Planet Money: We Re Going To Space

According to a pie chart called, “Federal Spending for United States - FY 2015” from the NASA Data Charts, the budget for space in 2015 is not a percentage significant enough to have its own section. Instead, it is a subsection of the heading Other Spendings, which is given 2% of the federal budget. Also, in the Neil deGrasse Tyson article, it is said that the American government only gives a 7/10 cent of a tax dollar to space exploration (Tyson 2). He gives a brilliant resolution by saying, “ I’d prefer that it were more, perhaps 2 cents on the dollar.” even though we used to “. . . peak NASA spending amounted to no more than 4 cents on the tax dollar”. One of the most important technological advance was the invention of the Hubble Space

The world today revolves around technology and is in an ever upward spiraling path of new advancements. This path is now at what some people call the “final frontier”, or the space age. The discoveries being made on this front are overwhelming in comparison to the technology that the world had only twenty years ago. Space exploration was once left up to the governments, as they battled to be the first country in space, but with national debts raising and the cuts made in response, space exploration is beginning to become new grounds for private business owners. Private companies are already beginning to send off rockets at a fraction of the cost that government does, but if more money was put into the government space program, then they

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is perhaps the most well known space agency in the world. Since its formation in 19581, it has pioneered in space science, yet is also renowned for its large budget. NASA has the highest budget of any space agency, $18.6 billion2 in 2015, the equivalent of every American paying $54 towards the agency3, meaning 0.14% of total GDP is spent on NASA3 . This money is spent on the ISS, sending astronauts, probes and satellites into space, astrophysics and planetary science research, maintaining and developing NASA’s space telescopes (the Wide Field Infrared Survey telescope searching for dark energy and exoplanets, the James Webb Space Telescope and the Hubble Space Telescope) and developing spacecraft2. Space exploration is an incredibly expensive process with one shuttle launch costing $450 million4 however NASA’s colossal budget benefits the USA greatly; the agency employs 18,000 people5 as astronauts, engineers, scientists and teachers and G. Scott Hubbard, former director of the NASA Ames Research Center estimates that every dollar spent on NASA returns $8 to the economy6.While this figure is an estimate, it demonstrates NASA’s worth and capacity for money making. NASA works on pioneering research and as its patents and licenses return to the US treasury, it

For the social science lens, we will be looking at the shift in the economics for space exploration in the recent years.

How would you like to explore a never-ending frontier filled with endless potential and possible benefits for humankind? When put this way, space exploration sounds like an enticing adventure. However, is it all that it’s chalked up to be? We’re here to answer that question. There’s a specific issue that we need to consider when referring to space exploration; should we continue to fund NASA? We acknowledge that some people may already have strong opinions on this, and we ask you to keep an open mind and try to avoid bias. After all, we’re discussing our future.

In counter to the Soviet Union's launch America decided to launch their own satellite. That satellite is what pushed President Dwight Eisenhower to created the Aeronautics and Space Administration A.K.A NASA (History.com Staff, 2010). Now that both the Soviet Union and America have

In the article, the author explained how much money was spent sending satellites into orbit. The author stated that the cost to send a small satellite into orbit was around $100 million. For a larger rocket that carries a heavier payload, it is around $400 million. The author also made the comment that

DARPA created its Experimental Spaceplane (XS-1) program to help create a new paradigm for more routine, responsive and affordable space operations. The program aims to develop a fully-reusable unmanned vehicle that would provide aircraft-like access to space and deploy small satellites to orbit using expendable upper stages. XS-1 seeks to deploy small satellites faster and more affordably, and develop technology for next-generation hypersonic vehicles. (Via DARPA)

Jeff Bezos thinks that people do not need to be specifically trained to go to space. So he is making up a program so if people want to go to space they would have to just pay him. They are making shuttles so people can take flight to space in

The concept of space exploration was first introduced to the American public in 1961 when President John F. Kennedy famously stood before congress and vowed that America would put a man on the moon “within the decade.” With hopes of defeating the Soviet Union in the “Space Race” and gaining a leg-up in the Cold War, NASA funding reached its all-time high in 1965-1966 when about four percent of the federal budget was devoted to exploring space. Since then however, funding dedicated to exploring space has nose-dived to about one-half of a percent of the federal budget (Tyson), with plans to cut that figure by an additional $260 million in 2017 (cite NASA funding cuts). Experts in the space-sciences field argue that increased funding in space exploration would re-ignite the American economy and return America to the scientific prominence it was once known for, while, on the other end of the spectrum, naysayers suggest that exploring space is an economic sink-hole that the United States can no longer afford to deposit to given its own earth-bound troubles.

In the past 50 years, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has sent out many planned space exploration missions which have lead to numerous advantages in society and culture. NASA’s technologies benefit American lives with the innumerable important breakthroughs by creating new markets that have spurred the economy and changed countless lives in many ways. NASA is a federal agency and receives its fundings from the annual federal budget passed by the United States Congress. However, there are conflicting opinions that consider whether or not funding for NASA is a waste of government spending.

My chose to complete my Sci-fi paper as a collection of journal entries from a business man who has to travel to a meeting on the moon. The journals each speak of a different leg of his journey, from the journey up, the accommodations, the meeting, and the return flight. His company deals with satellite orbit altitude rights, and must cooperate with a company based on the moon, who has its own satellites orbiting the moon. In this way, I will be able to discuss many topics; possible space travel sustainability options, long-term living on the moon, return to earth’s atmosphere, space weather and effects on travel, and the low-orbit rights and commercialization dilemma. For the purpose of this research paper, I will focus on the question of low-orbit satellites.

The United States (U.S.) government department of defense (DOD), department of commerce?s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) spend billions of dollars every year on space-based satellite acquisition programs (GAO, 2013a, 2013b, 2015a). The satellites provide vital services to the armed forces, government operations, national security, the civilian agencies, and commercial operations (GAO 2011, 2012, 2013a, 2014a, 2015b). Comprehensive literature review revealed that over the past two decades, the U.S. DOD, NOAA, and NASA satellite acquisition programs have continually experienced cost overruns, schedule delays, potential gaps in capability that could affect national security, as well as health and safety of the civilians (Alston, 2012; Bauer, 2005; GAO, 2014a, 2015b; McHenry, 2008; Meier, 2010; Mejia-Aguilar, 2013; Redshaw, 2011; Reeves, 2013; Schmith, 2011; Sharma, 2015; Smith, 2012; Stratton, 2011). Some of the major government satellite acquisition programs have experienced as much as 9 years in schedule

Through innovation in technology, the space exploration programs of the United States have achieved several benefits for today’s society. Many studies have shown that space programs have encouraged innovation of various

Space exploration has and will continue to provide a large boost to the economy. “Missions such as the launch and operation of communications and remote sensing satellites, scientific satellites and, of course, military surveillance satellites, have been the stock-in-trade of the commercial sector for decades, and represent an industry worth S300-billion annually.” (Watson, 2013) Not only is there a lot of money in the business of sending