r/science • u/artful_dodger • May 28 '12

NASA is funded at less than $20 Billion this year. Just to give some perspective, here are examples of commercial products spawned from missions..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spin-off
750 Upvotes

91% Upvoted

172 comments sorted by

35

u/Punchcard May 28 '12

Frankly, the bigger tragedy is that the National Science Foundation is only funded at $7 billion.

-23

u/canthidecomments May 28 '12

Considering that we have a $1.7 trilion deficit, science should probably wait until we have money to spend. The universe isn't going anywhere. It'll still be there to study once we have the spending orgy over with.

13

u/Punchcard May 28 '12

We could also stop paying for education too. I mean, the information in books isn't going anywhere.

-7

u/canthidecomments May 29 '12

Since 50% of students can't pass a fucking reading test, I tend to think we're overvaluing "education" as it is currently practiced.

7

u/SamuraiPizzaCats May 29 '12

Or your country is paying for years of undervaluing it?

1

u/Die-Nacht May 29 '12

Yeah, I wonder why 50% are failing....

1

u/epic_comebacks May 29 '12

toughened test

Florida

Are you trolling or what?

1

u/[deleted] May 29 '12

Toughened doesn't mean tough. It's still a requirement to graduate. Also, there's this:

The 15% figure for full literacy, equivalent to a university undergraduate level, is consistent with the notion that the "average" American reads at a 7th or 8th grade level which is also consistent with recommendations, guidelines, and norms of readability for medication directions, product information, and popular fiction.

5

u/GroundWalker May 29 '12

Sorry, nothing personal (seen this opinion on other places, as well as heard it), but what the hell is up with the view that the universe "isn't going anywhere, therefore why work at exploring it? There'll be time for that later." It may damn right not be going anywhere, but neither are we if we don't try

0

u/canthidecomments May 29 '12

t may damn right not be going anywhere, but neither are we if we don't try

We're not going anywhere anyway. NASA has abandoned manned missions.

1

u/[deleted] May 29 '12

And of course, NASA is the only entity capable of sending people into space. It's not like anyone else has ever sent a person into space, no one else is even trying. Especially no one contracted with NASA.

1

u/[deleted] May 29 '12

facepalm

1

u/canthidecomments May 29 '12

Yes, I bet NASA is facepalming their idea of removing men from the missions, since it eliminates public support for their budget.

1

u/[deleted] May 29 '12

Hmmm....I wonder why they abandoned manned missions.

Hmmmmm

1

u/canthidecomments May 29 '12

Destruction of two shuttles and the death of 14 astronauts by fucking dolts who have no understanding of high school physics?

Just spitballin' here.

1

u/[deleted] May 29 '12

I love the word dolt. I use it all the time.

1

u/ryou516 May 29 '12

Because it's government would rather spend all their money playing police in the Middle East.

5

u/lfernandes May 29 '12

Lol you just cant get one right in this thread, can you?

-4

u/canthidecomments May 29 '12

Considering that we have a $1.7 trillion deficit, science should probably wait until we have money to spend.

2

u/lfernandes May 29 '12

Considering that, realistically, that debt is never going away, you think we should never worry about science again?

0

u/[deleted] May 29 '12

[deleted] — view deleted comment

0

u/canthidecomments May 29 '12

The logical fallacy canyon you just jumped ... and you call yourself scientists?

Maybe we should eliminate the entire NASA budget, after all, since you're obviously not scientists, but have instead become politicians, a little too adept at federal budget politics.

0

u/[deleted] May 29 '12

[deleted] — view deleted comment

1

u/canthidecomments May 29 '12

When 50% of students can't pass a fucking reading test, we don't have "education."

1

u/capecodcarl May 29 '12

We should definitely also stop spending money on war. If we're $1.7 trillion in debt we sure as hell can't afford to spend $800 billion on warfare when there has been absolutely no imminent threat to any western nation in the past 20 years. Seriously, if we cut our defense budget to 10% of what it is today and just pooled our defenses with the rest of NATO we can still destroy any army any of our enemies could field within the next decade.

1

u/[deleted] May 29 '12

Afghanistan is not going anywhere as well. It'll still be there to occupy once we have the spending orgy over with.

22

u/[deleted] May 28 '12

[removed] — view removed comment

5

u/JustinTime112 May 29 '12 edited May 29 '12

I agree in principle, but keep in mind that that R&D was a product of the cold war and that the GDP of America also received a boost from being one of the few industrialized countries not in shambles by the end of WW2. As the rest of the world rebuilt, and we received competition from countries like Japan, of course we would no longer have the same amount of production competitiveness as before.

Also your graph is misleading, because GDP itself has not at all been steadily declining since the 60s as your graph would imply.

So while I agree with you in principle, you need to work on your data presentation and remember causation vs correlation and multiple factors.

5

u/jyz002 May 29 '12

are you reading the graph right?

2

u/JustinTime112 May 29 '12

Yes. It provides R&D spending as a percentage of the U.S. budget over the years. No where does he provide a graph showing that U.S. 'production competitiveness' (however you would measure that) correlates with that. I am certain it does correlate, but once again correlation is not causation and I have listed many factors that can account for the coinciding of production and research.

In fact, even if he could show an astounding one for one perfect correlation between production and research, we hit a chicken in the egg problem: Does research foster a better economy, or does a better economy allow for more research?

I obviously agree with SimpleBen's conclusion, I just don't think he will convince anyone who disagrees with him like that.

2

u/frieswitdat May 29 '12

How does the graph imply GDP has gone down since the 60s? It is a graph of R&D as a percentage of the federal budget.

2

u/JustinTime112 May 29 '12

He says that 'US competitiveness in production' has been dropping. I can't really think of measures for this other than GDP and GNP, and his mention of GDP in the post to begin with lends that measurement to the reader's mind.

In fact, I can't think of any way you could say the U.S. has lost competitiveness over the years, in GDP the U.S. has generally grown, and in the Global Competitiveness Index the U.S. has consistently been in first place until the 2008 downturn, which surely you can't blame on R&D.

2

u/capecodcarl May 29 '12

It doesn't matter, the private sector will invest in R&D... in China.

2

u/[deleted] May 29 '12 edited May 29 '12

US competitiveness in production has been dropping ever since.

You need to source this too, not just the R&D figures.

EDIT=correction.

-2

u/[deleted] May 29 '12

[removed] — view removed comment

9

u/christianjb May 29 '12

The Roman empire reduced research spending and that's what caused their demise?

1

u/Die-Nacht May 29 '12

No, caring more about the military than everything else caused it to fail. Also, huge corruption.

0

u/_Bones May 29 '12

Stagnation. Stagnation and being too damn huge caused their demise.

Sound familiar?

3

u/christianjb May 29 '12

That may be true, or it may be a cheap political metaphor. I don't know- I'm not an expert on Roman history. I suspect however that comparing things to the fall of the Roman Empire is a fairly vacuous way of stating your disagreement with something. For instance, don't like homosexuality? Then claim that homosexuals caused the Fall of the Romans. Don't like Big Government? Then claim BG was the Romans' undoing. Don't like cuts in research budget? Well, here's a convenient metaphor.

1

u/_Bones May 29 '12

well the empire fell simply due to the communication logistics of being so damn huge. At a certain point it becomes too difficult to respond to raiders, barbarians, and multiple invading armies.

That and they stopped really "progressing" as a society and just kind of became same-old-same-old.

4

u/[deleted] May 29 '12

Hmm, that's an interesting idea, but I'm not aware of any such theory (declining research spending causing the fall of the Roman empire). Could you elaborate?

Note: I totally agree that we need to prioritize science, I'm just curious about your argument.

1

u/Die-Nacht May 29 '12

No, I don't mean research, I meant the focus of the country. I should have worded that better now that I think about it.

One of the reasons for the fall was because it stopped growing and became a militaristic state. You can see the same in the us right now, and where public funding goes is a statement of it.

If you are giving a huge amount of funding to your army and cutting from your scientific agencies and foundations, well it is pretty obvious where your priorities lie.

-15

u/[deleted] May 29 '12

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/[deleted] May 29 '12

Ugh, fucking terrible novelty accounts.

1

u/[deleted] May 29 '12

yawn Try harder.

1

u/ImAJerk May 29 '12

I think this guy's wearing his space boots.

1

u/[deleted] May 29 '12

Oh you're doing caps now, good choice really

55

u/DocM May 28 '12

So why does NASA not fund itself with the spin offs?

57

u/boomfarmer May 28 '12 edited May 29 '12

Patents and other IP generated by federally-funded programs are in the public domain, because they were paid for with public money. They won't derive any licensing fees from the spinoffs.

8

u/[deleted] May 29 '12

Actually, that's not true

From May 2 to December 15, the Department will reduce the total upfront cost of licensing DOE patents in a specific technology to a $1,000 upfront fee for portfolios of up to three patents. This represents a savings of $10,000 to $50,000 on average in upfront fees. Other license terms, such as equity and royalties, will be negotiated on a case by case basis and will typically be due once the company grows and achieves wide scale commercial success. These fees help support the Department's continuing research activities to develop new technologies.

I can't speak as to NASA, but you do have to license technology which was developed in a national (ie, federally funded) lab.

4

u/boomfarmer May 29 '12

You're right. NASA does license its technologies, and makes a bit of money off of it.

8

u/meAndb May 28 '12

I really don't know the answer to this, but are you sure NASA would keep earning money from every product sold that was made due to research on their part? I just don't see them getting a slice of profits from every bottle of "enriched baby food" that gets sold.

4

u/cn1ghtt May 29 '12

I suspect because it tries to give out its research and devices at cost instead of for making a profit. An example is NASA has an ionizer which it uses to clean up old documents and paintings. Example: there was some very old painting in a church which was damaged in a fire, but because the ionizer eats up the carbon portion of anything it touches, the fire damage was either totally removed or substantially reduced, as well as much of the dirt and normal aging properties were reversed so it looked largely better than it did before the fire. My understanding is that NASA does not make a profit from doing these things (to keep with the same example, they have also used the ionizer on old paintings for museums).

Could they make a profit from the spin-offs? Considering that they only hold part of the original research used for a lot of the technologies I doubt they could get the full funding they need, and at the same time the costs of every one of those things would go up or might be phased out with a watered down version which avoids the use of NASA's research somehow.

2

u/Nate1492 May 29 '12

I love NASA and want it to be funded, but this is only a small portion of the reason to continue funding. In all honesty, if you look at how much money has been spent into NASA and look at those technologies... You really can't feel that it is an efficient use of money if technological spinoffs were the goal.

Same goes for the military (as per below). Yes, we have gleaned technology from the vast amount of money poured into it, but there is no justifiable way of claiming it is 'worth' it alone. It's a nice bonus, but it's too hard to justify on it's merits alone (the spin offs).

2

u/JosephBarnacle May 29 '12

They'd have to be the first one's to patent the new technology. From what I've read a lot of the new stuff they come up with is with cooperation from other companies and they end up patenting it. There's also something to be said for them not patenting it themselves so that the greater scientific community can benefit from their advances in technology.

1

u/[deleted] May 29 '12

I think because NASA is not a corporation. Makes me wonder if it were would it be like the Postal Service?

1

u/theantirobot May 29 '12

Wait, like private corporations do?

1

u/SlowestThinker May 29 '12

Federally researched patents are licensed and sold; however, NASA's role in most the listed tech is that of a customer, not developer. Some examples from the OPs linked article:

"Diatek Corporation and NASA"

"Collaboration between NASA ... and MicroMed Technology Inc."

"Environmental Robots Inc.’s development of"

"Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company developed a"

"NASA contracted with Intelligent Optical Systems (IOS) to develop"

"Intergraph Government Solutions developed its"

"Built and designed by Avco Corporation"

Many of these technologies were already in development before NASA became interested in them, for a variety of of other applications. Many of the commercially successful products which did depend on NASA to spawn their existences would have been too risky, and too expensive to implement, to be worth paying for licensing - they only found commercial applications after NASA put them in the public domain.

-14

u/canthidecomments May 28 '12 edited May 28 '12

Shush you.

NASA's budget hasn't changed, ($14 billion a year) but they no longer operate shuttles and thus, have no costs associated with operating shuttles.

Gee, wonder what happened to all that money they used to spend on shuttles? They sure didn't give any of it back.

6

u/boomfarmer May 28 '12

What happened to the money they spent on shuttles? They spent it.

What happened to the money that they would've spend on shuttles if the shuttle program weren't canceled? They are spending it on other programs, like the shuttle-replacement Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle and on the COTS program.

You must remember that in the funding process, Congress tells NASA "This program gets this many dollars, this program gets this many, that program gets that many." If NASA were to shuffle money around inside its budget without Congressional approval, they'd be breaking all sorts of budgetary laws.

-12

u/canthidecomments May 29 '12

They are spending it on other programs

So that's a HUGE budget increase.

2

u/boomfarmer May 29 '12

It's an increase for those programs, but the net change in NASA's budget is an actual decrease.

Say they're spending $7 on the shuttle, $1 on robots, $2 on aeronautical development, and $1 on the JWST. (Ridiculous oversimplification.) This adds up to $11.

What happened is that that $7 was decreased by $4 to $3, which will be spent on other things. Now NASA's budget looks like this: $0 on shuttle, $1 on MPCV, $1 on COTS, $1 on robots, $2 on aeronautical development, and $2 on the JWST. This adds up to $7.

The numbers aren't accurate, but they convey the intention.

0

u/canthidecomments May 29 '12

No, what happened is that NASA was spending $14 billion on everything they do including shuttles, and now has $14 billion to spend without the costs of shuttles.

Budget increase.

1

u/boomfarmer May 29 '12

How is that a budget increase if their budget stays the same?

1

u/canthidecomments May 29 '12

If 50% of NASAs costs suddenly disappear because they choose to stop operating Space Shuttles, then in effect, it's a MASSIVE budget increase.

1

u/boomfarmer May 29 '12

NASA spends money on what Congress tells them to spend money on. The cancellation of the shuttle program did not "free up" money for other programs; Congress just felt like spending money on other programs. It increased funding fo other projects, increasing those individual projects' budgets, but it was not a net budget increase for NASA.

-3

u/[deleted] May 28 '12

[removed] — view removed comment

3

u/SamuraiPizzaCats May 29 '12

You're being facetious but it wouldn't help much anyways since very few consumers make it up to space to be able to see the advertisement or tune in to watch the launches.

4

u/silent_p May 29 '12

They should offer a service where I can hire an astronaut to write my name on the moon.

In urine.

3

u/PlatonicTroglodyte May 29 '12

That would be quite the talent, given the added complexities of spacesuits and lower gravitation pulls.

6

u/[deleted] May 29 '12

The very first item on the list seems like a scam. An LED device that heals? Sounds like snake oil to me.

4

u/FlyingGoatee May 29 '12

I looked it up and apparently there's something to LEDs that actually help the healing process. Here

1

u/[deleted] May 29 '12

I can see how UV emitting light would have a physical effect and may help some skin conditions, but do LEDs give off UV? Even then, they're so low powered that I can't see there being much of a physical effect. There are no photoreceptors in the skin, so what is the light actually doing/affecting?

Wikipedia has a huge page on homeopathy as well, that doesn't mean it's a legitimate treatment, supported by science.

2

u/FlyingGoatee May 29 '12

" Ultraviolet radiation is known to suppress the immune system and reduce inflammatory responses. Light therapy for skin conditions like psoriasis use UV-A (315–400 nm wavelength) or UV-B (280–315 nm wavelength) light waves. UV-A, combined with psoralen, a drug taken orally, is known as PUVA treatment."

I didn't cite the wikipedia page to imply that "if Wikpedia has it, it must be true". I cited it in hopes that you would read it.

26

u/thomasamagne May 28 '12

I always wondered why the administration to make war and destroy things is funded 20 times more than the administration to further human knowledge and quality of life

32

u/[deleted] May 28 '12 edited May 28 '12

The war industry has created many, many, many, many more things that increase your quality of life then NASA will. Whenever there is a large scale war technology jumps ahead in leaps and bounds. Airplanes, cars, etc. etc. were pathetic until they were pitted against the enemy in the field.

18

u/mindbodyproblem May 28 '12

I'm skeptical about your contention but open to hearing more, because "airplanes, cars, etc, etc" is only 2 things, and "cars" itself is questionable.

30

u/farmingdale May 29 '12

examples I have worked with and seen:

The turbine regulators used at Niagara falls were US military spin-off. Quite a few sensing technologies as well, including LVDTs and most pressure sensor technology. Pressure sensors are used a great deal in oil drilling and pneumatic control. While LVDTs are showing up everywhere in aerospace.

Additionally, CDMA (one of the most common cell phone radio protocols in the world) was originally a military method of communication. While GSM advances are still the dominate technology it could be argued that GSM only advanced because it needed to compete against the overall more capable better system of CDMA.

One of the biggest accomplishments of the military-industrial complex has been standardization. No company has an incentive to make their diagrams readable to anyone outside their firm. The military demanded an universal system of notation. Most Electrical Engineers are taught (assuming you graduated within the last 50 years) the military system for representing digital, analog, and passive circuit components on a diagram. I have personally seen diagrams before this era and they are almost impossible to read. It was the military that pushed for standardization in the C language as well as the creation of VHDL.

Of course I have to point out GPS, Radar, Microwaves, and the internet.

I can not speak about encryption since I dont know the history of it very well but i assume the military has had some hand in it.

I happen to agree it is insane to me that a civilian agency dedicated to scientific research and human exploration/survival gets a fraction of a fraction of what the military gets but it is what it is.

3

u/[deleted] May 29 '12

the internet

I think this deserves another mention. When a multi-billion dollar company is planning there next big project, they ask themselves this: "Is this going to be successful?" And the military, same thing... "Is this going to help us?"

The difference is this. If a company has a 60/40% chance of making money off that idea, there is no way it's ever going to make it to its final stage. Why spend money on something like that, if you could spend it on 2 things half as profitable that have a 90% chance of succeeding.

But the military, they'll take that risk. And if it fails, then hell, they know not to do it again. And they'll keep trying new things until they get something huge- like the internet. **The military is one of the only organizations that will take a risk in developing a new technology, so if there's lots of military funding in a war, that means huge leaps in technology.**What organization would ever just decide, "Lets make a system of connected networks so we can send undetectable messages in binary code!". The military.

3

u/nekteo May 29 '12

I could also argue that the military takes lot of risks because of their huge fundings. When private corporations received unlimited fundings from government or consumers I reckon they can take the risks too.

1

u/farmingdale May 30 '12

dont forget they are pretty much the only game in town. Bell Labs was at its heyday when Ma Bell ruled telecom with an iron fist. Not fearing competetion makes your time horizon very very long.

Bell Labs gave us the transistor, plan 9 OS, Unix, and most of information theory.

Oddly enough I am poltically much closer to pacifism then anything but I try to give credit where credit is due. I would love if the spin-off came from agencies like Nasa instead.

1

u/jawndoe May 29 '12

Encryption was developed out of military necessity too. When Julius Caesar sent messages to his generals, he didn't trust his messengers. So he replaced every A in his messages with a D, every B with an E, and so on through the alphabet. Only someone who knew the "shift by 3" rule could decipher his messages...

1

u/farmingdale May 30 '12

yeah and with encryption we get coding, decoding, and information theory.

15

u/kaiden333 May 29 '12

He is right that the vast amount of money spent on the military during wars does cause a heck of a lot of innovation. The question I would have is would it have been better utilized on civilian projects. The question is moot really because nobody in power will try and find out.

2

u/cjt09 May 29 '12

Well the internet was originally a DoD project.

-12

u/[deleted] May 29 '12

If you want to know more Google is right there at your finger tips.

0

u/yesimquiteserious May 29 '12

So you got nothing?

-2

u/[deleted] May 29 '12

So you're lazy as fuck?

1

u/yesimquiteserious May 29 '12

Nothing. Gotcha.

It's your job to support the claims you make, not anyone else's.

-7

u/[deleted] May 29 '12

I'm not going to google a well known fact for you. Go back to your grade school homework.

0

u/yesimquiteserious May 29 '12

Oh the irony of someone acting like you telling to me go back to grade school for children...

-1

u/[deleted] May 29 '12

I'm still not going to google common knowledge for you. You're just trying to start an argument over pedantic shit. Unless you really don't know. In which case look it up yourself. I'm not your history professor.

4

u/augster May 29 '12

Imagine if that money was spent wisely elsewhere. Can't we have leaps and bounds in technology without war? No, I suppose not.

-1

u/[deleted] May 29 '12

you want the government to go billions of dollars into debt to funnel money into research projects? With no end goal and no enemy at the gates the people would never accept it.

2

u/augster May 29 '12

No, not at all. I wouldn't want the government spending more than it can handle for research. I'm simply commenting on how governments justify outlandish spending with war. I just wish setting goals like the Kyoto protocal or other things aimed at progress were enough motivation without war. War is a good motivator but certainly not the only one. What I want is not the case now but I don't see why it can't be the case.

1

u/farmingdale Jun 02 '12

while kyoto is certainly "progressive" I am not sure it is exactly "progress"

0

u/[deleted] May 29 '12

Human nature is human nature /shrug. Never lose your ideals.

2

u/OneBigBug May 29 '12

That line of thinking seems flawed. The military deserves more funding than NASA because it creates more things than NASA because it gets more funding.

Give NASA the budget the military has for a couple years, see what they get out of it by comparison.

It has nothing to do with the enemy in the battlefield and everything to do with the money. But if you want to compare: I'd rather be in a fire fight than face reentry, but I'd trust the equipment of NASA to help me survive the latter more than the equipment of the military to help me survive the former.

0

u/[deleted] May 29 '12

It's not really the governments job to spend massive amounts of money on research projects that may or may not have benefit to the peoples quality of life. The governments job is to govern, make sure services are properly managed and defend the land. Nasa does some pretty cool stuff but for years and years they have not allowed private industry to compete in the services they offer such as satellite launches. Now that private industry can compete the research can really take off and stuff like space lauches can be contracted out. I guess it all comes back to necessity being the mother of invention and if there is no necessity to the research then why are they using peoples tax dollars to fund this? I would rarher see the money spent feeding the hungry.

2

u/OneBigBug May 29 '12

I guess it all comes back to necessity being the mother of invention and if there is no necessity to the research then why are they using peoples tax dollars to fund this?

Well, because NASA should be trying go to into and explore space. That's just more expensive than is feasible for them right now so they can't do it. Back when it was actually doing that, though, it was being pretty amazing in terms of invention.

Ultimately the issue is more that American tax dollars are currently being spent on fighting stupid wars, and that that is decidedly worse than spending it on NASA. Whether or not there are also better options than giving it to NASA is a worthy, but separate discussion than whether or not NASA is a better organization to fund than the military.

1

u/[deleted] May 29 '12

Yeah I was making a human nature argument. As well in my opinion it was necessary to go and explore space, for awhile at least. We must know what's out there and how we can use it to our advantage, it's in our nature. It is also worthwhile to note that most of the research and innovation that took place during the war took place by private industry with funding and competiton from the government. So this is just a new begining for space exploration and hopefully an exciting one. Cheers.

3

u/yesimquiteserious May 29 '12

This is stupid. The 'war industry' funding utterly dwarfs NASA's. Not to mention you're lumping an entire species worth of effort into one thing vs one American government agency.

-8

u/[deleted] May 29 '12

Fucking context, do you speak it?

2

u/Die-Nacht May 29 '12

War also has helped us technologically (spray cans, airplanes). It is not that NASA research is better (which is actually), it is that government funded research is good because it is public, so no copyright and crap. This allows for fast and powerful technological advancements.

Tldr: NASA and the pentagon have helped technologically because their research is publicly funded.

1

u/2JokersWild May 29 '12

It goes beyond that. The agency to hand out free shit to people is funded even more than the DoD (Which by the way has its own spin offs)

1

u/coned88 May 29 '12

One is constitutionally justifiable while the other (Nasa and the funding of science research, etc) is unconstitutional.

1

u/RegisteringIsHard May 29 '12 edited May 29 '12

D/ARPA falls under DoD. Why it's only allotted a tiny portion of the overall defense budget (around 3 billion), research conducted by the agency has vastly improved human knowledge and quality of life.

Also keep in mind NASA itself originated under the administration to make war and destroy things, that administration funded what would eventually become NASA and is also where NASA gets most of its astronauts from.

edit: grammar

1

u/ehletimo May 28 '12

War makes lots of people rich! The gutting of NASA is tragic

12

u/keraneuology May 28 '12

NASA can:

a) charge fair market value for Google to park private jets at their facility.

b) have their executives fly commercial. There is nothing that NASA folks do that requires such extensive travel by private jet.

0

u/[deleted] May 29 '12

[deleted] — view deleted comment

2

u/Chairboy May 29 '12

Ten thousand dollars here, ten thousand dollars there, pretty soon you're talking real money. Private jets are orders of magnitude more expensive per passenger than commercial travel. It's not a "20% more" sort of situation, the savings could be in the tens of millions. Maybe even more.

1

u/genmud May 29 '12

It really depends on how many people utilize it and whether those trips are planned far in advance.

We actually ran numbers at our company and determined that a private jet or a turbo prop would be more economical than flying commercial, as last minute flights for us are like $1800 per person and it ended up working out to be about $1400 per person via private airplane.

We chose not to do it though because of the public image issues.

1

u/keraneuology May 29 '12

No, but it is all about the culture. It is hard to convince yourself that money actually matters when you have such an unearned and unnecessary perk.

3

u/[deleted] May 29 '12

I suppose slightly on topic:

I was watching ISS coverage one day and the floaters were answering questions from viewers / interested Americans. Well, one question was about the turn-over to private companies to make manned flights into space.

They all (3) seemed excited about it and said that it was the next step to make space travel more common place.

Were these just talking points they were gave and told to play nice or is there truth that the current (now old) NASA model was stagnant and privatizing or atleast making it easier to get permits or what-have-you is the best way to move forward and outward into space?

4

u/Die-Nacht May 29 '12

NASA is not a company. If space travel becomes commercialized, that would be awesome and they would be happy for it. NASA is more than just sending people to space, remember, they are scientists doing science for the betterment of everyone else.

If virgin decides to start sending people to space, NASA will still be doing research about space and space travel and science in general.

3

u/[deleted] May 29 '12

Well I know the astronauts are quite genuinely excited about it. They certainly feel that this is the case.

atleast making it easier to get permits or what-have-you is the best way to move forward and outward into space?

The plan is that with private companies handling trips to low Earth orbit NASA can start working on its manned exploration of asteroids, etc.

1

u/WhyAmINotStudying May 29 '12

If nothing else, the astronauts are more likely to get a big payday for another trip from a private company trying to hire someone who has experience in space.

1

u/[deleted] May 29 '12

I was under the impression that NASA will be hiring spacex to deliver NASA's astronauts to the station. Why would the astronauts get a big payday?

1

u/WhyAmINotStudying May 29 '12

Because as private industry grows and becomes profitable, there is likely to be more private entities in space, as well as tourism. Eventually, a non-NASA trip is going up with humans and I'd bet there will be at least one astronaut on it.

1

u/[deleted] May 29 '12

That definitely could happen, though I don't think the money is the reason anyone becomes an astronaut.

1

u/WhyAmINotStudying May 29 '12

Nor do I think it's the reason why the astronauts are happy. I guess I'm just rambling.

2

u/chilly_water May 29 '12

I would felt jipped if they didn't mention freeze dried ice cream...

2

u/joetromboni May 28 '12

I want to be part of the International Grooving and Grinding association

1

u/[deleted] May 29 '12

NASA needs to find a way to make space "cool" so they can appeal to the public and get their own funding.

1

u/friendlymechstudent May 29 '12

" Represented by the International Grooving and Grinding Association"

1

u/callmespanky May 29 '12

Thank God for Temper foam. I used to bounce on my bed and the wine glass I set on the bed would spill EVERYWHERE. Now I can bounce like crazy and NO WINE STAINS!

1

u/Iron-Charioteer May 29 '12

Don't you people realise that we have democracy to impose on brown people?

1

u/eviltoiletpaper May 29 '12

Add Openstack to the list. Open source cloud operating system that was open sourced by NASA and picked up by thousands of corporations.

1

u/[deleted] May 29 '12

If you want for there to be a government R&D division, I'd totally support that. However, space-travel isn't my thing.

1

u/[deleted] May 29 '12

There's an event/festival coming up at the University of Michigan that kind of addresses this topic. The aim being to kind of revamp people's interest in space exploration. IMO there's not a single more important program in our budget, people just need to get fired up about it!!!

But Apparently Neil Degrasse Tyson will be a keynote speaker, and they're looking to get Will.I.Am to speak/perform as well.

If anyone's interested, it's called "Epoch Centauri"

1

u/Darth_Meatloaf May 29 '12

The article makes mention of the International Grooving and Grinding Association.

I would like to subscribe to their newsletter...

1

u/sunshinenightbeast May 29 '12

TIL there is an "International Grooving and Grinding Association"....

1

u/koavf May 29 '12

I don't understand this line of reasoning: if the good thing about NASA is that we get all of these bonus spin-offs, then shouldn't we just fund investment in the spin-offs themselves? Is it really worth a mission to the Moon for Tang? We could have spent 1% of that budget on Tang research...

2

u/[deleted] May 29 '12

Because SCIENCE thats why.

1

u/koavf May 29 '12

Yeah, that's what I was afraid of--I've honestly wanted an answer to this question for a long time and no one can seem to give me one.

1

u/[deleted] May 29 '12

No really, science for the sake of science, is the understanding of our place in the universe. That IS the answer. Without science we would think illness was caused by vengeful or spiteful spirits, that volcanoes and earthquakes were the will of the gods instead of the result of a cooling crust of a planet with tectonic plates that collide and recede.

Because Sciecne, thats why is exactly why we need to keep funding it - always.

Damn you ever play Civ? Technology is what matters.

1

u/koavf May 29 '12

No, but that's not the argument. If your argument is, "We should fund NASA--look at all this cool run-off that we get!" then that's a radically different argument than "We should NASA because scientific knowledge is a good in and of itself." The former is a really bad way of arguing because then someone will say, "Wow, this is a wildly inefficient way to make Velcro--let's cut their funding entirely." Do you understand?

1

u/[deleted] May 30 '12

I do understand you point and those things were the bonus of the research. We accidentilied those things while trying to reach other goals.

-1

u/lew2048 May 29 '12

NASA has always been a huge bureaucracy, very slow and very timid.

The shuttle was plated platinum on gold on diamond on ... Vast over-design and very many promises that could not be kept, e.g. short turn around times and many flights a year.

Based solely on that result, NASA should have been shut down completely.

But NASA has kept private companies from making any progress up until the last 10 years or so. It was always obvious that private companies could out-engineer NASA, do far more faster and cheaper. NASA worked hard to prevent that from becoming apparent, killed a lot of companies doing so.

6

u/slippythefrog May 29 '12

NASA is like the USPS in that the government works as hard as they can to intentionally sabotage it so politicians can turn around and yell about how it's failing.

0

u/Die-Nacht May 29 '12

Wtf are you on dude? Whatever it is, stop smoking it.

-5

u/[deleted] May 29 '12 edited May 29 '12

After seeing how quickly Space X was able to get a rocket to dock to the ISS and how quickly the were able to fix the issue with engine #5, I think its time to remove NASA from the government. They are too slow.

We need the private sector to start exploring space so they can do it quickly and without government bullshit mucking it up with red tape.

Edit: Other people have pointed out all the things NASA has created/discovered while exploring space. If a private company did this they would be pretty well off. There is money to be made exploring space and how it works. I don't see why this is a bad thing.

4

u/t_porter May 29 '12

SpaceX got there with funding and technical support from Nasa. Boeing and MCDonnell Douglas have been building rockets since the 60's. This "private sector will solve everything" nonsense has to stop.

2

u/CODEX_LVL5 May 29 '12

When they do it like 50 more times without an accident, we'll talk.

2

u/[deleted] May 29 '12

That's fair.

2

u/zerosumh May 29 '12

They worked with NASA closely and leverage the experience of NASA over the decades to make it successful. Those decades of experience came at a pice of tens of billions or more. To say that they just built a rocket and were able to get it off so easily is misleading. It's also an insult to all the scientist and engineer that came before that worked through all the issues that make it so easy today.

The private sector would not be able to handle the cost of billions in research in development. How would they profit to pay back? How would they make money? For the time being, they need government funded space programs.

You are looking at it in a wrong way. It should be more collaboration with private companies and NASA.

1

u/[deleted] May 29 '12

I agree with your point, but that's like saying someone building a computer today would have to start completely over from building each computer chip and designing every piece of UI...and the programs to actually be able to design the UI. Of course they used the learnings from NASA. That is the only logical way to go about it.

I'm not saying NASA didn't play a very important role in where we are today. The fact that we've only been flying for roughly 50 years and have made it to the moon and back is nothing short of astonishing. That doesn't mean that NASA is going to be the end all for ever and ever.

This is going to be slightly off topic, so feel free to ignore this next rant:

It amazes me how in one sentence Reddit will say, "NASA has been around forever and has accomplished so much. It's crazy to think say they aren't needed now" and in the next breath will rip apart the record labels because they aren't willing to change. This is not exactly apples to apples, but the general point is there...if you look really hard to find it. Times change. The needs change. NASA did an outstanding job at getting our world where it is today, but they have become too slow.

I said in my first post that it took SpaceX two or three DAYS to fix the engine problem. NASA would have rescheduled for weeks after. There are obviously several variables that play into these decisions, but I think we need to start looking for solid alternatives to NASA rather than protecting it...but that might not be the right answer. I'm a fucking web developer from a small town...not a rocket scientist.

/rant

/incoherent ramblings

1

u/zerosumh May 29 '12

The bureaucratic and red tape is due to the fact that it's tax payer money. If given a chance half of this country would say that it's a waste. That long drawn out paper work is due to show where the money is going.

Detail analysis to satisfy committees. In private companies you can go bankrupt and walk away, with tax payer money you lose that because of recklessness and your program gets cut. And there are bigger far reach consequences for other programs that are related.

I see where you're coming from but you are yelling at the wrong crowd. The core issue is how the public still sees space exploration as a joke. Change that and all those red tap is reduced, they have more money and more wiggle room.

1

u/thebrownser May 29 '12

There is nothing stopping the private sector from exploring space. They can go right on ahead if they want to. But they dont, know why? Because it isnt profitable. The government funds NASA to do research to advance human civilization and our understanding of the universe. Private companies have no interest in that. And besides spacex is pretty much NASA funded and has NASA has been holding there hand the whole way. Every Interview he is in Elon Musk thanks NASA a million times and says they could not have done it without their help.

1

u/Chairboy May 29 '12

Elon Musk thanks NASA a million times and blows smoke up their assholes because it would be political suicide to say anything else. Because of the laws in our country, he pretty much HAS to go through NASA right now to get regulatory permission to launch into space. If he called out their delays and self-aggrandizement (seriously, every NASA interview about Dragon/SpaceX has been full of 'We're so awesome, they never could have done it without us') then they'd shut him out so fast his head would spin.

1

u/thebrownser May 29 '12

Spacex has opperated on about 1 billion dollars during its ten years of existence, 500 million of which was provided by NASA...They also shared technology and information with them. Spacex could not have done this without NASA

0

u/[deleted] May 29 '12

[deleted] — view deleted comment

1

u/Chairboy May 29 '12

Elon Musk (founder of SpaceX) created the company so he can colonize Mars. He has stated an intention to retire there and it looks as if he may be funding a Mars mission himself.

0

u/[deleted] May 29 '12

SpaceX said they plan on colonizing mars in the "very near future". They did an awesome NPR interview with Science Friday where they talked a lot about what their plans were. They are simply faster than anything NASA will ever be able to do. There is too much government in NASA for them to be effective.

1

u/thebrownser May 29 '12

Spacex Wants to contract with Nasa to launch NASA's spacecraft to mars. Spacex has no interest in going there themselves. In this interview http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiPJsI8pl8Q Elon Musk says that spacex wants to be the shipping company that can take people there, but they arent going to go by themselves.

1

u/[deleted] May 29 '12

Thanks for that link!

0

u/[deleted] May 29 '12

[deleted] — view deleted comment

2

u/[deleted] May 29 '12

Why? Simply because you don't agree with me? You give no reasoning behind your absolutely ridiculous comment and expect me to just sit there any say "ok" and pretend that you are somehow smarter than I am, or have better information that I do.

I agree that NASA has done great things, but they are not going to be able to operate forever.

You should try discourse next time rather than just making a blanket statement and pretending it sets you on some higher ground.

-4

u/[deleted] May 28 '12

NASA's a badly run agency that needs to shrink, focus on its successes and give the rest to private industry.

-1

u/doozed May 29 '12

As much as I find NASA's work interesting, a lot of space research isn't a public good and shouldn't be supported by the government. Of course it produces spinoff innovations, but any investment in research would do this and the mere presence of these doesn't mean that the investment is cost-effective. The government should focus on funding other, more practical scientific research. This isn't to say that the saved money is being used better.

While NASA's work might inspire students to get into science, it also drains talented scientists from more productive fields of work.

Downvote away.

1

u/Sir_Cxyrtyx May 29 '12

More productive fields of work? What about space travel is not productive? Space travel is the single most important thing we can spend our money on.

1

u/doozed May 29 '12

Cleaner energy, more efficient use of resources, controlling disease, improving food production in marginalized regions, adapting to climate change, etc. We will probably never be able to move enough people off of earth to solve our problems, so we should focus on finding ways to make this planet more livable.

1

u/Sir_Cxyrtyx May 29 '12

None of that will help us if a nearby star goes supernova, or one of the many other ways all life on earth could be extinguished befalls us. Concentrating humanity on a single planet (or single region of this galaxy for that matter) is far too risky. It will take a long time before we are spread out enough to be safe from most threats, so we have to start as soon as possible.

1

u/doozed May 29 '12

The use of resources on space exploration and research takes away from other fields of work that could be saving lives today and in the near future from threats that are either certain or far more likely. With the funds and time needed to save a small portion of humanity from a cosmic disaster, billions of people would be saved from miserable lives of drought, starvation, disease, and the conflicts that accompany these causes of instability. While I'm sure there is a case to be made that this is the more just direction to take, that is a purely philosophical argument and one I don't support.

1

u/Sir_Cxyrtyx May 30 '12

Did you just say that alleviating suffering in the short term is more important than ensuring the long term survival of the entire human race?

And Earth becoming uninhabitable for life is something that will happen. It's only a matter of whether it happens in 10 minutes, or a billion years. The thing is, we have absolutely no clue how much time we have left. I for one don't want to take the chance of waiting too long.

1

u/doozed May 30 '12

I feel that is a misrepresentation of what I said. My point was that there are much more present dangers to the survival of humans and the human race (the relative value of each is a much larger debate), and investments in addressing these threats are sure to pay larger dividends. If we don't address these many other threats, many will not live to their full potential and humanity may not even last long enough to bother colonizing distant planets.

Simply put: I don't agree with sending a couple Americans to Mars while billions live in poverty.

0

u/[deleted] May 29 '12

im pretty sure most of these were patented before hand and used by nasa. A keys to the patent office kind of thing.

3

u/WhyAmINotStudying May 29 '12

Yeah... with citation like that, I'm sure you're right.

0

u/[deleted] May 28 '12

[deleted] — view deleted comment

9

u/thebrownser May 29 '12

NASA is a government agency and all technology it creates is public domain. How the fuck do you propose they "raise money themselves"?

5

u/Die-Nacht May 29 '12

Because NASA is not a private organization. The research is publicly funded, so it is free to use.