7 surprising things the US government spends more money on than space exploration

[Teh One Who Knocks]

by Joseph Stromberg - Vox


Read enough about space exploration and you detect a common theme: the universe contains all sorts of wonders, but we don't have enough money to properly explore them.

We've discovered liquid oceans on several different moons in our solar system, but cuts to NASA's planetary science budget (the money it can spend on exploring other planets and moons) mean we won't be sending probes to them for at least a decade. Congress has directed NASA to develop the biggest rocket ever, but it's unclear whether there will be money to actually use it once it's finished.

It doesn't have to be this way. The price tags for NASA and its various programs might sound big, but put into context they're fairly modest. Here, inspired by the excellent blog Things That Cost More Than Space, are some of the things we routinely spend much more public money on:

1) The F-35 fighter will cost more than sending humans to Mars

http://i.imgur.com/Y5MmqMz.png

Development of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter has spiraled out of control, escalating to a total cost of about $1.5 trillion over the course of 50 years, or $29 billion per year.

Generous estimates for a human Mars mission peg its total cost at around $100 billion over 20 years, or $5 billion per year. (Thanks to the Planetary Society's Casey Dreier for this comparison.)


2) The Postal Service costs more than exploring other planets

http://i.imgur.com/oKa2nqy.png

The US Postal Service lost money last year, costing the federal government $5.5 billion.

NASA's budget for planetary science — all its programs to explore the moons and planets of our solar system — was $1.35 billion.


3) Improper Medicare payments cost more than NASA's whole budget

http://i.imgur.com/nTHQ6Jq.png

In 2013, Medicare made $45.7 billion in what the Government Accountability Office calls "improper payments." These are a mix of payments sent to the wrong people, accidental overpayments, and, to a large extent, outright fraud.

NASA's entire 2013 budget was just $16.8 billion.


4) NFL stadiums cost taxpayers more than exploring Jupiter's moon

http://i.imgur.com/TUQlOPd.png

Since 2000, US taxpayers have spent an estimated $3.9 billion on football stadiums for profitable, privately held NFL teams.

Meanwhile, after years of being told that uncrewed missions to Jupiter's moon Europa (which is believed to have a water ocean underneath its icy surface) were too expensive, NASA has gotten approval for a streamlined, cheaper probe that will orbit Jupiter instead of Europa itself. That probe will cost taxpayers about $2 billion.


5) Destroyed weapons cost more than the Curiosity Mars rover

http://i.imgur.com/eIy8bto.png

As it wound down the war in Afghanistan, the US military destroyed or abandoned more than $7 billion worth of weapons and other military equipment.

NASA's Curiosity rover cost $2.5 billion to develop, launch, and send to Mars.


6) Making pennies and nickels costs more than operating a threatened Mars rover

http://i.imgur.com/A5TS3mQ.png

As Things That Cost More Than Space points out, because it costs more for the US Mint to make pennies and nickels than they're actually worth, the government lost $105 million on the coins last year.

Meanwhile, to cut costs, NASA has repeatedly considered shutting down operation of the Opportunity rover, which landed on Mars in 2004 and is still collecting data, surviving 40 times longer than its original projected lifespan. It costs $14 million a year to operate.


7) Payments to dead federal workers cost more than NASA's mission to Pluto

http://i.imgur.com/f4BBEur.png

In 2013, the government's Office of Personnel Management accidentally sent $84.7 million in payments to retired federal workers who'd already died — slightly less than in the previous few years.

By contrast, the New Horizons spacecraft, launched in 2006 and due to reach Pluto this summer, cost a total of $700 million, or $77.8 million per year.

[Hal-9000]

Interesting examples of how money is being wasted, but the analogy means what?

Because the Mars rover only costs 2 billion, that's somehow a good thing?


Without googling, someone tell me just what tangible benefits have come from the last 20 years of space exploration?

There's a very good line in a recent movie regarding leaving Earth. There's no where to go in our solar system and the closest planet is 1000 years away...


even travel within our solar system takes years and we'd have to take everything with us....air, food, shelter...and those things would be finite, if they lasted at all..

[Hal-9000]

*comparisons not analogies

[Teh One Who Knocks]

I know you are against space exploration, but are you positing that the wasted money was better spent where it was than being used to fund NASA and new space projects?

*not trying to put words in your mouth, honest question

[Hal-9000]

No, the waste of money is horrible on all of the examples.

I'm not positing anything, just waiting for a response to my question....

To me, the entire article is saying - We spent millions doing 'this' and they're trying to infer that space exploration is somehow above that particular type of waste. I say show me a benefit...

[Hal-9000]

And to answer the other question lurking behind your first one... :lol:, yes I do believe it's better to be at least attempting something that may have a positive outcome, rather than these blatantly obscene wastes of money :thumbsup:

[Teh One Who Knocks]

My questions do not lurk [-(

[Hal-9000]

It's films like Interstellar that really get me thinking...and my own beliefs on exponential population growth on this planet.

Everything is so delicate in terms of systems relying on other systems. One thing breaks down and we could be in a world of hurt, fast.

So what have we accomplished with space travel? A manned space station a few miles from Earth that needs to be tended with multiple trips back and forth?


I don't think that we will have the technology or even simple knowledge necessary to ever get any further than Mars and even then, we won't be able to create a self sufficient atmosphere or ecosystem at the new place...so it will be like one long camping trip that will eventually end in tragedy :)

[Teh One Who Knocks]

You mentioned it yourself why it's important in your very first sentence in your last post...exponential population growth is the singular most important reason we need to expand and get off this rock. If NASA had had even a fraction of the money that has been wasted on military endeavors and failed social programs that have ballooned astronomically, we would be further along now in space exploration than we are now. When humans put their minds to it, we can do some pretty amazing things. Hell, President Kennedy pledged that the United States would go to the moon in 1962 and less than 7 years later we were there, man standing on something other than earth for the first time ever. If we put our collective minds to it again, we could have a moon colony or even a colony on Mars. And from there, who knows where we could go...


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g25G1M4EXrQ

[Hal-9000]

Good points Lance, but the even when we get past the moving and building phases without killing all involved, there is no sustainability.

eg We build a base on the moon that can house 100000 people. Until we learn how to create air and food, we're just bugs in a cup that will die soon...

[Hal-9000]

*snaps fingers* I'VE GOT IT!

We take up lots of weak, infirm and elderly people. When the time comes, we 'rotate the stock' so to speak.


mmm bbq :yumyum:

[PorkChopSandwiches]

5 Things We Have Thanks to Space Exploration

In a time when economic austerity is en vogue, we find ourselves debating what is worth spending money on and what isn’t. Programs have to justify their existence and those programs that are seen as ancillary or superfluous get the ax. Unfortunately, often science that doesn’t have an immediate practical use is seen as fluff and a waste of time and money. In the United States, NASA can be an object of this debate. We should not be exploring the solar system, some say, when we have so many problems on the Earth. This, I believe, is an incredibly myopic point of view that ignores the myriad of technological advances that make our lives longer, safer, and more fun made possible by the space program.

Cell Phone Camera

You know how you basically can’t buy a cell phone anymore without a camera? Yeah, you can thank NASA for that. In the 1960s, engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) first developed the concept of the digital camera. In the 1990s, a team at the JPL worked to create cameras that are small enough to fit on spacecraft while maintaining scientific quality. One third of cell phone cameras contain the technology developed from this research.

Clean Energy Technology

Not every piece of technology is directly applicable to non-space faring activities. But, more often than not, technology developed for space flight is refined to create something useful for us land lubbers. For example, the company that developed the Space Shuttle Main Engine is using the expertise gained to create clean energy technology that would decrease carbon emissions by 10 percent, the equivalent of taking 50,000 cars off the road.

Scratch-Resistant Lenses

In an attempt to find diamond-hard coatings for aerospace systems, the Lewis Research Center contributed to making sunglass lenses more resistant to scratches and spotting. A technique for creating diamond-hard coatings was developed and patented, and in the late 1980s Air Products and Chemicals, Inc. got a license to use the patent. The technique was further developed and later used to make lenses that are scratch-resistant and shed water more easily.

Water Filtration and Purification

Lest you think NASA tech is just used for superficial creature comforts, think again. NASA has contributed quite a lot to the development of water purification technology over the years. Just by necessity, NASA developed ways to filter water for manned space missions. But that’s not all. Water purification technology also helped treat contaminated water after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill off the Gulf of Mexico. Furthermore, technology developed to purify water on Apollo spacecraft is now used to purify dolphin tanks and is an alternative to chemical disinfectants.

CAT Scans

A space program needs a pretty good digital image analysis to locate and measure objects. Digital imaging is the computer processed numerical representation of physical images. The JPL played a lead role in developing this technology. This has proven incredibly useful in a variety of medical technologies, like CAT scanners, radiography and microscopy.

These are just a very few of the derivative technologies that we have thanks to investment in space exploration. You can find many more on the NASA website. But, at the risk of sounding like a new age hippie, these ignore perhaps the most important impact a robust space program can have: inspiration.

Space is undeniably huge and strange and beautiful. It’s a mistake to think of the study of space as esoteric. Billions and billions of years ago, supernovae exploded and littered the universe with the elements necessary to create the Earth and everything on it. We literally owe our existence to dying stars. It’s what Carl Sagan meant when he said that we are made of star stuff. The study of space is the study of us and our place in space and time. These are questions philosophers and theologians have been pondering for millennia, and these questions have answers. All we have to do is invest in finding the answers.

I know of no astronaut who returns from space after seeing the Earth with no artificial borders and advocates that we become more divided, more hostile, or more petty. There is something about knowing that we are on an insignificant pale blue dot in an insignificant galaxy that makes one realize how special life is. And we wouldn’t even have a clue if not for our ability to explore our corner of space.

[PorkChopSandwiches]

NASA is often criticized for wasting taxpayer dollars. The $2.5-billion rover that recently landed on Mars has brought this issue to center focus once again.

But the Space Program's research and advancements extend well beyond spaceflight into everyday life. Since the agency's creation in 1958, technologies originally developed for space missions have been adapted for commercial products and services on Earth.

To prove this point, every year since the mid-1970s, NASA has published a list of space technologies that have been integrated into everyday items. The tangible benefits span from life-saving medical devices to protective eyewear. To date, NASA has documented nearly 1,800 "spinoff" technologies. Here's a short list.

Artificial limbs
Baby formula
Cell-phone cameras
Computer mouse
Cordless tools
Ear thermometer
Firefighter gear
Freeze-dried food
Golf clubs
Long-distance communication
Invisible braces
MRI and CAT scans
Memory foam
Safer highways
Solar panels
Shoe insoles
Ski boots
Adjustable smoke detector
Water filters
UV-blocking sunglasses

[Hal-9000]

:nono:

You googled and from that list, only cell phone cameras qualify. The others were just extensions out of necessity that could have been created on Earth.


like when people say Velcro! or Anti-grav Food! or Tang! or Microwave ovens!


:lol: all things that were being developed down here...for use up there.


I need to see some ground breaking inventions or medicines that came solely from space travel :x

[Hal-9000]

and you've posted another one :lol:



:nono: not developed in space...they are self admitted 'spin offs'

[PorkChopSandwiches]

They were created on earth, but without the need for going to space, who knows if they would have been developed

[Hal-9000]

we should make a new thread to talk about this in depth...


my favorite part about considering a mass exodus from this planet is - Who gets to go? :)



#eugenics

[PorkChopSandwiches]

:hand: White people

[Teh One Who Knocks]

:hand: White people

:slap:

You send the darkies first, if they don't die, THEN you send the whites :thumbsup:

[PorkChopSandwiches]

:racist:

[Hal-9000]

:slap:

You send the darkies first, if they don't die, THEN you send the whites :thumbsup:

Hello Vietnam!!!



:lol:

[KevinD]

Without googleing, I can't think of anything in the last 20 years as per Hal's question. I remember something about the glue developed for the shuttle, but yep, that was longer than 20 years. I don't think you'd find anything from the last 20 years other than things still in r/d. I think this is a result of the political climate over the last few decades.
That said, my wife and I have had a discussion about space ad nauseum. Her point is that she doesn't understand that I would in fact leave everything behind, even my family, even knowing I'd never return.

[DemonGeminiX]

It's necessary to get off of this Earth, and it's going to become increasingly clearer how necessary it will be within the next 3 or 4 generations. Unless we're willing to cull off major amounts of the world population, we're going to be in a severely cramped world of hurt with severely limited and rationed resources.

What we've done so far is taken just baby steps. We're just getting started. The future benefits may not be seen for a long time, not in this generation, maybe not in the next. I'm ok with Hal, me, and all others today dying never seeing the results and believing it's a waste if it means the future generations will have something to build off of.

[deebakes]

:rip: earth

[Hugh_Janus]

Interesting examples of how money is being wasted, but the analogy means what?

Because the Mars rover only costs 2 billion, that's somehow a good thing?


Without googling, someone tell me just what tangible benefits have come from the last 20 years of space exploration?

There's a very good line in a recent movie regarding leaving Earth. There's no where to go in our solar system and the closest planet is 1000 years away...


even travel within our solar system takes years and we'd have to take everything with us....air, food, shelter...and those things would be finite, if they lasted at all..

if the human race was made up entirely of people like you, then we'd all still be living in huts in africa

early human 1: "I wonder what's over that there hill"

early human called hal: "dave the cave went over there 5 years ago and didn't find anything that I think would benefit us"

eh1: "what if I go over there?"

ehch: "nah.... just more dust and shit"

eh1: "so we'll just stay here..."

ehch: "yes"

tl;dr If we don't explore, we'll never know

[Hugh_Janus]

also, whyu the fuck is one of the richest sports on earth having their stadiums bult with government cash? :-s

[Teh One Who Knocks]

also, whyu the fuck is one of the richest sports on earth having their stadiums bult with government cash? :-s

Because the owners know they can get away with it. They bitch about their existing (older) stadium and say that if the city won't build them a new one, they'll move the team to a city that will build them one. Happens all the time. That's how the Broncos here in Denver got their stadium a few years back. I voted against it though, but it still passed :wha:

[Hal-9000]

if the human race was made up entirely of people like you, then we'd all still be living in huts in africa

early human 1: "I wonder what's over that there hill"

early human called hal: "dave the cave went over there 5 years ago and didn't find anything that I think would benefit us"

eh1: "what if I go over there?"

ehch: "nah.... just more dust and shit"

eh1: "so we'll just stay here..."

ehch: "yes"

tl;dr If we don't explore, we'll never know





You have no idea... :lol:

There's a time when optimism and realism cross paths in any endeavor. Do you know how far the nearest star system is that may be able to support life? And what the sum total results are of all space exploration to date? I've never been against exploration, in fact it's something I support very strongly.

If you actually read some of my comments on the subject, I feel that billions of dollars should be spent fighting disease and food problems here on Earth. If there was a tangible result of space exploration in the past 50 years, I would support that.

Since we can't even get a colony established on the moon, or travel fast enough to reach the edge of our own galaxy....logically what are you really moaning about? You can't change physics or the actual distances in space, so realistically what would throwing another 100 billion at the problem do?

I've been a proponent of life on other planets or planets that could support life since the AS days and I've had my share of arguments the subject. It's getting there and another word called sustainability that are the road blocks. It's simple logic and it can't be overcome by drawing two points on a piece of paper, then folding the paper over so the points are on top of each other......(winky know it all smiley)

[Hal-9000]

I guess another way to put it would be - in order to travel the vast distances necessary to survive, we would need to travel faster than light. Current physics says we can't do that.

Maybe another 500 billion and 500 years would allow us to invent something?

I predict that within 100 years...one century...by 2115... this planet will have suffered such a catastrophic failure, that only 1-5% of humans will survive.

[FBD]

It's necessary to get off of this Earth, and it's going to become increasingly clearer how necessary it will be within the next 3 or 4 generations. Unless we're willing to cull off major amounts of the world population, we're going to be in a severely cramped world of hurt with severely limited and rationed resources.

who's this 'we' you speak of....who is willing to cull off major parts of the world's population...

who will give the order to open the dams and let them go dry so that we can see the pictures on the news
who will give the order to murder 144, or 283, or 239, or 3000+, for that matter, its more important that some information remains unobserved by the general public
if its important enough, plebes are infinitely expendable, like ants, step on a few hundred of them and they will fill that space right back up.
WWII took care of almost 3% of the population for them.
who will give the order to set us up the bomb? the bomb is already set up in its myriad fashion


in short, the government spends all of this money on wasteful war machines and such, because very rich and influential people have profits to protect and collect.
look at the c!@'s heroin trade and how its absolutely exploded since we went in and took over afghanistan - the taliban nearly cleaned it all up and that made a dent in their operating budget.

[Hal-9000]

Daisy....daaaaaisy....:dance:

[PorkChopSandwiches]

who's this 'we' you speak of....who is willing to cull off major parts of the world's population...

who will give the order to open the dams and let them go dry so that we can see the pictures on the news
who will give the order to murder 144, or 283, or 239, or 3000+, for that matter, its more important that some information remains unobserved by the general public
if its important enough, plebes are infinitely expendable, like ants, step on a few hundred of them and they will fill that space right back up.
WWII took care of almost 3% of the population for them.
who will give the order to set us up the bomb? the bomb is already set up in its myriad fashion


in short, the government spends all of this money on wasteful war machines and such, because very rich and influential people have profits to protect and collect.
look at the c!@'s heroin trade and how its absolutely exploded since we went in and took over afghanistan - the taliban nearly cleaned it all up and that made a dent in their operating budget.

Someone set us up the bomb

[PorkChopSandwiches]

All Your Base Are Belong To Us: https://youtu.be/qItugh-fFgg

[FBD]

thankfully we're not quite at the "you have no chance to survive make your time" scene yet...

[Hal-9000]

there will be a culling FBD.....HIV and Ebola were just the initial control experiments...


watch for a new superflu and/or a species being removed from the food chain with catastrophic effects on third world countries...

[RBP]

Tang.

The end.

[Hal-9000]

Tang.

The end.


:nono:

post #14

[Hal-9000]

btw, Tang is vile nasty stuff and part of me still resents my parents for making me drink it :x

[RBP]

:nono:

post #14

Don't wag your condescending finger at me, mister. :x

I've read the forum rules. They contain no obligation to read a damn thing before I comment. :lol:

[Hal-9000]

condescending means 'to speak down to'

I always loved that jpg :lol:

[Hal-9000]

You should be proud of me RBP...I made this statement in another thread chatting about checkstops...


I used the word totalitarian in context and have been waiting three years to do that :mrgreen:




and I do get the underlying argument you're talking about, even Brother FBD....you give up rights and it can become an incremental loss into totalitarian hell...

[RBP]

You should be proud of me RBP...I made this statement in another thread chatting about checkstops...

I used the word totalitarian in context and have been waiting three years to do that :mrgreen:

:tup:

Lately I have been watching for opportunities to properly use "thrice" in a sentence. :lol:

[PorkChopSandwiches]

When you start with thrice I will be forced to block you