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Neil Armstrong, other astronauts call Obama's NASA plans 'devastating'

Some people would argue that providing healthcare to all is an 'investment' in the health and well-being of citizens, not a mere 'expenditure'.
 
donsutherland1 said:
IMO, Armstrong's concerns touch on a fundamental issue that extends beyond the space program, namely what should be the appropriate balance between fiscal expenditures that are largely expenses (no future benefit) vs. those that are largely investments (have long-term benefits)?

While it might be tempting for policy makers to embrace expenditures that have little future value (near-term bias is an attribute of human nature), especially as such programs typically have their own fairly sizable constituencies, sound policy should also take into consideration net long-term benefits. For example, what would be the implications for the U.S. if let's say another nation gains a qualitative edge in alternative energy? How about if another nation becomes the leader in space/space-related technologies? Either outcome would do more than impact U.S. living standards/growth vis-a-vis those other states. There would also be fiscal and national security implications.

In the context of the nation's fiscal challenges, investments on education, science, etc., are not the reason the nation is facing those challenges. Seeking better performance with respect to those investments is, of course, prudent. However, the core problem of structural deficits lies with the tax code/mandatory spending programs. Hence, if the nation is to address its structural fiscal deficits, it needs to focus on the source of the problem. Trimming investments that are not the source of the problem won't accomplish much. However, such moves could cede potentially sizable long-term benefits. Reduced competitiveness in tomorrow's growth industries could translate into reduced economic growth. In turn, that would mean fewer jobs created, lower incomes, less tax revenue, etc., than would otherwise be the case. In short, the nation could wind up saving very little in the short-term (and that misplaced focus could actually delay the necessary task of addressing the cause of the nation's fiscal imbalances) all the while sacrificing long-term benefits.

In fact, in its recent report on fiscal consolidation, the International Monetary Fund advised that nations reducing expenditures avoid disproportionately cutting investments that have long-term benefit. Instead, the IMF advised that countries focus on the causes of their primary structural deficits.
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let me summarize for you:
there is no justification for the expenditures required to pursue project constellation
 
justabubba said:
let me summarize for you:
there is no justification for the expenditures required to pursue project constellation
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Wasn't the program involved in developing new spacecraft, new booster rocket technologies, among other things?
 
reefedjib said:
All of you doubting the benefits of the space program have no idea the variety of advances and products produced by the space program, do you?
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The bulk of of our scientific advances from the space program has been and will continue to be from unmanned satellites and space probes. The only thing the Obama Administration did was recognize that in fiscal 2011.

The moon will still be there 5 years from now, or 500 million years from now. NASA could fold tomorrow and that would not change that. However, there are responsibilities of government that will be very adversely affected by being under funded and thus under resourced. That is where our priorities out to be in times like these.
 
SouthernDemocrat said:
The bulk of of our scientific advances from the space program has been and will continue to be from unmanned satellites and space probes. The only thing the Obama Administration did was recognize that in fiscal 2011.

The moon will still be there 5 years from now, or 500 million years from now. NASA could fold tomorrow and that would not change that. However, there are responsibilities of government that will be very adversely affected by being under funded and thus under resourced. That is where our priorities out to be in times like these.
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There would be a ton of advances in putting a manned base on the moon. It is not the kind of thing that you cut then restart because you already have the talent assembled and you would lose it.

Cut entitlements to pay for under funded responsibilities.
 
reefedjib said:
There would be a ton of advances in putting a manned base on the moon. It is not the kind of thing that you cut then restart because you already have the talent assembled and you would lose it.
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It was never adequately funded in the first place. The practical scientific advances that have came from studying and preserving our natural world here on earth dwarf those that have came as a result of man space flight. Yet Republicans have underfunded those areas for years now. The point is that if we are just going by bang for our in terms of which programs to fund, man space flight is way down on the list. It is more of a national pride thing than anything else.

Cut entitlements to pay for under funded responsibilities.
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Translation: Grandma you are going to have to do without your prescription drugs from now on, Neil Armstrong and his NASA buddies need that money for another penis extension.
 
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SouthernDemocrat said:
It was never adequately funded in the first place. The practical scientific advances that have came from studying and preserving our natural world here on earth dwarf those that have came as a result of man space flight. Yet Republicans have underfunded those areas for years now. The point is that if we are just going by bang for our in terms of which programs to fund, man space flight is way down on the list. It is more of a national pride thing than anything else.
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Example? Proof?


Translation: Grandma you are going to have to do without your prescription drugs from now on, Neil Armstrong and his NASA buddies need that money for another penis extension.
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She'll find another way to pay for them.
 
reefedjib said:
There would be a ton of advances in putting a manned base on the moon. It is not the kind of thing that you cut then restart because you already have the talent assembled and you would lose it.

Cut entitlements to pay for under funded responsibilities.
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some nebulous future benefit
if you want to justify many $billions in expenditures at this time when we are broke, you are going to have to do better than that


and i suspect that is similar to the point Obama made when telling NASA he was cancelling the program
 
reefedjib said:
Example? Proof?
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Antibiotics, most cancer drugs, oil, natural gas, coal, virtually all building materials, everything you eat, everything needed for life itself is brought to you by the organisms living on the surface of this planet and the resources that are either on its surface or no more than a few miles into its crust.....this versus velcro, tang, and teflon. ;)
 
justabubba said:
some nebulous future benefit
if you want to justify many $billions in expenditures at this time when we are broke, you are going to have to do better than that


and i suspect that is similar to the point Obama made when telling NASA he was cancelling the program
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We wouldn't be broke if we fixed entitlements! Dammit, you're hard of hearing.
 
Personally I think scientific achievement and exploration are things always worth funding. There is never going to be a point where we can say "Ok, we've solved ALL the problems on Earth, now we can move onto exploration and related scientific advancement."

Humans have a manifest destiny to explore and populate space, and America should be at the forefront of that endeavor.
 
SouthernDemocrat said:
Antibiotics, most cancer drugs, oil, natural gas, coal, virtually all building materials, everything you eat, everything needed for life itself is brought to you by the organisms living on the surface of this planet and the resources that are either on its surface or no more than a few miles into its crust.....this versus velcro, tang, and teflon. ;)
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Computers, electronics, material science, fuel technology....
 
SouthernDemocrat said:
For what, other than to say we did again?

Fiscal 2010 NASA had a 18.7 billion dollar budget.

The National Parks Service had a 2.7 billion dollar budget. The National Parks Service has been underfunded for years now. The budget for the entire Department of Interior, is 12 billion dollars, which manages 500 million acres of parks and wild lands, is still less than NASA, and it has been chronically underfunded for years now.

U.S. Department of the Interior - About the Department - Quick Facts

Should we do a better job preserving our national treasures for future generations, or build a base on the moon? If we are prioritizing here, what is more important?
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The moon because the technological leaps associated with such endeavors will increase our quality of life more.
 
Wiseone said:
Personally I think scientific achievement and exploration are things always worth funding. There is never going to be a point where we can say "Ok, we've solved ALL the problems on Earth, now we can move onto exploration and related scientific advancement."

Humans have a manifest destiny to explore and populate space, and America should be at the forefront of that endeavor.
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Social Democrats would rather cancel science and exploration programs and spend all our money on welfare and healthcare for everyone.
 
A good start would be kicking out all of the illegals....;)
The savings would fund NASA & then some.....;)
 
So that one can see the difference between an expense and investment, a hypothetical example follows for illustrative purposes.

Definitions:
1. Expense: Money is spent and all benefits are consumed immediately
2. Investment: Money is spent and the project yields long-term benefits
3. Revenue: Income stream associated with the long-term benefits
4. Expenditure: Outlays

Program 1: Expense
Assumptions:
- Spends $1,000 per year at the beginning of each year
- All spending is consumed and has no future benefit
- The timeframe in question is 5 years
- There is a 5% discount rate

Net Cashflow:
Year 0 -1,000
Year 1 -1,000
Year 2 -1,000
Year 3 -1,000
Year 4 -1,000
Year 5 -1,000

The net present value is -$5,329.48

Hence, cutting this program by 20% yields a saving of $1,065.90 (present value basis)

Program 2: Investment

Assumptions:
- Spending:
...Year 0: $4,000
...Year 1: $2,000

- The project generates the following revenue:
...Year 2: $500
...Year 3: $1,500
...Year 4: $2,500
...Year 5: $3,500
- The timeframe in question is 5 years
- There is a 5% discount rate

Net Cashflow:
Year 0 -4,000
Year 1 -2,000
Year 2 +500
Year 3 +1,500
Year 4 +2,500
Year 5 +3,500

The net present value is +$643.61

Hence, cutting this program by 20% yields a loss of $128.72 (present value basis), if the net benefits are reduced proportionately.

However, in real life, there is typically a critical threshold for investment. Investment below that threshold can lead to a loss of most or all of the future benefits. If all the benefits were foregone, the actual loss would be:

NPV of Project with No Spending Reductions: +643.61
NPV of Project with 20% Spending Reduction/Loss of All Revenue: -4,723.81
Economic loss: $5,367.42

Therefore, in this case, rather than trimming investment spending by 20%, one would minimize one's economic loss by killing the entire project. That way, the loss from killing the project would be $643.61.

Nonetheless, when comparing the two scenarios, it would make sense to reduce program 1 (only savings would result) rather than program 2 (one would gain savings but lose future benefits).

Of course, politics is not purely economic. Non-economic factors are involved. Hence, more than just an economic perspective needs to be considered. Nevertheless, policy makers should be informed about tradeoffs. There may be cases where the non-economic benefits justify cutting the investment. But, that is not always true, especially if the preserved program is a cause of structural fiscal deficits. Then, cutting the investment produces not only foregone benefits, but it delays necessary reforms to the spending program responsible for the structural deficits. Such delay has its own opportunity costs.
 
reefedjib said:
Computers, electronics, material science, fuel technology....
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1. The bulk of those would have came about regardless of whether we went to space or not (we had computers, electronics, material science, and fuel technologies prior to the space program).

2. The bulk of those advancements that have resulted from the space program did not necessarily result from manned space flight. We need those technologies for unmanned flight as well.

We can accomplish 99% of what we want to accomplish scientific wise with unmanned space flight as we can with manned spaceflight, but at a fraction of the cost.
 
reefedjib said:
Social Democrats would rather cancel science and exploration programs and spend all our money on welfare and healthcare for everyone.
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That is simply untrue. Basic scientific research has received a lot more funding over the years from Democratic Administrations than Republican ones. The right wing in America has been at war with science for decades now.
 
This is a link to a report of technological advances on board the ISS from 2000 to 2008, it does make a several references to now canceled programs but does provide a list of what those people have done in the last 8 years.

http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20090029998_2009030907.pdf

The majority of the experiments are not going to change anything for us on Earth, at least not alone, they may lead to further developments that will. You find from reading this that the entire purpose of the ISS was a research facility to development technology primarily for future space programs. How to grow food in space, how traditional building methods work in space (for the day we build space craft entirely in space), etc...

Its not a question of building some kind of space factory for the development of medicines or whatever that can be shipped back to Earth, or discovering technology which could only be discovered in zero gravity. For something to work in Earth gravity it must be composed of materials that exist and can be manufactured on Earth, in our gravity. Its just not economically viable to haul stuff into space, build something outta it, and then ship it back.
This is about future exploration, to move beyond the Moon to Mars and further its going to be more complicated than strapping three men to a rocket and blasting them off into space. If we rode to Mars on an old Lunar module, it would take months to reach while the men lived in a tiny box.
 
American said:
Link


Looks like the big gun has taken aim at Obama. Obama is a moron.
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So a bunch of people who's jobs could be negatively affected (well I suppose Armstrong is retired) by this are pissed off at Obama for doing it. Color me surprised. It's not like we even have the technology to land on the moon anymore anyway, and it's pointless.
 
Space is the future its the only place left to go, left to explore. There's no time to say "We've gone far enough." There's an entire universe out there, are we going to be content to occupy only a microscopic rock in all of this? And wait until the sun goes super nova, some asteroid takes us out, or we strip it off all natural resources? You've heard of 'peak oil' what about 'peak copper' 'peak iron?'

One might be tempted to say that "technology will save us" we will development new ways to build what we want with less resources through efficiency, recycling, new materials, etc. But this will eventually taper off, even will all the technology that is and could be, there's only so much that be done with X amount of material. Not to mention growing population, ever increasing energy demand, pollution, etc...

Now again, one might say "Well in the future, technology will have advanced so far that leaving the Earth will be a trivial matter, but today we have more immediate problems." Firstly, its a simple fact of life that to reach that point of space travel technology, it needs to be researched, it needs to start with something like Sputnik and then Moon missions to get to where you think it will just get to on its own. What if the airplane had never been invented? We'd still have the internet today, the two have nothing to do with each other. While all fields and branches of technology and science are related to each other at varying levels depending on what you compare, there are distinct branches and space travel is one of them. If we do not research space travel, we will not magically reach a point where one can travel into space as easily as buying a ticket for a bus.

And secondly, today always has problems. When tomorrow becomes today, it will have problems, when next year, next decade, next century, becomes today it will have problems. At point do the problems become small enough that we can start to research and explore space? I tell you that in the minds of many it will never, regardless of how good life is today, whether that today is today or 100 years from now, people will always define their problems in the gravest terms. One only has to look at these forums to see that. Do you think if we magically transported someone here from 100 years ago they would complain about the health care system today, or the political situation, or really anything? Of course not, they'd be living in a dream land. "I only have to work eight hours 5 days a week, and I make all this money!!!" But to the people in the future, regarding how much better we make life and the world, they will complain and gripe and talk about how things aren't good enough, things could be better, things should be better.

Well I say things are good enough now to justify exploration into space, we are living better than the vast majority of people on the planet. Things will never be ideal in our minds, its only human to always want more.
 
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Wiseone said:
Space is the future its the only place left to go, left to explore. There's no time to say "We've gone far enough." There's an entire universe out there, are we going to be content to occupy only a microscopic rock in all of this? And wait until the sun goes super nova, some asteroid takes us out, or we strip it off all natural resources? You've heard of 'peak oil' what about 'peak copper' 'peak iron?'

One might be tempted to say that "technology will save us" we will development new ways to build what we want with less resources through efficiency, recycling, new materials, etc. But this will eventually taper off, even will all the technology that is and could be, there's only so much that be done with X amount of material. Not to mention growing population, ever increasing energy demand, pollution, etc...

Now again, one might say "Well in the future, technology will have advanced so far that leaving the Earth will be a trivial matter, but today we have more immediate problems." Firstly, its a simple fact of life that to reach that point of space travel technology, it needs to be researched, it needs to start with something like Sputnik and then Moon missions to get to where you think it will just get to on its own. What if the airplane had never been invented? We'd still have the internet today, the two have nothing to do with each other. While all fields and branches of technology and science are related to each other at varying levels depending on what you compare, there are distinct branches and space travel is one of them. If we do not research space travel, we will not magically reach a point where one can travel into space as easily as buying a ticket for a bus.

And secondly, today always has problems. When tomorrow becomes today, it will have problems, when next year, next decade, next century, becomes today it will have problems. At point do the problems become small enough that we can start to research and explore space? I tell you that in the minds of many it will never, regardless of how good life is today, whether that today is today or 100 years from now, people will always define their problems in the gravest terms. One only has to look at these forums to see that. Do you think if we magically transported someone here from 100 years ago they would complain about the health care system today, or the political situation, or really anything? Of course not, they'd be living in a dream land. "I only have to work eight hours 5 days a week, and I make all this money!!!" But to the people in the future, regarding how much better we make life and the world, they will complain and gripe and talk about how things aren't good enough, things could be better, things should be better.

Well I say things are good enough now to justify exploration into space, we are living better than the vast majority of people on the planet. Things will never be ideal in our minds, its only human to always want more.
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The universe will still be there when our deficit is under control.
 
Ikari said:
So a bunch of people who's jobs could be negatively affected (well I suppose Armstrong is retired) by this are pissed off at Obama for doing it. Color me surprised. It's not like we even have the technology to land on the moon anymore anyway, and it's pointless.
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Wait...how did we lose technology?
 
Kelzie said:
The universe will still be there when our deficit is under control.
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And it'll still be there when we cure cancer, solve homelessness, build gas-free cars, etc etc etc. There's never going to be a time we when we have nothing left to do.
 
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