NASA funding

I heard a discussion on the radio a few days ago about NASA's budget and how it would need to be trimmed and focused on fewer prioritized missions in a tough economy...

To put this into perspective, NASA receives $19 billion annually; this is less than 1% of the US budget. (link)  The defense department receives $689 billion; 20% of the US budget.  (link)

The international space station cost to NASA is less than $30 billion (excluding the space shuttle, $55 billion was spent on space shuttle missions to the ISS), so lets say a total of $85 billion.  (link)

The second Iraq war cost at least $750 billion in direct costs to the US and may be as high a $1 trillion.  (link)  (Obviously this is ignoring the costs of human life, etc.) 

Each state in the United States has benefited from NASA spending.  In 1971 a 33% discounted rate of return was estimated for NASA investment/stimulus in the US economy.  More recent reports easily show that NASA spending stimulates the economy and creates skilled jobs.  (link)  (This ignores the less tangible benefits arising from the US being a leader in science and technology development.) 

Now is not the time to decrease funding to NASA.  If anything it should be increased dramatically, and it doesn't take a lot of creativity to see where that money might come from without raising taxes.  Unarguably, NASA helps the US, both in direct economic terms and in many other ways.

We, as Americans, were world leaders in space, but we have lost our vision and drive to apathy and cynicism.  We build monuments on the US mall in Washington, D.C. to wars.  Where are the other monuments to some of the greatest positive accomplishments the US has done, like the Apollo program and moon landing? 

NASA should be doing what only governments can do.  40-50 years ago this was simply orbiting the earth, the moon landing and building a space station.  Now, private companies routinely send up satellites, and are on the verge of replacing the space shuttle heavy lifting and docking with the international space station.  Soon private companies, and other countries such as China, Russia and the EU will land on the moon.  We need to broaden our focus and be more ambitious in our vision.  NASA should be conducting manned exploration of the solar system (we need a moon base, Lagrange base, a martian space station, and a Ceres base, in that order, one of the biggest problems is radiation shielding so lets solve that problem) with more powerful non-chemical propulsion technologies, like the Orion project and VASIMR, that can accomplish manned missions to other planets in months rather than years. And we should be beginning serious unmanned exploration of interstellar space, like the Daedalus and Longshot projects, to pave the way for others to follow.

This expansion would build up a solar system wide infrastructure (and economy), so further exploration becomes easier (lower gravity wells, etc.).  There are many possible benefits for earth as well.  For example, we could start mining Helium-3 to solve the earth's coming energy crisis. 

We can do amazing things if we just decide to do them.  Let's get started!