Has Nasa been pilfering money all along?
Full Disclosure: I have a tremendous distrust of the government in almost all capacities. I don't believe they are good at doing anything other than taxation and war - and they only reason they can be perceived as being adept at either of these things is because they are the only people that are allowed to do them.
Recently I had a discussion with a friend about how I don't believe the government should be in charge of almost anything and he regaled me with a story (and thought he was proving a point as he is pro-government) about how when he was a kid and the United States landed on the moon that is was a time of solidarity for the whole world and an example of profound government accomplishment. While the sentiment was genuine, i feel as though using NASA as an example of the benefits of government expenditures is actually a poor choice.
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For my entire life, space exploration was something that we have all been led to believe could ONLY be accomplished by the mighty government and the deep, neverending pockets that they possess. Then came SpaceX to make us all question if yet again we have been fed lies over and over again.
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All of these monetary values have been adjusted for inflation into what the dollar was worth in 2018. There is no denying that the original research that NASA did to make leaving the atmosphere possible certainly laid the groundwork for progress in the future, but somewhere around the late 60's early 70's the expenditures are just off the charts.
I think we all just kind of accepted that "this is how much it costs" because what do we know about how much a rocket ship costs? Then SpaceX comes along and achieves exit of the atmospheric and gravitational pull of Earth (which basically is where a vast majority of the costs come from) and does it not a bit cheaper, not a "well, that's a coupon worth keeping" but at nearly 1/20 the price tag of the most advanced tech that NASA has been using.
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Some people might say things like it was a much lighter vessel so it requires less energy... Look at the chart, the Falcon (Spacex) was carrying more than twice as much weight. Ask yourself, how is this possible?
I did a small search and easily found half a dozen stories pretty easily of NASA executives being caught awarding lucrative contracts to groups charging much more than the product is worth as well as outright accounting fraud and personal theft. I would imagine they did this because it is the government and this is what government does - they lose stuff and a lot of that stuff, while it may sound nice in the name of scientific advancement, is better left to groups who have to operate at a profit or go out of business. Most governments are bankrupt while the people who are in charge of it are exceptionally wealthy and I believe this is the reason why.
I leave you with one of my favorite quotes ever made by someone.
To be fair, SpaceX gets a metric ton of money from the government. Without that money, it's questionable whether or not they could have survived. Just like Tesla. Having said that, the government is never the most efficient way to do something.
Men going to the moon would not have been accomplished (not yet anyway) if not for government because it simply isn't an efficient use of resources. There's no profit in it. So the question becomes is it worth doing if it isn't economically beneficial or the most efficient use of resources?
But yeah, corruption in government is inevitable.
While I agree with pretty much everything you said about NASA it's hard for me to be too hard on them. They get a relatively tiny part of the overall government budget and at least they accomplish fascinating things that probably wouldn't otherwise be accomplished for a long, long time. Even if they are woefully inefficient at it.
yeah, i'll give you that. But you know... 22 trillion in debt in all, perhaps fruitless play missions to a dead rock in the sky should be one of the things we take off the table until we get our finances in order. :P
I hear what you are saying but NASA is a drop in the bucket. More like a drop in the ocean (less than half of one percent of the total budget). The vast majority of the spending is social welfare and military with social welfare being the most rapidly growing. It doesn't matter what else you cut if those things aren't addressed. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for cutting as much of the budget as possible. I just don't think NASA is the best place to start and it's so small relative to the overall budget that completely eliminating it would have no noticeable effect.
But then again I don't think exploration is ever "fruitless". Just not necessarily efficient economically. Space exploration is one of those things I don't think the free market could accomplish effectively for a long time yet. It's definitely not an efficient use of resources.
military expenditures are insane when your military already spends more than the next 20 countries combined. Social welfare programs, while some are nice and all... in my mind is legalized vote buying.
Is it possible NASA is a front or smokescreen for more clandestine space operations lead by other agencies? A public distraction maybe?
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i wouldn't go that far. I think that many government agencies operate under the auspices of altruism and advancement of the nation but in actuality most of what they do is a method of moving public money from taxes into private pockets.
I have been a big fan of SpaceX since they first started making waves in the sector. If they were a publicly traded company I would have bought stock years ago. I think it is really cool to see what can be achieved when you have the vision and the means. I also think you are right. Who is going to question the rocket scientists when they say we need to spend x amount of dollars...
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#Wow thanks for your excellent review . keep it up . good luck