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.

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.