[Brokinarrow]

Originally Posted by Russo

i think there are 2 ways you can look at it... the first way is that: Does the government have the power to pay for exploration? while we did pay for Lewis and Clark's discovery of the West, it doesn't make it right.. the other way you can look at it is: Does our goverment have a right to finance NASA as a company... NASA is not designed like a private company in that it provides a good or service that people need/want/desire, it instead is designed to strictly spend money without a profit... with that being said, no private company could ever establish a foothold in space Guess that's why we have a bunch of private sector space companies developing their own spacecraft now, huh? ...

the next question would probably be: What kind of economic impact does NASA provide our country?
the budget for 2010 is proposed at $18.7 billion, that may seem like a small number compared to the entire nations budget, however $18.7 billion could almost repair our wetlands here in LA...

i don't have a problem with NASA, it's just we cannot continue to support our world empire, bail out companies, fund 2 wars, and prop up wall street...This I agree with, we need to pull our concerns back here where they belong and give NASA a bigger budget to do things that actually matter for the long term.

This is getting dangerously close to becoming a political discussion though...