NASA
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NASA is an evil machine of liberal deceit which wastes decent, hardworking, Christian tax dollars on "proving" that Earth is, get this, round, and orbits the sun. No really, that's exactly what these loopnuts believe. Pray for them, that they might point their telescopes to Heaven. George C. Deutsch, the NASA spokesperson under President Bush II, said so!
Contents |
[edit] What it does
As the name suggests, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration[1] is a US government agency that is charged with space exploration and research in aeronautical and space engineering.
Contrary to popular misconceptions:
- NASA doesn't do astronomy, unless the observatory is on a plane (SOFIA) or in space (Hubble, Spitzer, etc.[2]); even then, most of the people that actually use these instruments are professional astronomers who don't work for NASA
- NASA doesn't have a monopoly on space flight within the US:
- the armed forces have their own space projects (e.g. the X-37B) and their own launchpads; NASA's shuttles have launched some spy satellites, but it turned out that launching them with disposable rockets is cheaper
- commercial satellites are not launched by NASA, but by private contractors; the same people provide launch services to NASA and other government agencies (such as launching meteosats for NOAA)
- NASA doesn't have a monopoly on space flight outside of the US:
- there are other government agencies, most notably Roscosmos (the Russian one), ESA (the joint European one) and JAXA[3] (the Japanese one)
- and other commercial launch providers such as Arianespace
- Contrary to the popular in some circles slogan "NASA lies!", the most significant things NASA has been untruthful about are:
- how much money a particular project will cost
- how much time it will take to develop it
Well, the last point is mostly snark, but based on a kernel of truth: NASA's projects often end up over budget and/or behind schedule. (Recent examples are the cancelled Constellation program and the James Webb Space Telescope.[4])
NASA takes its directions from the President and its money from the Congress. This sometimes leads to some interesting deals and compromises (and fucked-up projects, including the current state of the human spaceflight program).
[edit] Budget
A lot of people think (or at least have expressed the opinion)[5] that a lot of the money are spent on space exploration and they could be better spent elsewhere. This is undermined by the fact that a) nowadays, NASA's budget is less than 1% of the federal budget, and b) the average American has no idea how small it is. According to a 2007 survey: "...we asked respondents what percentage of the national budget is allocated to NASA and to the Department of Defense, the Department of Education, the Department of Agriculture, and the Department of Health and Human Services, among other agencies. NASA’s allocation, on average, was estimated to be approximately 24% of the national budget (the NASA allocation in 2007 was approximately 0.58% of the budget.)"[6]
[edit] See also
- Category:Astronauts
- Face on Mars
- Moon landing hoax
- Project Blue Beam
- James Hansen, the current director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS)
[edit] Footnotes
- ↑ The acronym is often decoded as "Never a Straight Answer" by people who wouldn't recognise a straight answer if it hits them in the head, or as "Need Another Seven Astronauts" by people who lack decency. Often the two groups overlap.
- ↑ Speaking of space telescopes, a lot of people don't realise that Hubble is not the only one.
- ↑ The X stands for eXploration. But at least their logo doesn't include a mecha.
- ↑ Space science: The telescope that ate astronomy, Nature News. There's a nice graph of the "cost curve".
- ↑ One can't be always sure that some kind of thought process is going on.
- ↑ Mary Lynne Dittmar, Sustaining exploration: communications, relevance, and value, The Space Review