pretty clear.

When I was ~ 11 years old, my 5th grade classroom in rural Texas received some
tomato seeds which had been exposed to space, and -- for science! -- I and
other classmates grew some in our backyards and we reported back about how
these plants grew vs normal ones. Many other classes did the same thing at the
time.

Oh, by the way ... that was 24 years ago.

------
gregors
Just look here
[https://www3.orau.gov/NPDoc/Catalog](https://www3.orau.gov/NPDoc/Catalog)

NASA does quite a bit of Earth Science and Aeronautics

------
bubbleRefuge
Cost should never be an issue since NASA is an arm of the federal government.
Have the Federal Reserve fund NASA directly. Double the budget. Hire STEM
majors. Pay them well. NASA's achievements should only be limited by technical
capabilities. Leave finance out of it.

------
jjtheblunt
What is Slate.com for?

------
njharman
Science.

