For what it's worth, many of the impacts don't seem to be well-reported in popular media. Consider this 2013 NASA report[0] on its socio-economic impacts: an IMPLAN input/output analysis shows NASA directly generates $2.60 of economic output per dollar spent, compared to the federal non-military average of $2.30 and military average of $2.00. This often-quoted 1975 paper[1] posits a 14:1 increase in GNP resulting from a sustained $1bn increase in NASA R&D spending over ten years.
The civilian tech benefits, even if you only look at the immediate spinoffs technologies in the short-term, are rather significant. There were over 2,200 tech transfer transactions in 2012 alone, beyond the ~50 or so they profile annually in Spinoff,[2] and ranging from small software usage agreements to patents used for massive changes in the market. There are a ton of articles and infographics out there that list just some of those spinoff technologies that people often directly experience in their daily lives. I don't think meager is an applicable descriptor, even if we haven't seen the sort NASA generate the kind of "wow!" technologies like flying cars, personal jetpacks, and space colonies that people in the 50s imagined would be commonplace by now.
What's really interesting, however, is that space spending is rarely defended—or even thought about much—in these terms. In that sense, NASA spending is often discussed in terms of national prestige or a very general sense of scientific advancement. The science benefit is absolutely, 100% true, and an excellent reason in its own right, but sadly not one that has a lot of political persuasiveness. Outside of regions that are directly involved in NASA manufacturing and operations (which lends itself to fierce congressional support by their elected legislators), there's a sense of "that money is spent 'out there' in space, not here at home." Of course, the national prestige aspect does give space funding a bit more protection from the sort of direct attacks we've seen directed at various basic research funding and grants. No legislator wants to be the one to kill something "as American as apple pie."
It's not at all clear that NASA has paid for itself in economic benefits to the civilian economy. Most analyses are sponsored by NASA. To the extent that it has had benefits, most of these could be obtained from the satellite programs, scientific programs like Hubble, and unmanned robotic mission. The manned spaceflight is a largely useless program that has huge operations costs beyond the R&D costs.
IIRC, at one time the early development of integrated circuits was boasted as a spinoff of space programs. However, it turned out to be a spinoff of classified missile programs by the Air Force and Navy.
I agree that from purely economical standpoint NASA research has paid for itself.
But I must note how none of the benefits came from any of the lofty predictions coming true: colonizing other worlds, etc.
If anything we found out that we cannot colonize anything, NASA research gave us cheap flying, globalization of commerce that we now use to negatively impact the Earth ... in the end, instead of giving us a new world, it is making us lose the one we have.
The civilian tech benefits, even if you only look at the immediate spinoffs technologies in the short-term, are rather significant. There were over 2,200 tech transfer transactions in 2012 alone, beyond the ~50 or so they profile annually in Spinoff,[2] and ranging from small software usage agreements to patents used for massive changes in the market. There are a ton of articles and infographics out there that list just some of those spinoff technologies that people often directly experience in their daily lives. I don't think meager is an applicable descriptor, even if we haven't seen the sort NASA generate the kind of "wow!" technologies like flying cars, personal jetpacks, and space colonies that people in the 50s imagined would be commonplace by now.
What's really interesting, however, is that space spending is rarely defended—or even thought about much—in these terms. In that sense, NASA spending is often discussed in terms of national prestige or a very general sense of scientific advancement. The science benefit is absolutely, 100% true, and an excellent reason in its own right, but sadly not one that has a lot of political persuasiveness. Outside of regions that are directly involved in NASA manufacturing and operations (which lends itself to fierce congressional support by their elected legislators), there's a sense of "that money is spent 'out there' in space, not here at home." Of course, the national prestige aspect does give space funding a bit more protection from the sort of direct attacks we've seen directed at various basic research funding and grants. No legislator wants to be the one to kill something "as American as apple pie."
0. https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/files/SEINSI.pdf
1. https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/197600...
2. https://spinoff.nasa.gov/