RE: We can dare to dream of the stars again, if only we can achieve this small thing.
May 15, 2012 at 8:23 pm
(This post was last modified: May 15, 2012 at 8:26 pm by Anomalocaris.)
It's not entirely clear to me marginal return of additional dollars spent on NASA is really more than the marginal return of the same dollar spent on national science foundation or national institute of health.
I tend to think NSF and NIH are better investments at this point in time. I think with the privatization of satellite and launch industries, it makes sense for the exploration functions of NASA to eventually be passed onto NSF.
NASA was conceived as an organizing agency to beat the soviets in the vital fields of high performance military aerospace technology and ballistic missile technology, and secondarily as vanity tool to try and trump the soviets bragging rights excessively emphasized in an more naively idealistic age. It probably was never a sustainably efficient organization for advancement of generally applied and basic science.
I tend to think NSF and NIH are better investments at this point in time. I think with the privatization of satellite and launch industries, it makes sense for the exploration functions of NASA to eventually be passed onto NSF.
NASA was conceived as an organizing agency to beat the soviets in the vital fields of high performance military aerospace technology and ballistic missile technology, and secondarily as vanity tool to try and trump the soviets bragging rights excessively emphasized in an more naively idealistic age. It probably was never a sustainably efficient organization for advancement of generally applied and basic science.
