Penny4NASA - "Audacious Visions"

[Yarn]

I support Doubling Funding for NASA and the Future Priorities of U.S. Involvement in Space because for a small price, a penny on the dollar, it provides a rallying point for national pride, a powerful inspiration to a generation of young people for whom technical degrees provide the securest middle class future and the strongest national economy, a positive international experience that can reduce tensions and promote collaboration both geopolitically and professionally, a source of spin offs that save lives and produce wealth, and it opens up an endless beautiful cosmos for human exploration, expansion, love, and zest.
Penny4NASA.org | To increase NASA's budget to 1% of the total US annual budget

In the words of Tyson: "The day we stop exploring is the day we commit ourselves to live in a stagnant world, devoid of curiosity, empty of dreams."

Does anyone else agree with this? Or do you think we spend too much on NASa or about the right amount?

If we don't start home producing scientists and engineers at a much higher level soon, we are going to be toast:

[Charlatan]

Yes, i agree, exploration is good, and research too. To serch for the reult again - research.

[lsbskins1]

Good money spent for the purpose of knowing and learning. We always should seek to know and learn.

[Chris the Chees]

Not only that, but NASA is at the cutting edge of highly relevant research to actual tangible issues of massive humanitarian consequence - namely climate change.

[The Decider]

Come on, Yarn, private industry could have done the NASA thing. Government is too inefficient and corrupt. We need less government and more private enterprise. We need more freedom and less socialism. Can we really trust the intentions of egghead scientists who think our world is threatened by global warming?

:-)

[Yarn]

Come on, Yarn, private industry could have done the NASA thing. Government is too inefficient and corrupt. We need less government and more private enterprise. We need more freedom and less socialism. Can we really trust the intentions of egghead scientists who think our world is threatened by global warming?

:-)

I'll take your line of reasoning seriously when you begin to condemn other pet projects that are funded with a "gun to your head." You know the ones--the interstate highway system, airport infrastructures, postal service, the military, fire and emergency rescue, law enforcement, public schools, and all the other social benefits you love and clearly take for granted. The U.S. spends money on that which captures and expresses the values of its citizenry--all its citizenry.

We don't check boxes to only pay taxes on what we like. If we did, and clearly NASA would not get your check, does that mean I can come over to your house and take those things which come from the space program? Things like the integrated circuits of your electronics. Weather forcasting. Satellite maps. GPS. Battery powered tools. Breast cancer screenings. Most aviation advances. Others who support space exploration would have access to these things. But not you.

Neil deGrasse Tyson: "Audacious Visions" - YouTube

Here is a list of thousands of well-documented spinoffs (which is the last part of this post, because it is ridiculously long) from the past 22 years alone. Do you really want this list to die, to stop expanding? These technologies encompass and advance every scientific and engineering discipline known to man-including medicine. Not only do they make us stupendously wealthier, but they also save countless lives through their medical applications.

Even technologies as pervasive, life saving, and seemingly unrelated to space as MRI machines owe their existence to study of the starry sky.
Could Astrophysics Save Lives?

Yes private industry can do things in space as well, but it has always trailed far behind NASA, and even its efforts often rely on NASA funding. SpaceX, along with several other companies, stands a chance of being the first private company to deliver humans into orbit, more than half a century after governments did this for the first time. Their sole major customer in this endeavor is NASA.

All of this incredible beautiful achievement can be vastly accelerated for a mere penny on the public dollar:

MOD EDIT: removed a sizable section that quoted many, many screens of search results in their entirety, all of which are available at the link below ‽Thanatos‽

Spinoff Database Search Results

[Yarn]

To understand and protect our home planet,
To explore the universe and search for life,
To inspire the next generation of explorers,
...as only NASA can.

[Zeebadee]

Could Astrophysics Save Lives?[/url]

Yes private industry can do things in space as well, but it has always trailed far behind NASA, and even its efforts often rely on NASA funding. SpaceX, along with several other companies, stands a chance of being the first private company to deliver humans into orbit, more than half a century after governments did this for the first time. Their sole major customer in this endeavor is NASA.

All of this incredible beautiful achievement can be vastly accelerated for a mere penny on the public dollar:

You're implying that none of these achievements could be possible without NASA funding them?? I find that hard to believe. Besides, many of these products are used only on NASA craft. In addition, I spot checked a bunch of these products and never saw a price tag on any of the ones I looked at. Isn't it possible that some of them were developed by NASA simply because NASA is the only organization that has the bucks to develop such products of limited use? If there was a commercial need for many of these items, private industry would have developed them.

[Yarn]

You're implying that none of these achievements could be possible without NASA funding them?? I find that hard to believe. Besides, many of these products are used only on NASA craft. In addition, I spot checked a bunch of these products and never saw a price tag on any of the ones I looked at. Isn't it possible that some of them were developed by NASA simply because NASA is the only organization that has the bucks to develop such products of limited use? If there was a commercial need for many of these items, private industry would have developed them.

Sure, if you want to wait years and decades for someone else to invent them, risk other countries inventing them first. and pay them royalties for them, yes, eventually someone will invent them because science, unlike art, is not so much an invention as it is a discovery.

However, NASA is more motivated than most private companies because its rank and file has a far greater passion for what it does, and a lot of innovation comes from trying things people haven't tried before. Just because a private company could make a lot of money if it had thought of something doesn't mean it realizes that it is even a possibility. Per instance, facebook could've accomplish far sooner than it was, but the private sector lagged behind its potential for 5-10 years thereby forgoing and delaying a product worth an eventual tens of billions with negligible development costs.

Not everything on the list is major, but I noted some of the highlights before begining the list. And given that the list includes improvements to extremely common things, such as commercial airliners, airconditioners, medical imagers, gas burners, commercial satellites and their launchers, pharmecutical production, and more; I could go through the list thousands of spin offs since 1990, but just to get that stuff, I only have to go through a fraction of 2011's list. Given how common these things are, or in the case of satellites and launchers how expensive and individually useful they are, improvements to them translate into enormous amounts of savings and improved functionality. In some cases, such as MRIs (which I claim for astrophysics, not specifically a NASA, but medical imaging in general owes a lot to NASA) and satellites the very existence of them is a spin off.

And technology that is initially too expensive for common uses usually gets cheaper overtime, often to the point where it is ubiquitous. But that can never happen until the expensive version is invented first. That doesn't even apply to a lot of this, because a lot of it is more immediately useful, but that is certainly true for much of the rest.

Here are some more of the more notable NASA spin offs, and as you read them, ask yourself how common they are and how much they are worth:

10. Satellite television – Without the technology pioneered by NASA they used to fix errors in spacecraft signals, we would be unable to reduce and correct scrambled pictures and sound in satellite television signals.

9. Memory Foam – Memory foam, also known as temper foam, was developed under a NASA contract in the 1970s that set out to improve seat cushioning and crash protection for airline pilots and passengers. Memory foam has widespread commercial applications, in addition to the popular mattresses and pillows.

8. Ear Thermometer – Diatek Corporation and NASA developed an aural thermometer. It uses infrared astronomy technology to measure the amount of energy emitted by the eardrum, the same way the temperature of stars and planets is measured. This permits quick temperature measurement of newborn or incapacitated patients.

7. Invisible braces – Invisible braces are made of translucent polycrystalline alumina. A company called Ceradyne developed TPA in conjunction with NASA Advanced Ceramics Research to protect the infrared antennae of heat-seeking missile trackers. Another company, Unitek, was working on a new design for dental braces. They discovered that TPA would be strong enough to withstand use and is translucent, making it a prime material for invisible braces.

6. Scratch resistant lenses – Scratch-resistant lenses were developed by NASA by applying a diamond-like lubricating coat over plastic lenses. This application was originally used in the space program in a “dual ion-beam bonding process” to protect astronaut’s visors. Today, the coating is still used on hard resin plastic used in most eye glasses that people wear everyday.

5. Modern Insulation – Thanks to developing special vacuum metalizing techniques, NASA was able to create Insulating barriers made of metalized foil laid over a core of propylene or mylar, which protected astronauts and their spacecraft’s delicate instruments from radiation and heat. This is now found in common home insulation.

4. Cordless tools – While the first was invented by Black & Decker in 1961, in 1963 Martin Marietta Corporation contracted with Black & Decker to design tools for NASA. As a result of this work, Black & Decker created several spinoffs, including cordless lightweight battery powered precision medical instruments and a cordless miniature vacuum cleaner called the Dustbuster. This research paved the way for our current cordless tools.

3. Water Filters/Purification – Since bacteria and sickness would be highly problematic, Astronauts needed a way to cleanse the water taken up into space. Water filter technology had existed since the 1950s, but NASA wanted to know how to clean water in more extreme situations and keep it clean for longer periods of time. The technique of activated carbon filters and silver ions to clean water pioneered by NASA is in most home water filters we use today.

2. Adjustable Smoke Detectors – Teaming up with Honeywell Corporation, NASA invented the first adjustable smoke detector with different sensitivity levels to prevent false alarms. They use a radioactive element called americium-241 to spot smoke or harmful gasses. When clean air particles of oxygen and nitrogen move through smoke detectors, the americium-241 ionizes them, which creates an electrical current. If foreign smoke particles enter the smoke detector, it disrupts that interaction, triggering the alarm.



1. CAT scanners – When NASA engineers faced the difficulty of locating a safe landing spot amidst the dust fields of the moon, they developed a scanning system using high-frequency sound waves, magnets, and computers. This new scanning technology translated into ultrasounds, MRI machines, and CAT-scans widely used by doctors today.

http://zidbits.com/2010/11/top-ten-nasa-spinoffs/

[grandpa]

Sure, if you want to wait years and decades for
someone else to invent them, risk other countries inventing them
first.
and pay them royalties for them, yes, eventually someone will
invent them because science, unlike art, is not so much
an invention as it is a discovery.

Things aren't typically discovered or invented by someone who's been a bureaucrat too long. In fact, plenty of discoveries/inventions are from an "outside the market" inventor.

The idea we must compete with other countries to develop technology is such a bureaucratic thing today.

And now that you've mentioned art, I should note that there's more to music (for example) than royalties derived from songwrting credits, and music is also full of discovery (and yes, a considerable amount of science).

Discovery is often within the confines of popular acceptance. Syphilis was probably discovered before syphilis was a word, for example.

Anyway, I look forward to more on this and other invention-related topics.

Grandpa h.

[Yarn]

Bureaucrats didn't invent these things, scientists and engineers did. The most you might argue is the administration of the effort, as per force administration must always do, delegated the labor and funds.

[HoleyCarbonGrid]

Scientific research is, by far, the greatest economic engine on earth. Consider the revolution of the silicon-based transistor (i.e., the computer chip), the internet, and internet sales.

Education, in turn, leads to scientific research. In the modern world, no one invents something purely out of the blue - they do so by recongizing a gap in current human knowledge or use of technology, and inventing a device that fills that whole or furthers its use.

As such, NASA is an incredibly important social and economic engine. Amongst the Federal research labs in the U.S., I would rank NASA's as most important - amongst Lawrence Livermore, or the cyclotron in Illinois, or the recently constructed dark-matter detector in (I think) North Dakota.

Why?

Private industry is very, very good at giving consumers unmet needs in capitalism. But it is very bad at creating unmet needs - hence why government-funded scientists invented radar, the computer, and other interesting things.

**Historical side-note: the term "computer," originally applied to women employed in Monte Carlo (that is, random chance) calculations involved in the Manhattan Project. Scientists would essentially give "computers," a list of values for the density of a plutonium seed, the speed of a neutron, etc, etc. and they'd calculate how likely fission was to occur.

So, yes, the computer has its genesis, its invention, and its modern employment entirely due to government research and funding.

Otherwise, IGF might have invented the atomic bomb before the U.S. government.