why spend so much money on space shuttle's missions when we have so many people without health insurance?
468087
I think it's the human desire of finding out the mysteries of our world and beyond. Not only that, there are the advances in science that come about from space research. eg teflon, satellite communications.\n\nThere will always be a need to help some group of people, but that also doesn't mean that we should stop everything else.\n\nPutting it another way, I guess one could say "why should you spend your money at the cinema, on a book on candy or anything else not essential to surviving when there are poor people starving in the world?"
109414
the better question would be: why do we spend billions of dollars to go research outer space rather than paying off the national debt or feeding the hungry?
1147442
Actually for the larger industrialized nations space research and exploration is a relatively small fraction of their overall national budgets, and space research, if used wisely, can help reduce, if not cure, some problems by monitoring crops for diseases or drought, help track weather, animal and fish populations, enivironmental problems, and provide new technologies and materials that can improve healthcare and life in general, and of course there is the knowledge gained about the Universe in which we live. I do agree that there is a great deal of money wasted in the space program (I think the Space Shuttle and International Space Station are make-work money pits that should be closed off), but I think the more germain question is why so many trillions of dollars worldwide are spent on weapons, corporate greed, and subsidizing the lifestyles of the already wealthy. Cutting even just one major weapons purchase program in practically every country around the globe could give each child of those nations a free college education.\n\nI think an argument also has to be made for the simple human need to know and understand what space is and what's in it. Questions like "Where did the Moon come from and what is is made of?" would never have been answered if we hadn't gone there. Sending robotic missions to Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and other planets in our solar system give us some hint of what those worlds really are like and fire our imaginations, and sending telescopes, such as the Hubble, up into space have given us a clearer, and often very beautiful picture of what the Cosmos is made up of and how it got here. Theories aren't worth much unless there is data to back them up, and these sorts of instruments help us gather data in ways that human eyes or ground-based equipment never could, and while it's true most of us go through life occupied by the more mundane pursuits of life, but all of us at some time have wondered what this Universe is all about and what our place is in it, and I think the questions being asked here bear that out. Exploring space helps answer some of those questions.\n\nIt isn't legitimate space programs (ie., non-militarized) that are starving the poor; it's the insatiable, contemptible greed of death merchants like Lockheed-Martin and greedhead corporations like Halliburton and Bechtel who want to enslave us that do...\n\nN.
345810
America is the only industrialized nation in the world who does not have a national heath care system. People who aren't wealthy, don't have health insurance, and aren't poor enough to qualify for medicaid, get screwed.\n\nIsrael also has guaranteed housing, while we have homeless.\nDoesn't make sense to me...
331128
We don't need space weapons - the rest of the world is not poised to invade, that is a myth perpetrated by the military-industrial complex. The scientific value of sending people into space is also I think questionable. We should concentrate on missions that will bring benefits to all mankind through better knowledge of our universe and decommision the weapons to spend the money more wisely on reducing poverty and suffering in the world.
78084
The NASA budget for fiscal year 2006 will able about $16.5 billion.  The Budget for the Department of Health & Human Services for 2005 was $67 billion plus whatever money was spent on other government social welfare programs, money spent by the states and money or programs offered by churches and other nonprofit organizations.  NASA's budget would not go very vary to change things for the homeless.\n\nMoney spent on space exploration creates knowledge, jobs, new businesses, and technologies, many of which have direct application to other activities. Space explorations inspires technological advances such as increased sophistication in solar-power generation, cryogenic technologies (cooling and storing liquefied gas), and human-robot interaction. These advances will benefit energy, environment, health care, and many other areas. Many of the capabilities required for human exploration will also help advance military defense technology.
977827
The assembly of rockets and other space components is still extremely expensive for a number of good reasons.\n\n1. The performance demanded by these applications require a very low tolerance on the parts and use exotic materials and engineering practicies that are expensive.\n\n2. It takes a very long time to assemble an engine. I imagine the shuttle engines (liquid) may take a good portion of a year with a rather large engineering team.\n\n3. A lot of the costs are involved with development and testing. When compared to the commercial sector, rocket development is still quite expensive per unit. While a number of rockets have been produced, 20 rockets is a lot different from 300 aircraft that the commercial industry sees.\n\n\nHere is an example using information from actual technical documents,\n\nThe space shuttle main engine (SSME), uses turbines much like jet engines to pump the fuel and oxidizer into the combustion chamber. These turbines have to pump about 1000 lbs of fuel and oxidizer to the chamber per SECOND! These turbines have blades in which each blade (that will fit in your hand) produces about 600 horsepower.\n\nThe preburners operate at about 5000 PSI and at about 1500 degrees F.  \n\nThe main combustion chamber face plate (where all the fuel is injected) has a diameter of, try to picture this, 17.74 INCHES with an operating pressure of about 3000 PSI at about 1700 degrees F.\n\nImagine a large dinner plate with 1000 lbs of fuel and oxidizer flowing through it /second operating at those pressures and temps and you'll soon understand why its expensive.
501347
Because the money to pay the doctors, hospital, labs, etc. has to come from somewhere.  If insurance was free, where would the insurance companies get the money to pay all those bills for our visits or hospitalizations?
344594
trillions and billions...!\n\nwhat? there are homeless people out there? there's people on minimal wage? what do you mean no hospital cover, no go?
106309
The US spends twice per capita what other industrialized countries do and yet only we do not cover all our people.  When we decide we want to get real value for our money we can get care for all Americans and resolve other aspects of the present crisis.\n\nHealth care should be like public education (K-12) a right enjoyed by all Americans.
1050670
Lately, especially here in California, there has been much controversy over the issue of schools receiving enough money. There have also been many arguments about poverty and disease here in our country. Most Americans fall back on the most common scapegoat, politicians and the government, but I believe Americas lack of money should be blamed on a much more concrete, much larger, much more useless black hole: space exploration.\nMany people believe space exploration is the answer to all of Earths problems overpopulation, pollution, etc. It is not that uncommon, just Google pros of space exploration and youll find it. But do you know what is really going into these programs? Tens of billions of dollars! Yes, how miraculous and awe-inspiring was it to see man walk on the moon, to see on the news our rover landing on Mars, but is the money really worth it? What are we trying to find? Answers to all of our problems, problems we created, and problems we need to solve first. Oh yeah, and life! For one thing, theyre looking for single-celled organisms, how will that help us solve the problem of pollution and the greenhouse affect destroying our fragile planet? Moreover, its not Hollywood! Whatever life we find will be microscopic and simple, useless when applied to what the proponents of space exploration say it will help with! There are much larger problems that are much more critical here on Earth that this money could go to. We have much higher priorities we should be dealing with in the present until we have enough money to pay for space exploration with out burying our country in debt, without depriving schools, our environment, the poor, and those riddled with as-of incurable diseases. My grandfather died of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, and whos to say that he would have lived, at least a little longer and with less suffering, if we didnt waste our money sending a module to bury itself beneath the ice of some distant rock looking for the tiniest signs of life, alive or dead, microscopic or gigantic?\nAnother problem is, how is space exploration really helping us? One of our main missions on Mars is to look for signs of life forms long since gone. Whether we find these signs or not, what good will it do to help us? There are propositions of creating colonies on other planets, or on the Moon. I find this an absurd idea. Not in the way of the idea being bad, but in this day and time, we do not have either the money or the resources to create these colonies and keep them alive for more than a few days. It is my dearest wish that life go on, that our planet be saved, but how are we supposed to save our planet and its people by starting on the outside? Why not start out by saving our planet from our perspective, first? How can we expect to save our planet from pollution with a colony on the moon if we first dont stop our pollution output? We cannot keep pumping chemicals into our atmosphere and expect them all to disappear! The solutions to our problems need to start on Earth before we can try to solve them from above it. You have to stop the leak in the roof before replacing the carpet, otherwise the carpet will keep getting destroyed. You have to stop building the size of the hole in our Ozone layer before we can begin to fix it. Its like an obese person, you have to fix your food intake problem before you can loose wait. Wasting billions of dollars on space exploration wont help us until we shape-up down here on the ground. The money would be put to much better use on solving the more pressing problems on Earth, such as lack of education, and rampaging diseases.\nAlso, to understand the real problems with space exploration, lets take a look at the beginning the space race. What was it for but for two world leaders competing for rule over space, for self-glorification? And what were their intentions? They believed that whoever ruled space had the ability to rule the sky, to attack other countries. So, the beginnings of all space
720719
Free market in health care is just like a free market in anything else.  It just means that the people decide who to buy their services from, and the government doesn't get involved.  \n\nA lot of people think that would be impossible, because health care is now so expensive.  What most people don't understand is that health care is so expensive BECAUSE it is government subsidized.  Any time a product or service gets government subsidies, the prices go through the roof.  In a free market, people would pay for the services they need, or find a charity to help pay, or buy insurance to cover it.  As a result, there would be a lot less careless spending, like using emergency room services to treat a common cold.  No one that pays their own expenses would ever consider throwing money away like that, but under medicare/medicaid, it is a regular occurance.  All those millions wasted on this kind of systematic abuse would be saved for more significant medical care.\n\nThe free market doesn't guarantee everyone a perfect life, but it's always better than the alternatives.
19689
I say we spend billions in space.  Here is my reasoning, "Idle hands are the devils playthings", and if we're not doing constructive we're going to do something terribly stupid like blow ourselves off the face of the earth.\nSecondly, the survival of the human race depends on reaching out to space and colonizing other planets.  Whether it can be done or not is another question, but waiting for ourlseves to blow ourselves to kingdom come isn't a option I'm interested in taking.  As for evolving, thats entirely correct, because if we push out to somewhere new we can leave behind the things that we could never get over at home (like trivial matters of me being black or you being white, etc).  Some humans just wont let things go foward, and if thats the case why not leave them behind?  Its what America was about when it started, except there isn't anywhere else to go except up now days.  Otherwise we're just recycling ourselves on this planet, with one government falling so another can rise up which thinks its infallable.  Still, despite all that, we've got to be practical about space travel instead of believing we'll get there in 10 to 20 years.  Just because it wont have for us isn't a reason not to do it either, making others miserable just because your miserable is no way to go through life, even if the people your making miserable are five generations down the line.
1162676
do you live in the USA? well i think that we should take care of our own first unlike what we currently do! we need to stop spending billions upon billions of American dollars over seas and our space projects and take care of home first ..... then worry about everything else..... the USA should not have a homless population muchless starving familes!
96436
It's all a waste of money, but it's a better and more inspiring waste of money than the real drains on the government's budget.  Actually, I'm already having second thoughts on that comment.  Read "What Do You Care What Other People Think?" by Richard Feynman.  Before the Challenger disaster, there were indicators everywhere that the shuttle shouldn't be launched.  Thanks in large part to the beauracracy of NASA, seven astronauts lost their lives.  It's a tough issue, but I still think NASA deserves more funding and attention.
828510
NASA is a government agency and is funded in large part by tax dollars.  As a result, NASA must maintain excellent PR among voters and elected officials for the sake of its funding.\n\nNASA does public outreach, raising awareness of science and math in school age children.  This is probably the goal that directly involves the largest portion of the lay public.\n\nAside from that, it starts getting more technical, yet more beneficial to mankind.  Unfortunately most of mankind doesn't understand the 'why' or 'how' involved.  They may never notice that airplanes are becoming quieter and cleaner, that our ability to predict climate is improving, that our science books are being rewritten on a yearly basis.  \n\nNASA has invested a great amount of resources in looking at the background microwave radiation left over from the Big Bang, and looking for gravitational waves that distort space-time and answer fundamental questions about our universe.  At the heart of these space missions is actual science.  Physicists at NASA won Nobel prizes for their work this year, and will probably do so again.\n\nTechnology developed by NASA has helped a wide range of companies, from communications to mattress manufacturing.  This innovation is part of what fuels the entrepreneurial spirit in this country.  It's the reason why America is still a bastion of opportunity.\n\nThe missions that NASA embarks upon involves collaboration with a huge array of private companies.  Giants like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Thiokol are all involved in building the rockets, satellites, and space systems that NASA uses.  These companies also benefit when NASA develops new technology, because it is usually they type of technology that they cannot afford to develop yet.\n\nUnfortunately, the Big Bang, gravity waves, and Mars' atmosphere matter little to the bible thumping redneck.  They demand results for their tax dollars.  The fact that their children can dream of one day travelling to Mars or working with new technology means nothing.  To them, NASA is just another example of wasteful government beauraucracy even though it gets less than 1% of the federal budget.\n\nThat is why outreach is necessary.
7781
NASA is not a private company.NASA funds will come through the US government.The president decides the funds.and NASA will do projecs for other countries \nfor money.once JFK(kennedy)proposed to decrease NASA'sfunds.but he died without doing it.