Scientists to Hold Bake Sale for NASA Saturday

[padruig]

21. on average ..

On average about 1/4 of one penny of your tax dollars go to the funding of NASA

Imagine what would happen if we increased that from 1/4 of on penny to 1/2 of one penny

Space is not the Final Frontier, it is the Next Frontier and your tax pennies spent on NASA, NOAA, USGS (and National Forest Service, National Park Service, United States Coast Guard) is some of the best things tax monies can buy.

People like to say we know more about the moon than we do the bottom of the ocean, then lets increase the funding for NOAA and oceanographic research

This nation went up against 34 other nations in terms of the character and quality of its math and science education ... funny thing, we put men on the moon but scored 14th internationally in math and 17th in science

In the meantime China who likes to play the 'developing nation' card when accused of not paying attention to its environmental policy (the air quality in Beijing is one of the worst in the world) has developed its own launch capability, has a manned program well in operation, is planning a manned landing on the lunar surface, their own space station and lunar base

(as a point of reference we outspend China in military expenditures by over 5 to 1)

As to the recent success of SpaceX and their launch of the Dragon capsule it should be noted that they are not really doing anything differently than has been done before by our space program.

SpaceX is operating under contract, a 2 billion dollar, multi-year contract, to provide launch, supply and transport capability.

So while some may crow about the "commercialization" of space, its always been a commercial venture, with Federal Contract guarantees.