Football is a very important pastime to a lot of people. Just playing devil's advocate here: can you name one reason why those NASA programs are more important than the football arena, without making reference to your own subjective value system which would be at odds with that of the ardent football fan's?
How about limiting health calamities caused by hypertension or congestive heart failure? http://ims.ivv.nasa.gov/centers/glenn/news/pressrel/2008/08-... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_Spinoff has a nice list.
There is also added infrastructure cost, police cost and more. But you're right that the football budget is less than the Space budget. But why is ANY public money being spent on personal entertainment when it could be spent on progress? another 4 billion a year could pay for a lot of research and scholarships.
Of course we have heard of the comparison between gladiators and football players, but I never realized people back then were as vehemently opposed to that sort of thing as they are now.
I thought it was a growing consciousness, but really it is just me becoming more aware of people who agree with me... But people like me have lived forever and if it's been 5000 years without any change, why should I expect anything will change through the course of my life?
Football can and would exist without subsidies. Spending public funds to support private industry is a bad economic decision. Funding space travel on the other hand is something that would not exist without public funds. So it's outside of the effecency debate. “debating gladiator reform while Rome burns…”
Funding space travel on the other hand is something that would not exist without public funds. So it's outside of the effecency debate. If activity X is to matter in people's lives, it needs to be scalable. To be scalable it needs to be profitable. Since the U.S. government does not operate on a profit motive, the spending on the space program will have as little long term impact as the Zheng He fleets. You should re…
perhaps the federal government should fund commercial endeavors in space like they fund commercial endeavors in sports.
Lots of people would pay to go to space if they could afford it. Make it affordable.
Funding space travel on the other hand is something that would not exist without public funds. So it's outside of the effecency debate. If activity X is to matter in people's lives, it needs to be scalable. To be scalable it needs to be profitable. Since the U.S. government does not operate on a profit motive, the spending on the space program will have as little long term impact as the Zheng He fleets. You should re…
perhaps the federal government should fund commercial endeavors in space like they fund commercial endeavors in sports. Lots of people would pay to go to space if they could afford it. Make it affordable.
The federal government doesn't fund sports at all. Stadium subsidies are usually a municipal or state matter at best.
perhaps the federal government should fund commercial endeavors in space like they fund commercial endeavors in sports. Lots of people would pay to go to space if they could afford it. Make it affordable.
The federal government doesn't fund sports at all. Stadium subsidies are usually a municipal or state matter at best.
It doesn't matter which entity signs the check, it all comes from the tax payers. If the feds weren't paying for the roads, the municipalities would. It's all the same.
There is also added infrastructure cost, police cost and more. But you're right that the football budget is less than the Space budget. But why is ANY public money being spent on personal entertainment when it could be spent on progress? another 4 billion a year could pay for a lot of research and scholarships.
The government doesn't give all of its money to space exploration (or other worthy causes) and spends money on entertainment for the same reason you don't give all your money to space exploration (or other worthy causes) and spend some money (including time) on entertainment. The only way that could happen is if we, as a species, could somehow dedicate all of our time to "worthy pursuits", but we can't. We need downt…
Sure. However, Political Will is the deciding factor here. And, many people want sports stadiums in their cities and won't abandon their politicians for agreeing to build them. I am critical of our cultural perceptions of the role of government, not of the government as such.