Obama to defund NASA's planetary exploration program in 2013

This is incredibly depressing. I might have to go into politics to correct this fatal error.

Let me put it this way: for every one dollar we put into NASA, we get ten out of the program from the resulting patents and investments in technology. That is one of the best returns on investment that government can ever offer, period. The Apollo missions raised our GDP by 5% alone. Claiming that we are simply burning money on technology investment does not reflect the actual reality of the economics.

You want to know about a government program that wasted money? Try Obama's 500 million dollar initiative to improve weather protection in homes. The state of Wisconsin alone received 14 million dollars from the initiative, and used the money to hire 14 workers and caulk FOUR homes - the rest was lost to government waste. And yet NASA is the program that we have to cut!

How does that prove anything?

Well if you're going to ask for a very strict definition of proof, it doesn't. But I just provided you with a shitload of technologies that were invented specifically for the space program and found application in other areas. Many of them would not have been invented at all without the space program, and the rest would have been many many more years in coming.

I challenge you to name one single organization that's that has had more impact on the technologies that affect your everyday life, and done it in a similar amount of time.

edited 26th Oct '11 8:59:23 PM by CDRW

@Spooky Mask: This was meant as a serious discussion. Take your trolling elsewhere.

Thomas Edison invented a lot more technologies that impact everyday life than NASA by himself.

This is very bad thing.

NASA wasteful budget come from sending human to space. Sending human to space should be replaced with private corporation. Government have already done pioneering, its time to replace it with private enterprises.

Planetary Exploration and Space Astronomy are cheap and useful. Sending drone to other planets and maintaining telescope is not profitable, so should remain government works.

I hope Obama use scalpel in cutting NASA budget, not just axing it.

Face it, people. Nobody gets or cares about space travel anymore. This wil pass under the noses of Americans and they won't give a shit either way...

Thomas Edison didn't do most of his "inventing." But the very fact that we're comparing the space program with what he and his constituents did is in itself telling of just how important it is.

edited 26th Oct '11 9:03:56 PM by CDRW

Edison did all of his own inventing, unless I'm missing something big, he was just wrong about a lot of it.

Which is the saddest part of all. Motherfuckers can't look past their noses.

edited 26th Oct '11 9:06:29 PM by thatguythere47

@CDRW: ... no. If I say "Shaq is a lot taller than Danny Devito", you can't just say "the very fact that we're comparing the two is in itself telling of just how tall Devito is."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spin-off

http://www.sti.nasa.gov/tto/

edited 26th Oct '11 9:12:55 PM by Jeysie

Look, you can deny it all you want, but it's not going to change the magnitude of the effect that the space program has had. I've provided you with plenty of examples and Jeyse has so graciously provided you with even more. If you'd like to have a dick measuring contest about the number of things that have come out of NASA vs the number of things that have come out of Edison laboratories we can totally do that. I'm fairly certain that NASA would still come out ahead. But either way the fact stands that NASA is not, and never was a drain on resources. It is a fountain of technology and benefits that when applied over the long term do more for quality of life than you're willing to acknowledge.

But we're still exploring the ocean (which has not yet been mapped), and that's giving us new technologies, right? Anyway, just because Obama axed NASA doesn't mean a later president won't bring it back. I'd be extremely upset if the USA shut down the space program for good, no turning back, but as it is, I can deal with this...for now.

Honestly, this is grade A horse shit on the govt's part.

If NASA ain't funded, whose gonna invent good space travel that allows me to bang blue alien women?

All the Republicans need to do is constantly bring this up and Obama will instantly lose.

I want to say something to defend this. But I can't.

@Thorn 14

Well, except for the fact that the Republicans also want to defund it and a million other things, so they can't talk.

Also except the majority of Americans don't even care.

edited 26th Oct '11 9:44:13 PM by TheEarthSheep

Yes but who will get the blame?

One, it's probably at the Republican's insistence that he "cut the fat", two, it's not enough in the public's consciousness for it to matter more than the shitty economy. I don't think the Republicans care enough to spin this one way or the other, or that the public cares enough for this to be the linchpin of their vote.

A@Thorn: It's probably a political non-issue at this point in time.

edited 26th Oct '11 9:45:09 PM by AceofSpades

Maybe we can at least sell everything off to the Russians and the Chinese so it doesn't just go to waste.

edited 26th Oct '11 9:45:46 PM by CDRW

They already have their own programs. They'll be fine without us.

I'd be okay with that.

Geez. I have a feeling this comic is going to start appearing more and more often as we keep hearing news like this. The alt text is what really hits home:

"The universe is probably littered with the one-planet graves of cultures which made the sensible economic decision that there's no good reason to go into space—each discovered, studied and remembered by those who made the irrational decision."