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Support For NASA Spending Depends On Perception of Size of Space Agency Budget

MarkWhittington writes "Alan Steinberg, a post doctorate fellow in political science at Sam Houston State University, conducted a study surrounding the vexing problem of how to motivate more people to support increased levels of funding for NASA. In an October 14, 2013 piece in The Space Review, Steinberg announced the results of a study conducted with a group of college students. Steinberg's approach was based on the findings of a study by Roger Launius conducted in the late 1990s that suggested that the American public believe that NASA spending takes up about 20 percent of the federal budget. It has in fact never exceeded four percent, which it enjoyed at the height of the Apollo program, and is currently about .5 percent. Steinberg was testing a notion advanced by Neil deGrasse Tyson that if people knew the true size of NASA's budget they would be more likely to support increasing it."

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  1. Re:Blah, blah, blah. by green+is+the+enemy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The US economy has never been stronger or more productive. The government debt issues are mostly due to the unwillingness to raise taxes. We have plenty of room for large, ambitious, high-risk, high-payoff projects. We just have to decide to do them! We gotta hurry up already. Life is getting boring! The best and brightest minds are working on web advertising and stock trading.