Why pay NASA?

I've found myself repeating this in a few places, so I figured I would just write this one more time and then moving forward I'll just link to this post in the future.

I listen to The Planetary Society's podcast Planetary Radio and in the most recent episode they've mentioned that NASA's budget is due up in Congress. They've started a petition to resolve some conflicting budget proposals from the Senate and the House, which I'll link to here. In short though; the general idea is to make sure that we keep money flowing to planetary science and overall increase NASA's budget.

If you have a few moments, please take some time to sign the petition and click the send button. It will auto resolve your Senator and Representatives based on your information that you enter so you don't have to figure that out for yourself. Also, the letter is editable, so if you have some additional comments to share regarding NASA, you can add those comments in.

As I've shared this link in various places online, I keep running into the same complaints. So let's break 'em down. I confess that there are probably other arguments and reasons that others will have to share, and if I see them I'll edit and roll them back into this blog post.

Why pay NASA? 

The majority of the complaints seem to come from the fact that a lot of people now feel that NASA is "behind the times" or an age old agency when you compare what's happening with private companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin. It's true that these companies have demonstrated that you can reuse a rocket and a rocket booster - although I'd argue that the Space Shuttle in some ways preceded both Falcon 9 and New Shepard.

(The Space Shuttle was in some ways reusable; but it wasn't engineered in such a way that it was cost effective to be reusable. You could argue that SpaceX and Blue Origin have yet to demonstrate that they've engineered cost effective reusable vehicles, although I personally think many believe that F9 is going to validate SpaceX's gamble on this.)

So why do we have NASA around anyway? Let's clear up a few things.

NASA is a research agency

If we go to Wikipedia we'll see that NASA was intended to be an organization that fostered space applications in a peaceful civilian manner. It primarily drives research into science in space. 

That's a good thing. In my view, Government should spend money where civilian and commercial interests won't. A lot of people think that NASA is a waste of money when really a bunch of technologies have come out of the research that NASA has done. For an idea, take a look at this website.

NASA is behind the times

I see this argument too, but I counter "behind in what?" NASA has a ton of active science missions, and in that regard I want to see NASA continue to lead. 

Without NASA, for example, we wouldn't know about the potential effects of perchlorates on a future manned mission to Mars. Without NASA, we wouldn't know that astronauts on long term space flights may go blind. This is important research that needs to be done.

NASA funds Commercial Space

A lot of people don't realize this, but through NASA's COTS and CRS programs they have fostered commercial space. Without those programs, for example, SpaceX wouldn't have as much money to develop the Dragon spacecraft. In short, funding NASA funds your favorite NewSpace company.

Isn't SLS an example of why NASA is inefficient?

For those of you who don't know, SLS is the next launcher being developed by NASA. If you search around online, you'll quickly realize that a lot of people think it's a waste of money; and for me personally, I believe in some ways it is.

Is this NASA's fault?

Not really. The problem isn't really NASA, the problem really is Congress. Many times your favorite Congress Critter operate on a "you scratch my back I'll scratch yours" method. In other words, "I'll approve your project 'X' as long as 'Y' dollars of that project is spent in my state." This way your Congress person can state that they've brought Y dollars and jobs to their state when they go back to their constituents. 

This leads to all sort of inefficiencies, like for example SLS parts being built in all 50 states. This isn't efficient spending in any manner.

The thing is that it's hard to operate like this when it comes to public programs. Money comes from Congress; some would argue that since Congress serves the public that the public should benefit from money being spent, i.e what are effectively jobs programs in several different states. Money comes from the public; the public should have a say in how that money is spent.

Is this efficient? No, I agree it isn't. I've brainstormed here on some theoretical other ways this could be solved, in short by trying to invent some hybrid public-private agency like the Federal Reserve, but I'm not an expert and I'm sure someone here could throw more rocks at that idea.

NASA isn't doing anything new

I've seen this argument too and looking a bit harder at the argument it's not that NASA isn't doing anything new, it's that NASA isn't doing anything new in human spaceflight.

On this, you and I can agree. We've spent the last 20 years in LEO and I think it's time that we move on to cis-lunar space and the moon. I've posted about this here and here; and I've been working on and off in my space time on drafting letters to Congress people and members of the National Space Council on trying to get a cis-lunar program started.

We should note that NASA is currently proposing the Deep Space Gateway which will operate in lunar orbit and I want to see that funded along with ground operations on the moon. There's already some commotion on this as the cost of DSG has been countered against private proposals from Bigelow Areospace and ULA on a slightly cheaper way to build a lunar orbiting station here and I think NASA and Congress should take a hard look at that proposal as well.

In Summation

Funding NASA helps commercial space through contracts awarded. NASA is and should continue to be a research agency. Funding for NASA is often abused by Congress by dictating how NASA funds should be spent. NASA projects do have problems, and there are real concerns that should be made aware to the agency, Congress and the public about the methods we choose to build projects. NASA can and in this authors view, should, be trying to push out of LEO to cis-lunar space as the next location for human spaceflight.