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."

Comments

Too cool for NASA

[OzPeter]

The public has no idea about the level of US spending. They need to know things like Air Conditioning The Military Costs More Than NASA's Entire Budget. Until they understand that NASA does so much for so little they will never want to expand its budget.

Re:Too cool for NASA

[gman003]

No, we need human spaceflight now more than ever. We need a self-sustaining colony, off-planet, ASAP. I don't care if it's a lunar colony, Mars, an asteroid, or even a city-sized space station at a Lagrange point, as long as it can sustain itself indefinitely. There's relatively little scientific gain to be made from this, but that's not why we should do it.

Tell me, what is rule #1 of computing? "Always keep a backup". Well, right now we're running on a single, non-redundant biosphere, and we seem to be actively sabotaging it. But even outside human-caused damage, there are easily dozens of things that could wipe out our planet's ability to sustain human life. Asteroids. Supervolcanoes. Major climate shift of any sort - anthropogenic or natural, warming or cooling. Oh, and don't forget we have enough nukes to murder ourselves quite efficiently.

Are these slim chances? Yes, but not as slim as I'd like, and considering that a lack of redundancy means the complete annihilation of the human race, I think we can afford a few trillion dollars to get things running.

Re:Too cool for NASA

[gman003]

The universe doesn't need us to survive. But *we* need us to survive.

Sure, that's probably just evolution talking - species who don't consider their species important enough to protect probably don't last too long. But just because we live in a cold, uncaring universe that would just as soon kill us and forget we ever existed, doesn't mean we have to accept it. Just because it's humanity, alone, against a universe that is larger than we can even comprehend, let alone conquer, doesn't mean we need to just give up.

How much would such a project cost? In the trillions of dollars, easily.

We can afford that. The world has a collective GDP of 70 trillion. Both the US and the EU produce about 15 trillion individually. Hell, we spent nearly a trillion on Iraq alone, and that's not counting the long-term costs of that war (because you know nobody factored that in when they started that war). Even if it costs us a trillion dollars per year for a generation, we can totally afford that. And given the potential costs of failing to do so, I'm not sure we can afford not to.

One-page answer to question: Why spend on space?

[sighted]

In the hope that the principles in this study are correct, I made this little micro-site to quickly answer the question: "Why spend money on space when there are problems here at home?" http://www.ridingwithrobots.org/earth

Re:Defund NASA.

[bobbied]

There are some things that are best developed by government due to cost, risk and lack of a valid business case for profit that drives private enterprise. Of course, it should be handed over to private enterprise as soon as a business case is found.

How long will it be before there is a business reason to go to Mars? I'm thinking a LONG time.. So NASA is a reasonable expense, if you have the money.

Unmanned, yes, manned no

[coyote_oww]

The problem is NASA's obsession with manned spaceflight. The best work is done unmanned, and it's way less expensive. Toss the astronaut suits and use the whole budget for unmanned missions.

Manned spaceflight only makes sense with a huge breakthrough in propulsion. Otherwise, there is no where to go where a human being would be useful enough to make it worthwhile. As it stands, manned flight serves only to fulfill fanboy Star Trek fantasies.

Until then, I will be a techie steadfastly against more NASA spending. Its not just the general public you need to convince, its at least some of the STEM people too.

Re:Blah, blah, blah.

[timeOday]

You took the words out of my mouth, in particular let us not forget the debate over PBS in the most recent Presidential election. When quizzed on PBS funding:

A majority of poll respondents think the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a non-profit created by Congress that helps fund NPR and PBS as well as other public media, receives a share of 1 percent or more of the federal governmentâ(TM)s budget.

In the financial year for 2010, the CPB reported receiving $506 million in federal appropriations. According to the White Houseâ(TM)s Office of Management and Budget, the federal budget for 2010 was $3.456 trillion. Using those numbers, the CPB receives about .00014 percent of the federal budget. Of course, poll respondents are way off in other areas, assigning a median of 137 percent of the federal governmentâ(TM)s budget to various government programs, suggesting Americans think the government simply spends more than it actually does as a general rule.

Poll respondents always favor nonspecific measures like "cutting government spending." Then it reverses when you ask about specific programs, especially the ones that actually cost a lot, like DoD and Social Security.

Getting me started, man!

[Anonymous Coward]

The public has no idea about the level of US spending.

Here is a breakdown on where out money goes.Defense, SS, Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP - where 2/3rds goes to Medicare.

The perception is that our tax money is wasted on Space, Welfare Queen's Pink Cadillacs and other entitlement programs which I take to be code words for giving money to "lazy (Black) poor people" from folks who want to appear to be PC.

When the truth is we are wasting money on wars and transferring wealth to the old.

And I find it laughable and sad that the Teapartiers are mostly old white people and if they REALLY wanted what they think they wanted, they'd have to shoot themselves in the pocketbook and give up this notion the the US of A has to have a superior military and go off fighting "evil".

Cut military spending to post WWII levels. Stop this one man show when containing roque nations - we need more UN involvement; which is a whole other bugaboo with the Teaparty people and most conservatives.

Re:Getting me started, man!

[Jane Q. Public]

And I find it laughable and sad that the Teapartiers are mostly old white people and if they REALLY wanted what they think they wanted, they'd have to shoot themselves in the pocketbook and give up this notion the the US of A has to have a superior military and go off fighting "evil".

The people you are referring to aren't the real TeaPartiers. They are the Republicans who usurped the Tea Party banner.

Not the same thing. They may think of themselves as Tea Party but they bear little resemblance to the actual, original, Tea Party. Which did in fact want to stop the money wasting and "wealth redistribution".

Re:Getting me started, man!

[Teancum]

"And I find it laughable and sad that the Teapartiers are mostly old white people and if they REALLY wanted what they think they wanted"

The TeaPartiers know just that. Most aren't really against government spending, just spending on the Wrong Kind Of People. There's plenty of right wing conservatives (old white farmers) in Kansas and Texas getting agricultural subsidies.

It sounds like you have no clue what prompted the 21 Century Tea Parties in the first place. It is not spending on the "wrong kind of people", it is an attitude that the government is just too damn big for its own good and infringing upon our rights and ignoring the U.S. Constitution as if it didn't even exist in the first place. I suppose you happen to like having the NSA snoop into everything you've ever done, and want to see the TSA come in and search every car traveling on Interstate Highways since they obviously aren't molesting enough grandmothers and toddlers?

Yes, those involved with the Tea Party also know full well that they are shooting themselves in the foot in terms of cutting pork for their home states and wanting the government to be significantly scaled back on all levels, both federal, state, and locally. It tends to have a very strong Libertarian bent and thinking both Democrats and Republicans are screwing up, and that it will take a huge economic redistribution to "set things right again" that will most certainly hurt a number of people if all of those programs are cut. The hope is that if the government is cut down significantly, that those abuses of authority can be much more easily identified and removed as well. As it is, the government at all levels is so huge that many of the current abuses are really background noise.

I will agree with you that the "neo-cons" who have taken over the banner of the "Tea Party" and trashed any real progress that those involved actually tried to accomplish. These congressmen are largely stateists who really do want their their own special interests (aka campaign contributors) to get government money instead of the special interests of the other guys. The whole thing that is currently happening in DC is just churning my stomach and making me want to barf. Yes, I'm talking about you, Rand Paul and Ted Cruz. And they're the best of the lot. Don't get me started on guys like Orrin Hatch and John McCain who are complete sell-outs.

Re:Getting me started, man!

[Darinbob]

You don't even need to cut the military that much. Cutting back 1/3 would cover the US debt interest payments.

We actually had a balanced budget when Clinton was president (and Republicans controlled congress). That was thrown out the window in order to fund two wars for which the American populace have been told to not worry about or sacrifice for.

The military however is the largest jobs program we have. Since it's an all volunteer army it seems most recruits may be joining in order to get a job or to get the resulting benefits . If you join you get the job training, you get the job, you get benefits. If there just happens to be a war that occurs while you're enlisted then you can get veteran's benefits as well. It's a pretty sweet deal if your local economy is bad and you have no hope of qualifying for or paying for higher education.

Re:Blah, blah, blah.

[green is the enemy]

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.

Easy solution: measure budgets in Iraq War Days

[CTachyon]

A repost of a Google+ post I wrote a year and some change ago:

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From today forward, all federal government expenditures will be priced in "Iraq War Days" (IWD) or "Iraq War Years" (IWY). For quick reference:

• - MSL mission w/ Curiosity rover: 3.5 IWD
• - Cost of giving $10 to all 312M US citizens: 4.33 IWD
• - 2012 "General Science, Space and Technology" budget: 43.04 IWD
• - Cost of giving $100 to all 312M US citizens: 43.3 IWD
• - 2012 Welfare budget: 210.3 IWD (0.6 IWY)
  • ~ Computed as 26% of the 2012 "Income Security" budget
  • ~ Includes TANF (22%) welfare, SNAP (70%) and WIC (8%) food stamps
  • ~ All ratios from 3rd party analysis of 2010 data; see "How much do we REALLY spend on Welfare?"
• - 2012 "Medicare" budget: 672.9 IWD (1.8 IWY)
• - Cost of giving $2250 to all 312M US citizens: 975 IWD (2.7 IWY)
• - 2012 "National Defense" budget: 994.9 IWD (2.7 IWY)
• - 2012 "Social Security" budget: 1081 IWD (3.0 IWY)
• - 2012 Total budget: 4986 IWD (13 IWY)

Source: "United States Federal budget, 2012" and "Mars Science Laboratory" pages on Wikipedia for budgets, google.com/publicdata for US population, National Priorities Project via "Cost of War" Wikipedia page for IWD exchange rate.

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Something I didn't note in my original post that's probably worth mentioning in passing: Social Security is huge, "bigger than the National Defense budget" huge, but it's basically self-funding because it's a retirement investment paid for by payroll taxes (modulo population bumps, e.g. the post-WW2 "baby boom"). Person A pays in, person A cashes out, theoretical net cost to taxpayers $0.

Does this work in reverse?

[hibji]

If people knew the budget for the military, would they support it less?