Pride or Practicality? Debating NASA’s Budget

President Biden is requesting close to $27 billion for NASA. Below, this Planetary Society graphic provides some perspective:

Where are we going? To a taste of their budget.

NASA’s Funding

Its Poop and Food Challenges

For NASA’s space walks, poop was a big problem. Solved through one of its crowdsourcing challenges, the winner is a new device with “a small airlock at the crotch of the suit,..” As a result, astronauts will be able to pass expandable items in and out of their spacesuits.

In addition, on May 19, NASA announced the eight finalist food challenge teams. The goal here was figuring out how to feed astronauts on years-long space missions. As you might expect, they had to minimize resources and waste while emerging with healthy and appealing foods. One group, for example, figured out how to use microalgae with fungi to produce a microprotein (Below I’ve linked to a description of all eight projects.)

Costing as little as $30,000 prize money, the NASA challenges are among the cheapest activities in the agency’s $25 million plus budget.

The Moon, Mars and Venus

Then, for the big projects, we could look more closely at the lunar, Mars, and Venus initiatives, and a “space tug ” Called Artemis, sending people to the moon is an $8 billion expense. Perhaps to save some money, Veritas, the 2027 Venus mission, is now on hold. But we are continuing with the Mars Sample Return (MSR). Aiming for a 2028 launch the project includes, “multiple spacecraft, helicopters, an automated Mars launch vehicle, and self-docking orbital elements.” In addition, we have to figure out how to “de-orbit” the International Space Station. One possibility will be a “space tug.”

Then, providing comfort to those of us with asteroid worries, NASA is developing a NEO Surveyor. Its purpose is to protect us from near earth objects. The NEO will be positioned in space at Sun-Earth L1 point where the sun’s and earth’s gravitational pulls balance each other, From that location, it will be able to see what earth’s telescope’s miss because of sun glare,

This will be the NEO:

Our Bottom Line: Tradeoffs

Adding to yesterday’s brief look at their 21 projects I’ve only presented a taste of NASA’s budget. The reason I’ve shared all of this relates to a recent class. Debating NASA’s future, my students were divided. The group that favored slicing their budget said we have too much to take care of here on earth. A second group said NASA was about planning for the future, searching for life beyond our planet, and the national pride that we needed now.

Seeing some of the facts, what is your opinion?.

My sources and more: Here, you can read more about the NASA food challenge, Then, the Planetary Society has all you could possibly want to know about NASA’s funding. As a group that advocates for space exploration, they tell the whole story. And finally, just for fun, you might enjoy (as did I) this Wired story on NASA’s $23 million toilet (and the target practice it requires).