Lawmakers Voice Support For NASA Moon Program

Matt_dk writes "Members of a key Congressional committee on Tuesday voiced support for NASA's Constellation program, designed to get astronauts back to the moon. The comments came a week after an expert panel said NASA's plans were not possible, given its current budget. The occasion was an appearance by Norman Augustine, head of a committee formed to consider the future of human space exploration. The Augustine committee sent a summary report to the White House last week saying NASA needs at least an extra $3 billion a year to implement the Constellation moon program. The report also included several alternatives to that program. At a feisty session on Tuesday, Congress was having none of those alternatives, starting just minutes into the two-hour hearing."

Comments

What an awesome way to spend $3 billion a year.

[vistapwns]

For probably half of that, you could develope nanorobotics and AI and we could go to andromeda if we wanted to. But no let's blow a huge mountain of cash on quaint rockets (that blow up 1 in 50 times) to send a few guys to the moon and collect rocks or whatever. If people are going to be that stupid why don't you just put me in charge? I could do way better...

Re:Military budget is...

[Zephiris]

(All amounts in USD.)
World Expenditure for 2008: $1,470,000,000,000.
US Expenditure for 2010: $636,292,979,000.
Difference: $833,707,021,000. (Really, that's FIRST GRADE math.)
Iraq Expenditure for 2009: $32,400,000,000.
France Expenditure for 2008: $70,613,746,423.
People's Republic of China Expenditure for 2009: $70,308,600,000.
Russian Federation Expenditure for 2008: $39,600,000,000.

US Expenditure as percentage of GDP as of 2005: 4.06%.
Iraq Expenditure as percentage of GDP as of 2006: 8.6%.
France Expenditure as percentage of GDP as of 2005: 2.6%.
People's Republic of China Expenditure as percentage of GDP as of 2009: 1.7%.
Russian Federation Expenditure as percentage of GDP as of 2005: 3.9%.

IMF GDP estimates as of 2008 (in Millions of GDP):
United States: $14,264,600.
Iraq: $90,907.
France: $2,865,737.
People's Republic of China: $4,401,614.
Russian Federation: $1,676,586.

http://www.cdi.org/issues/usmi/fy01/topline.html
http://www.cdi.org/issues/budget/FY03topline-pr.cfm

United States FY2001 budget request: $305.4B.
United States FY2003 budget request (includes Department of Energy): $396.3B.

The US likely spent a similar percentage to other 'first world' countries in 2001 and 2003. Bloody war starts in Iraq, percentage increases. US has a very large GDP, has large military spending, but in-line with percentage except when having to deal with large-scale deployment of troops, even then, significantly less than other nations with serious external security concerns.

Iraq doesn't make nearly as much money, but spends very significant amounts on military.

France spends in-line with other 'first world' countries.

Russia spends directly in-line with US 'high' watermark.

Stockholm International Peace Research Institute figures for 2008, listed on the very same page on Wikipedia.
US world share of spending: 41.5%. (For slow people: it'd have to be greater than 50% to be 'more than the sum of all other countries combined'.

You should know better than spreading FUD on Slashdot, especially when your own link proves you were making it up. Also, that's a pretty epic fail at reading.

Also, technically, that'd be like earning with $1862 (US revenue for 2004 in billions) in your personal monthly budget, somehow spending $2338 (US expenditure for 2004 in billions), after you've already completely tapped out your savings and gone significantly into debt (accruing $7001 of outstanding debt as of 2004, yes, in billions; ~2002 was $13) of which between $305 and $636 is for the your personal alarm system and a family pet/guard dog (inclusive of food, housing, cleaning, grooming, etc, most people forget that), and you spend $18 or $21 on a weather-proofed telescope for your back porch. So...like many Americans' average spending (and I live in America, do not spend like this), the priorities are fairly strange and bass-ackwards, and going into debt. A President with an MBA probably should've done better with YOUR analogous projected household monthly budget so you don't have the bank repossessing your house.

My boyfriend loves it when people are as grossly incorrect as the parent was. He's going to be sorely disappointed that I beat him to the 'this is extremely basic math/logic' correction.

Too Long Didn't Read version: Parent is FUD, grossly overestimating US expenditure vs. world expenditure, not taking into account excessively basic math, completely ignoring charts on webpage he/she linked that state exactly what he/she said him/herself, would probably blatantly misreport your income and expenses on taxes and get you audited.