Feeding the hungry and other concerns
Feb. 3rd, 2003 04:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
khaosworksLet's have a few quick and dirty figures here. The budget for FY 2003 for NASA is US$14.5 billion. Of that two-thirds goes to the International Space Station and the Shuttle program (source: http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2003/bud27.html). That's 0.06% of the entire budget for the US for FY 2003 (which is US$2128 billion).
For the same year, Social Security gets $472b. Medicare gets $231b. Medicaid gets $159b. Defence gets $368b. NASA's budget growth has been steadily cut since 2001, from a growth of 5% between 2000 to 2001, 4% from 2001 to 2002 and 1% in 2002-2003. In comparison, in the last year, FEMA's budget has leapt from 26% growth to 114%, presumably due to homeland security concerns, and Health and Human Services' growth has been cut from 10% to 9%. Average growth from 1998-2003: HHS: 12%. NASA: 1% (source: http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2003/bud34.html).
I'm no statistician, but I think these figures mean something.
I'm not saying that the concerns we have on earth are of no significance, but ultimately, even if you scrap NASA, the savings of $15b will not necessarily go to feeding the hungry, poverty programs, health programs, etc. That allocation depends on the benevolence of the federal government, which isn't looking very benevolent nowadays. Most likely, the Pentagon will suck it up and mount their own space progam - only this time purely militaristic. The only reason, really, NASA even gets that much is mainly because of the Shuttle program which provides heavy lifter capability for the Defense Department - let's have no illusions about that, either. But the additional sugar that is diverted to other research programs provides increases in scientific knowledge and research which may benefit medical science in the form of synthetic drugs (let's talk about pharmaceutical corporations and their evils as a separate issue) and a deeper understanding of biological sciences, among others.
In a larger context, Earth's resources are limited. We are going to use things up. This is inevitable, no matter how carefully we harness our resources, no matter how much we put into it. Some say the ecosystem is already too far gone to salvage. Perhaps. That aside, whatever we do, we got five billion years left, tops, before Sol cosumes us in a fireball. To say that we have time to fix the world before we go to the stars, is wrong-headed. There will be always something to fix. There will always be inequalities to right. If history has taught us anything, is that human beings have their own minds, their own opinions, and they're not going to always mesh. And that price of that is, some will be good, some will be evil, or some will be just selfish. There's the socialists, the capitalists, the social darwinists, the religious - to make paradise will require us to blend all into one homogenous whole. I don't know about you, but Star Trek future aside, that scares the crap out of me.
But I digress. We go to the stars because we are explorers, and because space beckons to us. The attitude that has to change is that it's all a flags and footsteps issue like the Moon. We could have gone further with Apollo, but Nixon cut NASA short, because there was no longer political capital in it. If Apollo had continued, we could have been on Mars by now, with a functional moonbase, and taking our first steps towards mining the Asteroid Belt and providing even more resources for Earth, and maybe, just maybe - becoming a proper Type One civilization instead of languishing as a zero society.
But even that isn't the goal. It's what's beyond the next mountain. It's what's beyond the next sea. Humanity's exodus outward is as inevitable as its expansion across the face of this planet. We are a curious species, and not to indulge that is to deny a fundamental part of ourselves. Yes, there are other problems to face on the planet, but to say that sacrificing our steps into space will solve them is uninformed at best, and reckless and naive in the extreme.
It is not throwing money away. It is not a money sink. We spend so precious little on it as it is - 0.06% of the total US budget. 10% of the money allocated to Medicaid. 20% of that allocated to Education. 4.2% of the Defense budget. This is not to say that the current space program is totally efficient. It is not. The Shuttle program is in desperate need of an overhaul. The number of people employed by NASA just to oversee the program alone is wasteful if you look at the numbers and what is actually being accomplished. The shuttle needs to be revamped, to get rid of essentially 70s technology. The X-Plane program needs to be ramped up, private enterprise needs to get involved in space exploration. We can even argue as to whether manned exploration is better than using robotics, or whether we should be looking more at science rather than piloted spaceflight. But these are arguments and reforms revolving around an already present space program, which will be impossible if the program itself is scrapped.
In the end, though, it comes down to this. We go to the stars because we have to, because our survival as a species, as a civilization, as a culture, does indeed lie out there.
As J. Michael Straczynski put it - "Ask ten different scientists about the environment, population control, genetics and you'll get ten different answers, but there's one thing every scientist on the planet agrees on. Whether it happens in a hundred years or a thousand years or a million years, eventually our Sun will grow cold and go out. When that happens, it won't just take us. It'll take Marilyn Monroe and Lao-Tzu, Einstein, Morobuto, Buddy Holly, Aristophanes... and all of this... all of this was for nothing unless we go to the stars."
For the same year, Social Security gets $472b. Medicare gets $231b. Medicaid gets $159b. Defence gets $368b. NASA's budget growth has been steadily cut since 2001, from a growth of 5% between 2000 to 2001, 4% from 2001 to 2002 and 1% in 2002-2003. In comparison, in the last year, FEMA's budget has leapt from 26% growth to 114%, presumably due to homeland security concerns, and Health and Human Services' growth has been cut from 10% to 9%. Average growth from 1998-2003: HHS: 12%. NASA: 1% (source: http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2003/bud34.html).
I'm no statistician, but I think these figures mean something.
I'm not saying that the concerns we have on earth are of no significance, but ultimately, even if you scrap NASA, the savings of $15b will not necessarily go to feeding the hungry, poverty programs, health programs, etc. That allocation depends on the benevolence of the federal government, which isn't looking very benevolent nowadays. Most likely, the Pentagon will suck it up and mount their own space progam - only this time purely militaristic. The only reason, really, NASA even gets that much is mainly because of the Shuttle program which provides heavy lifter capability for the Defense Department - let's have no illusions about that, either. But the additional sugar that is diverted to other research programs provides increases in scientific knowledge and research which may benefit medical science in the form of synthetic drugs (let's talk about pharmaceutical corporations and their evils as a separate issue) and a deeper understanding of biological sciences, among others.
In a larger context, Earth's resources are limited. We are going to use things up. This is inevitable, no matter how carefully we harness our resources, no matter how much we put into it. Some say the ecosystem is already too far gone to salvage. Perhaps. That aside, whatever we do, we got five billion years left, tops, before Sol cosumes us in a fireball. To say that we have time to fix the world before we go to the stars, is wrong-headed. There will be always something to fix. There will always be inequalities to right. If history has taught us anything, is that human beings have their own minds, their own opinions, and they're not going to always mesh. And that price of that is, some will be good, some will be evil, or some will be just selfish. There's the socialists, the capitalists, the social darwinists, the religious - to make paradise will require us to blend all into one homogenous whole. I don't know about you, but Star Trek future aside, that scares the crap out of me.
But I digress. We go to the stars because we are explorers, and because space beckons to us. The attitude that has to change is that it's all a flags and footsteps issue like the Moon. We could have gone further with Apollo, but Nixon cut NASA short, because there was no longer political capital in it. If Apollo had continued, we could have been on Mars by now, with a functional moonbase, and taking our first steps towards mining the Asteroid Belt and providing even more resources for Earth, and maybe, just maybe - becoming a proper Type One civilization instead of languishing as a zero society.
But even that isn't the goal. It's what's beyond the next mountain. It's what's beyond the next sea. Humanity's exodus outward is as inevitable as its expansion across the face of this planet. We are a curious species, and not to indulge that is to deny a fundamental part of ourselves. Yes, there are other problems to face on the planet, but to say that sacrificing our steps into space will solve them is uninformed at best, and reckless and naive in the extreme.
It is not throwing money away. It is not a money sink. We spend so precious little on it as it is - 0.06% of the total US budget. 10% of the money allocated to Medicaid. 20% of that allocated to Education. 4.2% of the Defense budget. This is not to say that the current space program is totally efficient. It is not. The Shuttle program is in desperate need of an overhaul. The number of people employed by NASA just to oversee the program alone is wasteful if you look at the numbers and what is actually being accomplished. The shuttle needs to be revamped, to get rid of essentially 70s technology. The X-Plane program needs to be ramped up, private enterprise needs to get involved in space exploration. We can even argue as to whether manned exploration is better than using robotics, or whether we should be looking more at science rather than piloted spaceflight. But these are arguments and reforms revolving around an already present space program, which will be impossible if the program itself is scrapped.
In the end, though, it comes down to this. We go to the stars because we have to, because our survival as a species, as a civilization, as a culture, does indeed lie out there.
As J. Michael Straczynski put it - "Ask ten different scientists about the environment, population control, genetics and you'll get ten different answers, but there's one thing every scientist on the planet agrees on. Whether it happens in a hundred years or a thousand years or a million years, eventually our Sun will grow cold and go out. When that happens, it won't just take us. It'll take Marilyn Monroe and Lao-Tzu, Einstein, Morobuto, Buddy Holly, Aristophanes... and all of this... all of this was for nothing unless we go to the stars."
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no subject
Date: 2003-02-02 02:25 pm (UTC)May I?
Date: 2003-02-02 04:52 pm (UTC)Re: May I?
Date: 2003-02-02 07:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-02-02 05:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-02-02 10:01 pm (UTC)Well said, luv.
no subject
Date: 2003-02-03 09:47 am (UTC)I live in a NASA town, but I don't work for NASA. I'm a nurse.
Come to think of it, though, I can't think of much equipment I use that isn't a direct or indirect result of space exploration.