NASA Budget 1958 - 2003 in constant (1996) dollars

(Rusty B) wrote in with
[snip useful research]

In constant year dollars from 1958 through 1969 NASA spent-
$ 161.81-billion dollars and went to the moon.

In constant year dollars from 1970 through 2003 NASA spent-
$ 402.65-billion dollars and went round and round and round and round
and round......

Last year I spent about $200 to travel from SoCal to the real world (
== Oregon; pardon my chauvinism) for under a week; in the 40 weeks
since then I 've spent ~$1200 going round and round on a daily basis.
Do you think the 5x expenditure should have gotten me farther than 12
miles?

/dps

(note: figures much simplified; ticket cost for part a, gas costs for
part b; more detailed figures would probably show a bigger delta,
'cause 1 car payment can get an awfully nice hotel stay).

Please note if you are worried about your tax dollars being wasted look to
other parts of the gov. NASA makes up a smaller percentage of the US Gov
budget than people think, but it gets the most publicity of any
organization. Since, it is related to space and oo ahh that is cool and
probably expensive people blame NASA for loss of money. Our Gov wastes a lot
of money on other things and some money just vanishes at rates of billions.
Over the past 2yrs our gov has run up nearly trillion in debt not counting
other previous things................

My note on the shuttle replacement issue.... Right now it seems like NASA is
going to actually try and do the OSP (Orbital Space Plane) which only is
meant to carry people. Therefore the OSP cannot be a full replacement for
the shuttle (since it can only carry people). There will be missions where
NASA will need a shuttle class/type of aircraft at some point in time after
the shuttles are retired. I think for a quick fix they should be replaced w/
a MODIFIED and UPDATED RSA Buran. Not necessarily a RSA Buran, but something
designed w/ some of the ideas that the Buran was built upon like the energia
rocket it used which was also had a dual purpose to haul satellites in to
space (I think a rather nice way to kill 2 birds w/ one stone).

Also, if you are complaining about satellites being lost. It is a very hard
thing to land / placing orbit a craft on a planet by remote control. I do
not see you doing any thing to make that easier and send the gov your tax
dollars is not really an answer. In contrast to that, the satellites and
craft that have successfully worked have worked well past there lifetime and
have been extremely awarding. One nice example of this is GALILEO. Has been
at Jup since 96 is going to be laid to rest in Sept. It has out lasted and
out worked what it was going to originally do. Taken on some 18 times the
amount of radiation and has had its life extended many times.

NASA also has various joint projects like SOHO which is important in our day
to day lives. It helps people make forecasts of the solar weather. In doing
this it enables companies to know when and to be prepared if/when something
happens to their satellites. Our world relies upon satellites for a lot of
things: TV (cable, Al-antenna, and satellite) rely upon satellites, live
radio casts (national), the internet, phone calls, cell phones, GPS (many
things rely upon this: medical, firedepts, shipping, taxi's(some), aviation,
a lot more....)........

Also, note NASA is run ultimately by the senate appropriations committee.
They decide really what NASA can do b/c they control the money flow to NASA.


- Stefan