NASA

From RationalWiki

Jump to: navigation, search
It works!

Science

Icon science.svg
Major disciplines
Science articles
Philosophy of science

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

One of the high-tech vehicles operated by NASA.

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:

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

NASA's budget as a percentage of the national budget, 1962-2008

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

The "meatball" logo. The name suggests deep covert infiltration by followers of the FSM.

[edit] Footnotes

  1. 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.
  2. Speaking of space telescopes, a lot of people don't realise that Hubble is not the only one.
  3. The X stands for eXploration. But at least their logo doesn't include a mecha.
  4. Space science: The telescope that ate astronomy, Nature News. There's a nice graph of the "cost curve".
  5. One can't be always sure that some kind of thought process is going on.
  6. Mary Lynne Dittmar, Sustaining exploration: communications, relevance, and value, The Space Review
Personal tools
Namespaces
Variants
Actions
Navigation
Community
Toolbox
support