NASA Spends Half of Stimulus Money on Moon Program

TextWASHINGTON — With less than a year remaining to spend $1 billion in stimulus money that the U.S. Congress gave NASA in February as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), the space agency has spent roughly $570 million, with nearly half of those dollars going toward its embattled Constellation program.

Link

I love for us to explore space, and to expand our knowledge of it, but isn't it more important to get our country back on track before spending so much money on space programs? I'm just stating my opinion. What do you all think?

[edit on 4-12-2009 by capgirl]

space programs increase our knowledge base, lead to new discoveries, lead to new tech, etc. all these things can increase jobs and make our lives better, just like they did the first time we went to the moon. quite frankly we need to be spending more money on space programs.....lots more money. if only we had a president with balls who was willing to give nasa and private companies say 100 billion dollars annually instead of a measly 17, we could probably have been to mars, manned mission-wise, years ago. as well, we could be well onto the path of establishing a colony there. but alas it is not so, "america, world police" is much more important i guess.

reply to post by capgirl


Jobs! If Nasa goes unfunded it costs jobs at NASA and at the contractors that create NASA's Toys.

Spending Money on NASA is good for the economy in many ways.

I totally agree that our use of money has been awful. It seems to defy logic and really makes you wonder if the powers that be are really trying to help the situation or purposefully bankrupt the nation.

However, I don't feel like the money given to NASA is all that bad. It's quite insignificant when you compare it the resources devoured by the war machine. I was a crew chief on F-15s in the Air Force, and that experience really humbled me. I knew that the military used a lot of money, but I suppose I never really grasped it until I saw it first hand. I think our military is important, but at the same time I always found myself questioning whether or not we were using our money wisely. My opinion is that much of that money would be better used on our own citizens.

But thanks for the thread. Never stop questioning.

heck, i'd rather see NASA get the money then spending it for HAARP and sending our boy off to die in a war they have no business being involved in.

Lets take all the billions of dollar we are spending on these military wastes and give it to NASA. At least if we get to the Moon with great video and alien proof it will be far more worth it than this stupid war.

I would rather give money to NASA than to give it to those crooks that got million dollar bonuses that put our economy in the position it's in in the first place. At least we will eventually see a result one day by giving it to NASA through new technology and the jobs they create.

reply to post by capgirl


As poster no 2 said.. investment in technological advancements like what NASA achieve are a long term investment on development of your economy.. problem is, it is apparent that NASA are wasteful which needs to be addressed.

reply to post by Dermo


Anything to do with the government is wasteful.

Hell yer I would start doleing out money out of my own wallet to NASA if they start laying out the truth with no edits! It's the future of mankind in there hands but they would rather play politics.

They are trying to lay out the truth to us God love em "Mars Bacteria" Once they do that the rest will be easy

[edit on 4-12-2009 by MOTT the HOOPLE]

The country can not afford to give NASA funds to re-develop space rockets, while also providing the Department Of Defence funds to develop anti-gravity TR-3B black triangle ships too. Obviously, the money goes to the development of the superior technology - the TR-3B.

[edit on 12/5/2009 by Larryman]

Originally posted by capgirl

TextWASHINGTON — With less than a year remaining to spend $1 billion in stimulus money that the U.S. Congress gave NASA in February as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), the space agency has spent roughly $570 million, with nearly half of those dollars going toward its embattled Constellation program.

Link

I love for us to explore space, and to expand our knowledge of it, but isn't it more important to get our country back on track before spending so much money on space programs? I'm just stating my opinion. What do you all think?

[edit on 4-12-2009 by capgirl]

How much of the $30 Billion Black Project money goes to NASA?
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Since the Black Budget $$$ is needed, doesn't the Shadow
Government have a vested interest in keeping the U.S. dollar
and economy strong?
Where are they? We need help now!

Screw NASA. The first moon landing was a hoax, and that is why they are trying so hard to do it again. If it wasn't fraud then why don't they just reproduce the BS results one more time. Drag out an old 286 which had 10,000 times the computing capacity of the BS "Moon Landing" computers, build an old Saturn rocket, and do it again with the same stuff that they said they did it before? Why? Because it was all a hoax, and you bought it.

While I'm against stimulus spending in general, it could have been spent on the very successful small business innovative research program (SBIR), that's been a marvelous incubator for high tech. small businesses for years. It would have been a much better bang for the buck.

Small business hire the lion's share of our population and bear the brunt of our stupid over regulation and taxes.

I also think that if we're going to talk about unnecessary spending, we should take a good long look at the military before considering taking money away from NASA.

Going back to the moon could give this country, and indeed this world, an excellent vantage point from which future missions to study the solar system could originate. The more we learn about the solar system, everything from its chemistry and physics, to its history...the more easily we can build a perspective for our place in this galaxy.

Further, I wouldn't underestimate the effect going back to the moon would have on the morale in this country. It is definitely true that we are in a recession and many people are concerned with what the future will bring, so might it be beneficial for them to one day turn on the news and hear news of the latest moon landing instead of endless discussion of the latest political scandal?

It is hard for me to believe that some people can still seriously believe that the moon landing was faked. Factbeforefiction, I urge you to check out the wikipedia article compiling explanations for many of the popular pieces of evidence touted as proving that we never landed on the moon.

en.wikipedia.org...

i agree. to us it may seem like a lot, but to gov't agencies, $570 million is very little.

Plus, if it'll lead to new discoveries, then it's worth it right?

Well the main problem with the Economy is to few have to much. No one can be a customer of new products if they do not make enough to even eat and pay the rent while working a 40 hour week.

I congratulate people like Bill Gates but all that money he has tied up is doing nothing for the average person or even him really. If he had taken a bit less of the profits his Janitor might be able to buy a car this year... get it?

Not hating successful people just saying the free markets have created money sink people who have "won" leaving the rest to drivel in poverty even while working hard day to day.

reply to post by capgirl


1 Billion dollars to NASA is NOTHING compared to the amount of money that goes to other programs.. Look at how much money is spent on the war on drugs, or Iraq/Afghanistan.. I think it's more important to question the usefulness of our taxmoney when it comes to that kind of spending.

With how technology is advancing at an exponential rate, space is a very smart use of funding in my opinion. Now when you tie in what a lot of us believe as far as hidden space technology, then you can question the validity of NASA's funding, and whether or not it's even honestly needed or just a continuation of their front.

Originally posted by capgirl

I love for us to explore space, and to expand our knowledge of it, but isn't it more important to get our country back on track before spending so much money on space programs? I'm just stating my opinion. What do you all think?

[edit on 4-12-2009 by capgirl]

Upon reading this post, I couldn't help but wonder if you'd prefer your Gov't to have spent that money on the wars it's currently funding instead?

That's probably where the money would go if it wasn't going to NASA.

reply to post by jephers0n


wouldn't it be nice if even half of the money being spent in iraq and afghanistan was being spent on space exploration and he supporting technology? we'd already be doing manned mars missions. but bombing a bunch of insurgents and being team america: world police, is much more important i guess.

How do we spend half our stimulus on the moon program just 9 months ago, but last month Obama said we aren't interested in the moon anymore..TFOH