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Y, they probably think that space takes 20% of the budget vs. 1%. If it had been asked as “how would you allocate money amongst these five programs”, you will get support for a multiple of NASA’s funding.

. If it had been asked as “how would you allocate money amongst these five programs”, you will get support for a multiple of NASA’s funding.

Sam, first off it wasn’t five programs but rather ELEVEN from which they had to choose.

Second, what basis do you have for actually saying that people would, given a differently worded question, double or triple NASA’s budget to roughly $30-45 billion? Do you have anything other than your gut wish that the common people actually support or care about the space program enough to support that?

Another interesting way to survey the people would be to say “HOW MUCH money should (insert agency here) get each year?” and then provide a few specific #’s or a fill in the blank (e.g., $5 Billion, $10 Billion, $25 Billion, $50 Billion, or $______)

I think the answer would very enlightening - but not in a way that the alt space crowd would hope for. IMHO.

it would probably do space development good if NASA funding was cut back to a few billion. they couldnt run any space trucking line with it, which would reproprortion their spending from 90%-10% useless/useful to something like 30%-70% hopefully ( of course you cant eliminate stupid spending, earmarks and so on from any govrenment branch thus the approximate 30% would still remain )
They’d be actually forced to innovate in department on how to do stuff more cheaply. Maybe a new often wished-for NACA would grow out of it.

Shubber,
Another interesting way to survey the people would be to say “HOW MUCH money should (insert agency here) get each year?” and then provide a few specific #’s or a fill in the blank (e.g., $5 Billion, $10 Billion, $25 Billion, $50 Billion, or $______)

Yeah. There’s a lot of whining about how NASA gets “only” 0.6% of the federal budget each year. But when you think how much money that amounts to (~$16B per year), it’s a ton of money. The only way you’d get people saying to give NASA more money is when you compare it to the rest of the federal budget. It’d be interesting to see a survey where people were asked to give specific numbers for other major government agencies. I bet you nobody would say ~$500B per year for the DoD, $15B for NASA, or however many billion a year for entitlements. But alas.
~Jon

We (Dittmar Associates) conducted a survey in ‘04 where we asked respondents whether they thought NASA funding should be increased, decreased, or remain the same. The initial answers to the question (it was asked twice) stacked up as follows: 35% “voted” to retain current funding; 35% indicated it should be decreased, and 30% indicated it should be increased - pretty much a dead heat. No information was provided about the actual allocation. Later in the survey, after discussion re: the VSE, science, etc., participants were asked what percentage of the budget NASA receives, and given several options (

…whoops - bottom line, most folks indicated they didn’t know what NASA received and the next most frequently selected option was 10-15%. Immediately following this question, people were asked again about NASA funding but this time provided the information about actual allocations;

The alt dot space community has become the alt dot please give me a handout nasa community. How is that different that Lockmart or Boeing or Northrup Grumman?

Yeah. There’s a lot of whining about how NASA gets “only” 0.6% of the federal budget each year. But when you think how much money that amounts to (~$16B per year), it’s a ton of money.

I’d much prefer we increase NASA’s portion of the federal budget without increasing spending.

NASA should start an advertising campaign to show why NASA is important to commercialize space, fix the planet, and all other programs. Even with NASA TV, producers should be brought in to make it interesting for people to watch.

I am writing a Informative/persuasive speech discussing the pro and con view points of the Space Program for my high school speech class. I am 100% for the continuation of the space exploration, although sometimes i wonder if that money (although its not alot) should be spent on things more close to home. I have been doing research, and there is alot of reasons for and against it. But if you read between the lines, doesnt it seem like America is just trying to look better, and be the best? What are your thoughts?

And yes, NASA TV could use some spicing up, maybe a sitcom?

NASA should start an advertising campaign to show why NASA is important to commercialize space, fix the planet, and all other programs.

You can do a lot of marketing for $16 billion.

[...] month I noted a recent poll that showed how willing the public would be to cut NASA funding versus other federal p…, which appeared to be more evidence of just how low a priority the space program is in the eyes of [...]

[...] advocates, that space ranks pretty low on the list of priorities of the general public (and, thus, fairly high on the list of government programs they would be willing to cut). Another reminder of this came out earlier this month, when the Fairfax County (Virginia) Economic [...]

Just visit the site

http://www.nasa.tv

space budget should be reduced because millions of people are dying because of hunger.developed countries must increase there funds to help poor countries.poor countries do not have facilities of medicine,clean water,good education and even of justice.

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