The impact of NASA on the United States is something that is completely underestimated by the entirety of the population. Even people who consider themselves "space nerds" don't quite understand how important NASA, and space exploration as a whole, is.
First, I'm going to talk about historical impact. I'll come out and say it: NASA's winning of the Space Race is probably one of the single largest reasons that the West won the Cold War, up there with the arms races and China. There is nothing that can diminish the accomplishment that, eight years after President Kennedy called for it, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the Moon - before the Soviets. Soviet propaganda attempted to diminish this accomplishment, by pretending they never wanted to go at all. But none of that changed the fact that over 600 million people watched it live on TV, and nobody was unaware of the event, even if they weren't watching the live video feed. This was a massive propaganda accomplishment - the world saw Americans, live on TV, proving that they were better than the Soviets, that they could do more, even at a time of inglorious defeat in Vietnam.
The achievement of Apollo not only resonated around the world - they were astoundingly impactful in the United States itself. 1968, for the US, was a year of upheaval. RFK and MLK were assassinated, there was rioting in the streets of Chicago, and the US involvement in Vietnam had just begun to turn sour, with the Tet offensive. Yet, at the very end of the year, Apollo 8, the first ever mission to send humans beyond Earth orbit, and to the orbit of the Moon, was a reminder that America was still a great nation. A telegram to the commander of the mission, Frank Borman, eloquent in its simplicity, stated: "You saved 1968". The Apollo 11 mission, moreover, was watched by an astounding 93% of Americans. At a time when the nation was divided, the Moon un
The biggest argument for Military spend is jobs. NASA can provide those jobs just as well. The argument against NASA is “why are we spending money in space when we have problems here in earth.” Answer we are already throwing money down the military drain so let’s throw down the space drain instead and at least get some pretty pictures and cool stories.
Based on this illuminating series of Tweets by Casey Dreier:
https://twitter.com/CaseyDreier/status/867049880027451392
And Emily Lackdawalla brought up a point that got me thinking
"If I were a nation or a private company interested in earning $ in space I might build a telecom-only Mars sat and rent out its downlink..."
Clearly SpaceX is in a position to send such a mission in the next few years. And it looks to be the first opportunity a private entity could fill in this new space era. I think it's something they must be thinking about doing given these recent developments.
But how would they build it? would they commission it from an existing Satcom provider?
What's the timeline for getting something like this done?
Instead of spending on useless things such as war and partisan political programs, we should give practically the entire national budget to NASA and become a true interstellar species.
https://i.imgur.com/Oz4NJlF.png
New Nasa budget: $780 billion
New Pentagon budget: $26 billion
This is my first time posting to this sub so if it doesn't belong I apologize. Also if there are errors please let me know.
On July 16, 1969, a rocket launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida to send US astronauts to walk on the surface of the Moon and return to Earth safely. This year marks the 50th anniversary of when Neil Armstrong uttered the famous line “one small step for man. One giant leap for mankind.” For the first time in the history of the Earth, man lived in a world where we have explored another world. Fulfilling a pledge made by President John F. Kennedy of sending a man to the moon and safely returning him to the Earth, though he was assassinated before it happened, the achievement marked a high point and victory over the Soviet Union who had shocked the world with Sputnik in 1957. The newly formed National Aeronautics and Space Administration began developing the Saturn V rocket with the goal of going to the moon in a series of missions designated the Apollo Program. On Apollo 11, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins flew in the Columbia command module and Armstrong and Aldrin used the Eagle lander to reach the surface of the Moon while Collins stays in the lunar orbiter. The Apollo program went on to send six missions to the surface of the Moon with Apollo 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, and 17.
Each Apollo mission had astronauts collect samples of lunar material and return them to Earth for scientific study. A total of 842 lbs. of lunar materials were collected and returned to Earth and is very rare to come by. Lunar material can be found on Earth when it is ejected and arrive to Earth as a meteorite. Comparatively, Russia has only managed to acquire 10.6 ounces. For the purposes of this post, I will only be looking at the lunar material collected by the Apollo program and try to figure out the value of the lunar material collected and comparing that to the cost of acquiring it. I’m also including inflation. To be clear, the achievement and scientific knowledge gained from the Apollo program is invaluable and I do not believe the Moon landings were a hoax.
A note about inflation
The Apollo program spanned several years and ended towards the end of 1972 so costs for the Apollo program will be in 1973 dollars and I will calculate inflation adjusted amounts for today. In 1973, if an item cost $1 then it would cost $5.77 today. For inflation calculations I used Inflation Calculator (https://www.usinflationcalculator.c
... keep reading on reddit ➡Carl Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot speech is played on national television and suddenly America has a change in heart and gives NASA the $738,000,000,000 defense budget.
What could be we realistically accomplish? What would you like to happen?
In 2017 it was estimated that the world spent over 1.7 trillion on defense. I wish the World would just come together as one already and start exploring the Cosmos.
This is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 86%. (I'm a bot)
> Congress thoroughly rejected every major cut proposed to NASA and other science agencies by the Trump Administration, often providing them with funding increases instead. This is arguably the best budget for national science investment in a decade.
> NASA has stated it wants to launch the Clipper in 2025 on a commercial rocket.
> The Planetary Society and its members worked hard for these goals in addition to larger budgets for NASA and science in general.
> 2.2 billion is provided to the Planetary Science Division at NASA, an increase of $382 million from 2017.
> The fifth, the Radiation Budget Instrument, was cancelled by NASA earlier this year after cost growth of the program.
> Barely a month after NASA said it was no longer asking for a second launch tower for the Space Launch System, Congress goes ahead and funded one anyway, dumping $350 million to the project in a single fiscal year.
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