CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric discussed NASA yesterday (on the 49th anniversary of Sputnik) in her one-minute “Katie Couric’s Notebook” that airs on some TV and radio stations. (I heard it in the car on the way home last night.) Couric talks up the achievements of the Space Age, including that we have “orbited the Earth dozens of times” (true, for very large quantities of “dozens”). But she’s skeptical about the cost/benefit equation, noting that NASA’s proposed 2007 budget is nearly $17 billion. “There are some who argue that money would be better spent on solid ground, for medical research, social programs, or in finding solutions to poverty, hunger, and homelessness,” she says. Couric might well be one of those “some”: while she says she believes space exploration has value and “admires” those who involved in it, “I can’t help but wonder what all that money could do for people right here on planet Earth.” (Note that the Couric segment is preceded by a 15-second Pfizer ad talking about erectile dysfunction: draw parallels between that subject and NASA at your own peril.)
Couric’s opinion is more of the rule than the exception. Outside of the small community of space enthusiasts, most people share this view. Space zealots, ranging from the wild eyed Zubrinites to the nostalgic Griffindors, can’t see this at all.
To paraphrase LBJ, “If we’ve lost Katie Couric, we’ve lost the American people”.
“There are some who argue that money would be better spent on solid ground, for medical research, social programs, or in finding solutions to poverty, hunger, and homelessness…”
There are a lot of things in the U.S. government budget that could be spent on other things. Part of the $419 billion spent on the Department of Defense, for instance. Or the many earmarks and riders in Congress.
“There are some who argue that money would be better spent on solid ground, for medical research, social programs, or in finding solutions to poverty, hunger, and homelessness…”
If the American people really felt like Couric, they would organize to kill NASA’s budget and lobby to have it put to good use on Earth, but most Americans dont feel this way. Most Americans support NASA, manned and unmanned space exploration. Intelligent people realize that humanity’s problems of poverity, hunger and homelessness are political. Getting rid of NASA will not get rid of them and give us a perfect society. As time marches on and peopulation increases, we will have more problems like this. It would be stupid for us to listen to people with small minds and seal our fate and get rid of space exploration.
vze3gz45
I think Katie has just proven, once again, why the ratings of CBS Evening News are in the toilet.
I think Katie has just proven, once again, why the ratings of CBS Evening News are in the toilet.
Also proved when they weren’t having any progessives for at least 10 days on there “Free Speech”
I think that both Tom and vze3gz45 are correct. It depends on the question, what other issues are in the news, and how the question is phrased. Most Americans don’t think about spaceflight at all, but, if asked directly, they support “space exploration” in the broadest sense. When the question comes down to specifics and dollar amounts and spending alternatives, than their answers (appropriately enough) get more complex.
That is, most Americans support exploration in the abstract, but when asked if they want to spend $17 billion (or insert your large number) on it while they see people starving in the streets or they can’t afford a drug that grandma needs, that number shines much brighter than spectacular pictures from Space Station construction crews or from the Saturn system.
— Donald
Donald, the only place I have ever seen people “starving in the streets” has been during my admittably infrequent trips to the Third World. I have never seen anyone in that condition in America. This is the kind of purple rhetoric that makes people roll their eyes as crtics of the space program.
Well, Mark, you must not visit the inner cities very much, or walk around in certain neighborhoods. There are in fact people starving on Americas streets, and rather a lot of them — however, they are carefully swept out of sight.
But forget that. Replace “starving on the streets” with “no access to non-emergency medical care” and you get the same result.
— Donald
A problem is that no matter what found looking national level program is cut it does not solve the problems as stated. People just think that if the money for Manned Space Flight or the War in Iraq or this or that were used to solve domestic problems and the like that everything would be better.
But then those same people may argue against just giving people food, why does someone who does not work get help from the government while the government just takes money from me, etc etc.
The federal government should not be directly concerned with things like the unemployment rate on American city streets, the cities/counties/states should try to solve it and ask for help if they can not. You want a job? The Army & Navy are always hiring. To good for that? Good luck then.
Yes, there are programs that at the Federal level consume vast quanatities of money, but the Fed is not the level of government to decide how much someone on welfare in NYC should get vs what someone on welfare in Del Rio, TX should get.
A National Space Program is something that everyone nation (if not world) wide can gain some benefits from in some way, be it the nice electronics we use, the satellite TV they watch, or just the spark of imagnation provided to the youth.
“Swept away out of sight?” So people who die of starvation in the streets of American cities are secreted away (perhaps by men in black helicopters) before people can see them starve? If so, how do you know they exist?
Hi Donald, long time no talk (argue?). Only ended up here as a result of Marks link.
There are not a “rather lot” of starving people on American streets, outside of drunks and drug addicts; and those types we will always have as some people just can’t be helped. That is a fact that some on the left of the political spectrum just will not accept; no matter how much “social spending” is done there will always be people who make poor choices. No amount of education will prevent some from taking a road that will lead them to a life of poverty and pain. Sad but true.
As for access to “non-emergency” medical care you may have a point. But that isn’t much of a problem as there is no shortage of people who take advantage of emergency medical care for non-emergency medical needs. This I know as my wife has spent a lot of time in the emergency room admitting patients. And the numerous times I’ve been in the emergency room, for mine and family members REAL emergencies, I’ve always shared the place with a crowd that mostly (80% plus) consisted of folks with nothing more than a cold or skinned knee. That is no exaggeration or loose rhetoric; that is simply a fact.
But even if there were starving folk in the street and those who had no options with respect to medical care there is no evidence at all that would support the idea, hinted at by Ms Couric, that increasing (doubling or trebling or even more) current social spending would fix those problems. The war on poverty is in its ~40th year and the only reason it hasn’t been “won” (as if that was even possible) that I hear being voiced (by the left) is “we’re not spending enough”. If anything we’re spending too much on too many making them permanently dependent on a government check and/or program.
> There are a lot of things in the U.S. government budget that could
> be spent on other things. Part of the $419 billion spent on the Department
> of Defense, for instance.
Justin, $419 billion is a small part of a $2.8 trillion budget. Even if we cut the entire defense department, it wouldn’t begin to pay for social/domestic programs. It would barely cover the budget deficit.
I don’t know where the myth that NASA takes money away from other social programs comes from. Kennedy vastly increased spending for all social programs including NASA — so has Bush, more than any President since Kennedy.
At the same time, the government is gutting military programs, just as you suggest. While the overall military budget is growing in absolute terms, the military is being asked to do more with that budget than ever before. The result is that it’s forced to cut ships, fighter wings, and military readiness.
Congress just cut funding for military spaceplane. All of it. Again. A real 100% cut, not like the “cut” in space science that was really a 1% increace. There were no protests from the NASA fan club, despite claims that they are “pro-space, not just pro-NASA.”
Katie Couric was right about one thing: current space programs are not cost-effective. The private sector and some in the military are working to fix that. Sadly, NASA has no interest in reducing costs; they just want bigger budgets and bigger rockets, and we’re supposed to raise taxes or cut the military services to pay for them.
You should ask yourself one thing, though, Justin. As the Admiral said, whoever controls space controls the Earth. If we keep cutting the military and some other nation (China, for example) develops military spaceplanes first, how will that affect the social programs you want? Would the People’s Liberation Army Space Force allow you to launch Orion capsules, for example?
> The war on poverty is in its ~40th year and the only reason it hasn’t
> been “won” (as if that was even possible) that I hear being voiced (by
> the left) is “we’re not spending enough”.
Yes, and that “left” includes “compassionate” Republicans as well as “liberal” Democrats.
Of course, you could substitute “conquest of space” for “war on poverty” and say the same thing. After 40 years, we’re still told that state socialism is the way to “conquer” space — we just need to spend more money. Forget any innovation that could reduce costs and build more Apollo capsules.
Cecil: good to see you back!
While I do agree with the examples I used, I don’t want to argue about them because that was not my point. My point was that many Americans support spaceflight in the abstract, but when they are asked to compare the cost of spaceflight with other problems they see around them (whether they are social or potholes in the street), that abstract support does not necessarily translate to a high priority. (But, anyone who looks at Federal budgeting under either major party would be hard put to conclude that Americans are particularly good at prioritizing!)
However, I can’t resist one observation. You (and many others) imply that the “war on poverty” has not been “won” in forty years (true), that it cannot be “won” (probably also true in the foreseeable future), and that it therefore is not worth fighting (false, in my opinion).
Unfortunately, it is also true that, after even more years of effort, the “war on achiving truly spacefaring civilizations” also has not been “won” (true), and that it cannot be “won” (probably also true in the foreseeable future). Does that then mean that it’s a “war” we should not fight?
The “war on poverty” and establishing spacefaring civilizations are comparable tasks. Both are extremely difficult and without well-defined end-points that you can define as success. I would even agree that the former is probably even more difficult than the latter. But, I believe, both battles are worth fighting — whether or not you ever fully win either one of them.
— Donald
I never suggested that the war on poverty isn’t worth fighting, it certainly is. I just think we’ve fought it entirely wrong. The answer isn’t more money; the answer is in programs that make people self-reliant and responsible for their actions, not government dependant. And those that refuse those solutions can fend for themselves. This approach, along with our accepting the fact that there will always some poor who refuse to help themselves, would have better results that have been achieved in the past 40 years otherwise. Done right this approach would also result in less tax money spent rather than the current “throw more money at it” philosophy.
And with that I return to my self imposed exile. If you wonder why, all you have to do is notice who posted next after my previous post.
Cecil: the answer is in programs that make people self-reliant and responsible for their actions, not government dependant. And those that refuse those solutions can fend for themselves.
I fully agree. The difference is that, in contrast to most or many conservatives, I recognize that there is a third class, people who for many reasons cannot help themselves and do not have family to help them. I’m open to debate about how many people fit into this class (I don’t doubt that it has been defined far too broadly in the past), and about what should be done to help them, but I believe that those who insist that this class doesn’t exist or should be left to fend entirely for themselves are being wilfully blind (e.g., a certain someone above who would rather make snide remarks than open his eyes and look around).
I don’t propose to debate this further here as it is too far off topic.
— Donald
Justin, $419 billion is a small part of a $2.8 trillion budget. Even if we cut the entire defense department, it wouldn’t begin to pay for social/domestic programs. It would barely cover the budget deficit.
~
Katie Couric was right about one thing: current space programs are not cost-effective. The private sector and some in the military are working to fix that. Sadly, NASA has no interest in reducing costs; they just want bigger budgets and bigger rockets, and we’re supposed to raise taxes or cut the military services to pay for them.
You should ask yourself one thing, though, Justin. As the Admiral said, whoever controls space controls the Earth. If we keep cutting the military and some other nation (China, for example) develops military spaceplanes first, how will that affect the social programs you want? Would the People’s Liberation Army Space Force allow you to launch Orion capsules, for example?
Being a Navy brat myself, I’m not in disagreement with you Edward on the point of the military being forced to do more with less. I think my juxtaposition of the ‘riders’ remark with the ‘military’ remark was poor and distorted my true meaning (I am awful at wordsmithing as you can see). My point was that it’s very easy to do what K.C. did, which is to point at a budget, say ‘Gee, we could do a lot if only we could get the money from ,’ but rarely is this thought out.
On the point that our current space programs are not cost-effective, I would concede/argue that point but I’m not sure which space programs you are referring to. All of them as a whole, or is there a particular subset specifically? And what is the criteria for cost-effectiveness?
On this point, I think that cost-effectiveness should be examined case-by-case or subset-by-subset. For instance, the Cassini-Huygens probe has cost $3.26 billion (2.5 of which was contributed by the U.S.) over the course of its 9 years of operation. Would the scientific findings it has sent back to Earth be enough to make the C-H program be considered “cost-effective”? If not, what would?
Ugh, I screwed up the formatting on that.
Couric is a relic. Just like her argument. Someone should ask her why CBS continues to waste money on a 30 minute “news” show… that’s reaching a smaller and smaller audience.
Thank you FoxNews, CNN and the Internet.
“I can’t help but wonder what all that money could do for people right here on planet Earth.”
Darn. Katie is on to us. She’s figured out that all we’re doing is sending bushels of cold hard cash into LEO. Those unidenified objects floating around the last shuttle mission? Quarters and nickels. Thank goodness that the media didn’t see the large, unmarked bills! What do you REALLY think NORAD is tracking?
Like most in the media, she’s a moron. They are not worthy of our attention.
The war on poverty is in its ~40th year and the only reason it hasn’t been “won” (as if that was even possible) that I hear being voiced (by the left) is “we’re not spending enough”. If anything we’re spending too much on too many making them permanently dependent on a government check and/or program.
The war on ‘America’ is in its ~4th year and the only reason it hasn’t been “won” (as if that was even possible) that I hear being voiced (by the fascist right) is “we’re not spending enough”. If anything we’re spending too much on too many making incompetant soldiers and fascist police officers and first responders permanently dependent on a government check and/or weapons program.
If we keep cutting the military and some other nation (China, for example) develops military spaceplanes first, how will that affect the social programs you want?
It’s really quite simple. If they develop super expensive military spaceplanes, we just develop a much cheaper asymmetric response. Kinetic energy interceptors.
If anything we’re spending too much on too many making incompetant soldiers
There is nothing wrong with the soldiers. It’s their civilian leaders that are the problem.
The major reason the US is losing is because they’re spending hundreds of billions of dollars for ‘networked battlefields’, ‘ballistic missile defence’, aircraft carriers, nuclear missile submarines, and F-35’s which have such pathetic range as to be useless as strike aircraft. To support the troops on the ground you only have pennies left over for vehicle maintenance and body armour. None of the gear works and humvees and tanks are sitting useless at holding yards in the US and Iraq because the army can’t afford essential repairs.
Like most in the media, she’s a moron. They are not worthy of our attention.
Once again, we see why the mighty space movement has been going from triumph to triumph for decades now.
Once again, we see why the mighty space movement has been going from triumph to triumph for decades now.
Yes, it’s all Katie Couric’s fault! The Iraqnam War, the military industrial complex, our government incompetance and corruption, public ignorance and apathy, corporate greed and massive weapons programs had nothing to do with it at all. It was Clinton’s fault I tell you! Liberals are EEEEEVIL!
Bill Clinton? That guy who tried to put your grain silo SSTO into orbit? Wasn’t he your buddy Tommy?
>> If we keep cutting the military and some other nation (China, for example)
>> develops military spaceplanes first, how will that affect the social programs
>> you want?
> It’s really quite simple. If they develop super expensive military spaceplanes,
> we just develop a much cheaper asymmetric response. Kinetic energy interceptors.
In the real world, we do not have asymmetric kinetic energy interceptors that can shoot down spaceplanes. Much less cheap ones.
And why do you assume military spaceplanes must be “super expensive”?
> The major reason the US is losing is because they’re spending hundreds of
> billions of dollars for ‘networked battlefields’, ‘ballistic
> missile defence’, aircraft carriers, nuclear missile submarines,
The US is losing??? Wow. When do the tanks roll into Washington, DC?
> None of the gear works and humvees and tanks are sitting useless at holding yards
Sure, Chris — and Apollo never landed on the Moon, either.
You’re just reciting the old “military reform” line — no weapon more advanced than an M-1 rifle can possibly work — which was thoroughly discredited in Desert Storm. The military wants better weapons not because they are stupid but because they have been to war and if they have to face a numerically superior enemy, they want every advantage they can get.
And why do you assume military spaceplanes must be “super expensive”?
If they weren’t super expensive you’d have them by now.
Tommie Lee,
You think Bush has been so bad for NASA.
What did your perjuring hero do so wonderful for the space program during his eight years or do you just give dhimicrats a free pass?
“To paraphrase LBJ, “If we’ve lost Katie Couric, we’ve lost the American people”.”
To look at her dismal ratings, it appears that it is Katie Couric that has lost the American People.
She is back down in third place to about 7 million viewers in a nation of 300 million.
Stick a fork in her, she is done as is the evening news.
NASA? Nobody cares what NASA does anymore. It’s the United States of America that has become the laughing stock of the world. Clinton’s brilliance was at what he didn’t do. He didn’t turn a great nation into the laughing stock of the world.
I’m laughing at you Mike. I’m also laughing my ass off at NASA’s future manned space flight plans.
NASA – just one more thing to laugh about in America.
But clearly you hate America, otherwise why would you be defending the worst administration this nation has ever experienced?
Buchanan?
I have deleted the last round of exchanges between Messrs. Elifritz and Puckett because of their vulgar nature, and have closed this post to further comments. I apologize to anyone inconvenienced by this development.