NASA isn't why the US doesn't have universal healthcare, or a social safety net. The US doesn't have those things because politicians with the power to provide them choose specifically not to (with varying levels of support from voters). Enthusiasm for human spaceflight doesn't drive that choice.

April 06, 2026 - 02:10 UTC

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20007
Socialism=
PlanServiceTaxLawRegs That
•Don’t Mostly Benefit Donors
•Aren’t Privatized

Under Ike 1953-61:
Top Inc+Corp Tax
Rates=90%+50%
Under
GWB—$2T Iran WMD OilWar
DJT 1.0—$2T Tax Cut for Rich

GOP “funds“ it by Cuts
SS•Medicare•Medicaid
NASA•NPR USPS+Schools
arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/04/elon-musk-insists-banks-wor
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Love this. I’m so tired of seeing “we have money to go to space but not save our planet”. No, we do.
We have enough money to prevent climate change.
We have enough money to end homelessness.
We have enough money to end world hunger.
We don’t do these things cuz we don’t want to.
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The reason we don’t “save our planet“ is because there’s more money to be made for corporations in *not* saving the planet.

A realistic approach to combating climate change would necessitate major worldwide shifts in how transportation, agriculture, & power usage are conducted.

1/3
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Once they start seeing to all the needs then there would be no one left to kiss their ass like they want
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✅
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It's all an investment scam.

We're never leaving this planet, or this solar system, or galaxy.

We evolved to live here, specifically on this planet. This atmosphere, this gravity, this level of radiation.

We will live, die, and go extinct here.

Not a bad thing, everything ends.
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I think I remember from primary school, around the time of the Apollo missions, hearing the factoid that more was spent in the US on cosmetics than on NASA. IOW (latent sexism apart) that the space exploration budget was trivially small. Perennial argument!
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The reason we don't have those things, Republicans... 🤬
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Oh we could fucking afford to cut the military budget by 650 bn.
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💯🎯🎯🎯
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America does not have a social safety net or healthcare because your country has been at war for 226 of your 249 years. War is expensive.
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Billionaires is why we dont have Healthcare.
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It is the love of money that prevents universal health care in the form of private health insurance. Insurance companies put profits first for their investors. Please don't get me started on for-profit prisons either.
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bsky.app/profile/rbreich.bsky.social/post/3mirxjew4ic2r THIS is one of the reasons WHY.
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That's irrelevant to NASA buying trips on Falcon 9 Dragon or Starship Super Heavy, let alone the rest of NASA's budget.

NASA's money goes to pay scientists, engineers, and skilled workers to build and operate things.

The net wealth is because the ownership class doesn't have to share with workers.
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Americans love war and killing civilians on the other side of the world...but it's an expensive pass time.
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NASA's budget is pennies compared to the shit our politicians waste money on.
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I’ve been guilty of thinking like this. I was wrong.
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The actual reason is very simple. Half of Americans who vote (roughly) vote for Republicans. And Republican leaders ALL oppose all of those things. Every single one. Every time. Their voters don't, but they vote for leaders who do. Instead they support tax cuts for the rich & bombs for the DOD.
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Exactly. I'm tired of hearing we're broke. Americans work harder than any other country. We don't get 3 months off for vacation, we don't have universal child care, or health. We're all hustling day on and day out, these bastards live off of us. I'd rather feed the poor than feed pedophiles.
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the Citizens United Court case decision is why the US doesn't have universal health care. Insurance companies are allowed to spend infinite money to lobby against universal healthcare because "money is speech"
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They also like it when the blood of innocents floods the streets of any country thay would defy them, but thats expensive.

The thing is if they don't kill enough children the dark magic that influences the stock market will wane
True story
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Absolutely. The US doesn’t have those things because a ton of money is created by not having them. And as blatantly bribery is allowed, politicians are swayed forever to never change a thing.
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The Anti-NASA sentiment is comparable to thought one gets seeing a Bentley parked in the hood. Someone's priorities are just fucked up. Ask the owner and they'll have an explanation. But, I'll be damned if the optics aren't stark.
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I agree with you. I am just having a hard time being enthusiastic for human space flight when robotic spaceflight is getting shat upon so thoroughly.
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Someone gets it.

Artemis is wholesale gobbling up whatever the NASA budget is, to impress the yokels. Actual science is done by getting rid of the baggage and complications.
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I watched John Glenn circle the Earth in my 1st grade classroom. Even with my dad being self employed, we had great heathcare when I was a kid.
Americans had both NASA and healthcare in 1962. And many single income families with a stay at home parent.
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US taxpayers paying for the zionist’s “iron dome’ does
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I also don't understand the enthusiasm for going to the moon. I am proud of the achievements of the NASA. But. We will be able to fly to the Moon, and WHO will be the first possibly live there? Yes, not us, ordinary. We will provide for those who will live on the moon(and these are not scientists).
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The whole point of funding things like this is that they push advancements in science that actually do make their way down to the average person. Sure the average guy won't live on the moon but advancements in material sciences might make buildings safer as an example.
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No one's living on the moon, really. It's certainly not going to be covered in space mansions. The moon is an inhospitable wasteland bombarded with radiation and lacking even the most basic life-sustaining resources — imagine your most threadbare grocery shopping schedule magnified a trillionfold.
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I think we have spent more on a gains humanity nothing war than NASA. I think adjusted for Inflation Apollo was something like 100bn. They want 200bn for Iran and now 1.5tn total for the DOD. Just imagine how much good for science we would get with half of that 1.5tn going to NASA instead.
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Yeap! Take 50% of the defense budget, put it towards... oh I don't know; Education, infrastructure, healthcare, social security, renewable energy, and there would still be money left over to lower the national debt. It is past time we removed lobbying from our Government.
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People trying to cut the budget of NASA just want the endless American war machine to rage on
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What NASA's budget?! .00002% or something like that...
Funny how they always find money for War, but not Healthcare or Veterans.
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yeah, but

whitey on the moon
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🎯
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True,
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It's frequently pointed out that NASA activities (and basic/exploratory science in general) have a fantastic return on investment, contributing far more to the economy than they take. But even if they didn't, no one's actually taking from the "cure sick people" pot to put money in the "rockets" pot
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And because racist white people would rather go without public services than see Black people benefit from them.
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I think NASA could (and should, imo) have near infinite budget to do whatever they want re: science and exploration and we'd still have more than enough capacity to fund better social services and universal healthcare without even touching the bloated military budget.
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Enthusiasm for the department of war does. And that's where all the money is.
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True. The two major reasons we don’t have universal healthcare are the insurance companies who want to keep the status quo and bribe politicians 💰💰💰 accordingly; and in 1979 we turned away from healthcare as a basic human right and service towards for-profit healthcare.

You have to destroy both.
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$1T in defense spending would buy a lot of healthcare. As we've seen in Ukraine and Iran, cheap drones and anti-armor/aircraft/ship defenses are pretty damn cost-effective.
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What gets funded gets built. The rest is just debate
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War is much more expensive
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Very true. Well said.

There is so much noise "floating the zone" people tend to lose track of the details and reality.
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Nonsense. The NASA budget is a tiny sliver of all spending & at least they're doing good things.
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Also, the entire fund/defund cycle for NASA in part feeds the military industrial complex. The skills it takes to get a rocket to very specific parts of the moon. Very niche. Turns out the engineer doing that can only really work in private space or missles after we lay them off to 'save money'
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Like, you think you're trimming the fat, but you're just moving Steve the Rocket Engineer from a cost center of peace to a cost center of war.
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My parents had great healthcare for us when I was growing up. We also had a thriving NASA program so it is possible.
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I was talking about the lunar geology science that should come from the missions and a (otherwise enlightened) friend replied blithely “what if we just fed people”. Mind you I’m an impoverished grad student and the friend is a white shoe lawyer
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It's run by private money just like the prisons.
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👍
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Cruelty and Greed drive that choice.
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Agreed. Human exploration, not only of the Moon but through crewless spacecraft to outer space beyond the limits of our solar system, is fundamental to basic science and, for most of us, to the human spirit. It costs very little compared to the federal budget and does not affect other allocations.
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One of the main reasons the US doesn't have Universal Health Care is that the Powers that Be can't figure out how to just give it to white people.
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No Katie there's 30 Scientist class pops and they can be assigned to space, war, or medicine, and we NEED the first 25 on war
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Also we're selling 5 of them
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You can't have all the things if your goal is to bomb the shit out of the world.

The Department of WAR needs money.

#FUDJT #FUJDV #FUPH
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Space exploration is one of the only decent things we do with our tax dollars
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I get why it feels that way space is one of the few areas where the outcome is clearly constructive, forward-looking, and not zero-sum. It’s discovery, engineering, and something that can bring people together instead of dividing them.
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And one of the only decent ways we innovate and further science, ie not trying to keep people poor, stupid or fighting in another useless war over oil
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I feel like if people got together on their own and somehow figured how to do universal healthcare without the govt...

The govt would shut that shit down.

Like it's not just "we won't do it" it's "you can't have it"

They don't want healthy able bodied people pissed at them
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They're called consumer-operated and oriented-plan programs, and they struggle because, yes, the government would prefer to kill them off if they could. CO-OP coverage has dwindled from 24 states to just 4 as of 2026 due to a lack of funding.
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Yeah, the money we spend (or don't) on NASA or wars wouldn't magically get re-routed to healthcare or any kind of social programs. We have enough for all of it.
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The US doesn’t have universal healthcare nor a safety net because the majority of Americans, lead by white people, do not want “their money” going to the Blacks.
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Politicians of BOTH parties.

Never forget.....
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Fiscal conservative Republicans would rather spend billions on wars, deportations and flying Republicans around on private jets to golf courses and other exclusive places.
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It's because we spend the money on the military, more than the next twenty something countries combined, most of whom are allies. It's the military-industrial complex and loopholes for billionaires that leave people sick and hungry in this country
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While that may be true, it's hard to watch the celebration of a rocket to the moon when your kid doesn't have basic healthcare.
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Well said.
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You don’t have universal healthcare because your taxes are lower than countries that do.

On £100k/$130k UK marginal tax rate is 40%. US is 22%

Very little to do with NASA

Universal healthcare has to be paid for. It’s a choice.
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That 40% also pays for a buffet of social programs that the US has also privatized and delivers poorly upon, which is why "just raise taxes!" isn't going to be a winning argument. The US spends much, much, much, much, MUCH more than the UK does and gets a fraction of as much.
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This graph shows the issue succinctly: taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/how-do-us-taxes-compare-internationally US could easily up the rate of marginal tax to pay for decent healthcare.
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Giving 900+ billion to the military probably has something to do with it.
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Try to keep up, it's 1.5T$ this year for our priority spend

#TaxTheRich #FightFascism
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Is this also going to be an issue with the 1,500 billion they want next year?
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Fund NASA and dump SPACEX
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The same people who favor money for the military industrial complex and military spending will not favor spending on building a universal healthcare system for Americans or social welfare and housing. They will cut NASA’s budget with the same disfavour/need to find funding for their forever wars.
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I get the frustration you’re pointing at a real tension in how priorities get set. Big buckets like defense, healthcare, and social programs tend to get debated by different coalitions for different reasons, and that can make it feel inconsistent.
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This needs to stop being a one thing or another issue. If they refuse to give up the forever wars then they need to have a set percentage that CANNOT BE CUT going to things like universal healthcare and space exploration. There cannot be a viable future if half of it is spent bombing other countries
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And they choose not to because they'd rather fund the bombing of socialists around the world to try to preserve the sanctity of capitalism.
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NASA's budget is like less than .5% of the national budget. There are way, way worse things getting way more money that deserve way more ire than NASA.

Way.
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NASA's budget also pays for skilled people to do skilled things and produce science that's applied to our industry and society.

That money goes into our communities, not some billionaire' pocketbooks. Even Blue Origin and Space X aren't paying their owners - they're investing in more skilled work!
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NASA is one of the few positive things in the U.S. -the reason you don’t have universal healthcare is that too many people are getting very rich from your horrific insurance based system. Americans are force fed the nonsense that socialist policies are bad for them by the people bleeding them dry.
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NASA historically generates quite a bit more wealth than it costs for the US tax base
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I made a similar argument on substack to an environmental writer whose work I respect. He said he would block anyone who defended the mission. true to his word, he blocked me. Sad, since I believe we make more progress toward a future where people and planet thrive when we are open to all voices.
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True
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4.1 billion dollars for a moon mission vs more than 49 billion and counting for one month of a stupid evil war in the Middle East that we were specifically promised wouldn’t happen
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Thank you 🙏

I support Basic Science - so by extension, space exploration - with every ounce of my being.

NASA’s ENTIRE ANNUAL BUDGET isn’t a 10th what OPed has itself grifted.
The ENTIRE COST of Artemis II program isn’t 50% of what OPeD has set fire to fellating bibibibibibi.

Science
Before
Graft
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The war is likely to be in the trillions in global effects if it doesn’t end very soon. The direct cost is a tiny part of it. Fertilizer, diesel —> food —> defense buildup —> deficits —> higher interest/mortgage rates —> inflation + slower growth.
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I don't understand why Americans don't want to see other Americans not be in pain. The selfishness about where their tax money is spent is unbelievable. Instead of helping someone get an MRI they would rather their money be dropped on school kids to murder them.
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💯. I wish people would look at the back of their tax forms instruction booklet and see the pie charts of major govt income and outlays. Space is a fraction of a sliver of one of the small outlay pie wedges.
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Cost per person for healthcare in 🇨🇦 $8000. Cost per person in the 🇺🇸 $17,000. That $9,000 difference is profit. That's why you don't have healthcare Charlie Brown. (Lucy from Peanuts talking from her booth).
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Indeed. The US already spends more on healthcare than any other industrialized country, by pretty much any metric you can come up with. Total $'s. Per capita. % GDP, etc.

With worse outcomes.

The problem is that we spend it really stupidly.
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The problem is the largely privatised Health Care system in USA reliant on insurance payments from employees insurers! #Luigi
The Answer:
Universal health care paid for by an hypothecated tax based on income & Free under a certain level !!
A healthier nation is more productive!
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Things we could have both of: nasa and (x ,y ,z, etc)
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America doesn't have universal healthcare or a functional social safety net because of:

Republicans

And the Clinton-Carville shitshow allowed Republicans to rebrand themselves as ConservaDEMs/DLC/3rd Way.

The answer to all of America's problems since the 1964 Civil Rights Acts is Republicans.
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really!!!
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This isn’t a billionaire burining money to go to space for a few seconds to satisfy his ego

This is science and exploration, and that budget isn’t taking away from the healthcare budget
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NASA is a smidgen of U.S. federal expenditures - "Since the 1970s, NASA has accounted for, on average, 0.71% of annual U.S. government spending. Since the 2010s, that value has been between 0.4% and 0.3%." www.planetary.org/space-policy/nasa-budget yielding over-sized economic & scientific returns.
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Space flight was doomed from the moment Humanity decided to invest into rockets instead of space abled planes. And nowadays it's a pathetic waste of money given that we won't last another 10 years. So fuck artemis, fuck the moon
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and the debate against defense's outrageous spending is sterile because yanks have always been fucking warmongers
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Now we have resorted to cutting education spending because space exploration isn’t profitable enough.
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And it's so wild, watching them blame everything else while beginning for 200b to conduct an illegal, unpopular war while also asking for a 1.5t military budget
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You really want the government to save money, let the military submit it's own budget proposal.
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exploration/exploitation tradeoff, pushing the envelope yields learning and inspires people

at its peak, US was spending 0.4% of GDP on human spaceflight

obv shouldn't be dismantling basic science either
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The U.S. doesn’t have healthcare because our Military budget is bigger than 9 (nine) nations COMBINED and they have healthcare.
The nation’s are: Russia, China, the UK, France, India, Germany, Japan, South Korea and Israel!
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All again ☝️
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unfortunately i still just don't care about it, it doesn't feel historical or even interesting. that's not the fault of NASA but it's also not my fault
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🥸🤔
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And since there isn't a safety net, it's really nice that NASA provides a lot of jobs, both within the agency and to contractors - including a lot of small businesses across the country.

Over a 4 year period (2021-2025) NASA did $18 billion in contracts with small businesses.
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Though I personally don't see the benefit of crewed missions like this, I will always support the endeavour.

The entire space shuttle program cost the same as one year of the UK's National Health Service .....
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no, that's because of the war industry 🙃
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No, out of the American tax dollar nasa takes only 0.35%, that’s 35% of a cent for every dollar, yet they still fly multi billion dollar flights
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Yup
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There most definitely is a correlation within the budget. I agree that it's due to the politicians, but NASA needs to be cut, and by a LOT. My opinion.
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Why cut NASA over military spending?
Why not reform broken health care spending?
Why not cut DHS instead?

These are all way way bigger, any cut to NASA.
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Ty for saying this—I want to flood my feed with space pics but I know that money could feed people too? House folks in MN with the change leftover from that. Still, we all need to look up to something and space is up there too. Carl Sagan didn’t live in perfect times either but I love him 🔭
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That money would never feed people. NASA budget cuts go to military spending and congressional pay raises only.
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That tension you’re feeling is very real and honestly, a lot of thoughtful people land in that same place.
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The attacks on NASA are driving me nuts.
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Wow that does not work, here is the link. www.jpl.nasa.gov/infographics/20-inventions-we-wouldnt-have-without-space-travel/
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Mostly true. Fk capitalism.

We need to build a system that serves the working class.
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Dithering on this point, by most of the "network" coverage of the launch, was surprising/infuriating to me. Like *how* is the average American *this* stupid?
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For families who work but still cannot afford healthcare, the sacrifice they're making somehow doesn't reconcile with a $90 billion project that's not helping them now and likely, will only help the wealthiest escape the planet. The planet that they're greed and a sense of entitlement, is killing.
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Fuck you.
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Also NASA has some crossover tech with the Military Industrial Complex. Space Force, anyone? So it feeds at essentially the same Government Trough.

Meanwhile Big-Pharma, Big-Insurance, and Big-Hospital are all quite happy with the Status Quo in America. Damn the Citizens.
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Fascism only grows through monopoly. Fight back by placing anti-monopoly people like Lina Khan into positions of power, both local and national.
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Yeah I mean its not like rocket development has ever been used for weapons
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🙄
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Correct.

You can describe it various ways, but I think it's just a mean streak in the country.
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I get why it can look that way especially when you see clear needs go unmet while huge sums go elsewhere. That can feel less like a technical budget issue and more like a values issue.
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The military is why we don't have Healthcare. NASA gets about 0.4% of the federal budget. The military gets 14%.
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Republicans think anything that actually helps everyday Americans is a money pit. Little Mikey has said as much. But the truth is in their horrific governance. Sigh. We used to be a country that took pride in accomplishments.
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Literally. The US also spends more on hospital admin per capita than other countries. 15-30% of our Healthcare spending is on administration. I believe the reason for this is because doctors have fewer legal protections against being sued in the US and private insurance if I'm not mistaken.
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True. We could shut down our space program tomorrow and not a single kid would eat or cancer patient be cured.
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I read this as “is” not “isn’t” at first, and almost lost it
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Saaaaame. Blood pressure going artemis rocket hard
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NASA is a revenue positive organization. Their scientific discoveries and technological research has brought revenue and fuelled innovation much more (3x the investment) than what had been put into it.

While the military is a money pit.
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Eep Opp Ork
Ah-Ah!!!
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I certainly recommend not cutting off the leading specialists in operating climate monitoring satellites, personally, considering the state of things
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Not much point sending an image of a fragile Earth if the administration is then cutting Earth Sciences and the President urging us all to “drill baby drill” 🤔
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A robust universal healthcare program would cost in the realm of 4-5 trillion USD per year. If we doubled NASA's budget tomorrow (yes please) it would still be less than 1% of the upper end of that estimate
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Our going back to the moon is viewed as a national security issue. We don't want other nations building outposts without us, and there is a good chance resources to do so (mainly water) are on the moon's south pole. We are racing other nations to find out.
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Viewed by who.
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Even in 1972, the year of the last Apollo landing, the expenditure was well less than 2% of GDP, and it's pretty much gone steadily down since. If *that* was why we don't have adequate social services, how else to explain the last 54 years???
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Agree so hard. Want to grab people who think like this and shake them until their brains start to work.
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NASA’s budget is a tiny fraction compared to the us military and is responsible for so many amazing things in our world.
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Holy shit we need a countdown before you go around dropping the truth like this.
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You have a significant voting bloc represented by politicians who prefer to punish their enemies than reward the populace with standard health & education standards that are normalised anywhere else in the west, and increasingly elsewhere.

I gather racism is at the very heart of that voting bloc.
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Mike Johnson from one of the poorest States with the lowest education levels highest need for food services and healthcare continues to use his perverted Christian views to strip people of dignity services and lies about it knowing his bigotry convinces white Evangelicals to vote for him
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Yup. Shut down NASA and you’ve got enough money for another week of Trump’s war in Iran.
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Until we send in the troops...
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Truth.
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Universal Healthcare has been presented as SOCIALISM to Americans, who have been programmed to fear and hate Socialism.

Insurance companies have a lot of influence on lawmakers, they aren't about to give up that cash cow that is 'health insurance'
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Because the billionaires said...NO!
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No it's because of racism.
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Absolutely right. And a big part of that problem of fearful and short-sighted politicians is that they instead spend hundreds of billions of public dollars massively subsidizing a purely private choice in transportation, private personal cars, meaning our lowest-income neighbors must subsidize them.
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well said!!
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Universal healthcare would obviate the need for health insurance providers. Insurance companies (not just health) contributed approximately $60 million for federal campaigns in 2024. That level of funding might have just a bit of significance in why our healthcare system is chaotic at best.
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We should spend less on military and wars of aggression.
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x.com/thekevindalton/status/2040949241225597411?s=46
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Gotta have it just in case some space critter starts to kill the sun.

Could probably cut costs in the bomb department instead.
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“Country X is just about to find out why Americans don’t have universal healthcare…”

What happens when the expensive equipment turns out to be useless?
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I think NASA engenders a sense of common purpose that complements those policy goals.
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What republicans spent by not passing budgets for the last four years would provide first class healthacre to the entire country for years.
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“The US doesn't have those things because politicians with the power to provide them choose specifically not to (with varying levels of support from voters)”

Why would politicians choose not to provide those things?

Google public pool then consider reading this book:
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Around 38 billion of Elon's money is our tax money.
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That's not at all how that works.

His wealth is stupid and shouldn't exist, but fucking no, that's not at all how that works.
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Cut defense, especially for unneeded wars. Billions saved easily. Take Care of America #TCA
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The US doesn’t have those things, not “because politicians with the power to provide them choose specifically not to,” but because there are people in the US (mostly white) who don’t want brown people to have those things so badly that they’d rather go without them themselves. Politicians know this.
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You ever notice how it's always anything but the entities with the highest tax related income? It's never the military, it's never the billions in corp tax cuts...it's trans people, immigrants, seniors, and low-income families that the right-wing pedogarchy and their tools point their fingers at.
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Whoever said it was never showed up in my feed. My only frustration related to NASA is the outsourcing to private companies, especially the Musk/Bezos companies.
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NASA gave us the technology that created all the tech billionaires- yet these billionaires feel as if they are self made and give back little to the society that made them so incredibly wealthy
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Blame the Pentagon & billionaires for not having funding for ANYTHING that benefits tax payers. No infrastructure. No public school funding. No good healthcare. Rampant wage theft. Division.

It's all because of the billionaires, and their PACs.
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I agree. Running a country is complex. We can't abolish everything except social services. Sadly, the GOP seems to be forcing some very difficult choices by deficit spending, cutting taxes on the wealthiest and now depleting military stockpiles. Also Doge wasted money and saved nothing.
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America, as a nation, pays 3x the UK's NHS budget [pro rata] into healthcare. National healthcare would also create massive savings.
Not having universal healthcare is the choice the parties make for you.
Both parties are on the same side..... and it's not yours.
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We should also remember why it is called NASA and not USASA or USSA
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National Aeronautics and Space Administration?

National isn't much different than US in that context.
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Seems like a waste of money when I literally can't afford healthcare or food
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If they took all the money from NASA they wouldn't give any of it to you, that's the point being made
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Artemis ii will cost less than our "excursion" in Iran.
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It is the use it or lose it policy, lack of auditing on those who access government programs (corporations/contractors), insane military budget, and privatization of programs.
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It's just the tax payer funded test runs for the billionaires whonwill do it in the future . The billionaires should' be funding it right now
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I agree, but that nasa dude with the big ears going on fox and talking like trump really annoys the shit out of me
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I honestly see NASA as a social program. It is not inherently meant to benefit corporations or the rich, its meant to inspire and benefit us all. to conduct research, development and innovate space technologies, which end up going to us, to inspire more people to follow STEM, as well as just
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furthering our knowledge of whatever they are trying to do.

Getting rid of NASA or stopping space exploration will never ever suddenly start funding social programs, it'll just be sent straight to the defense budget like everything else is.
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This is also true for various other bogeymen (black ppl, migrants, israel etc).

We don’t have those things because we elect people who don’t want those things.
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That's true I guess, but still... Spending on anything space-related while there's one poor person on Earth makes us look like the bad people we are.
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No, spending billions upon billions on unprovoked wars and tax cuts for billionaires while there’s one poor person on earth is what makes us look like the bad people we are. NASA is one of the very few American things that the rest of the world still views favorably.
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i gurantee you that getting rid of space funding would never go to a single poor person. That budget would immediately be redirected to the defense budget, or ICE, or anyone else but the poor.

Space science is benefical to us. It will always be benefical to us. Use your energy to fight the
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Perhaps all museums and art schools should be shuttered since they take money better spent on putting food in mouths and roofs over heads.
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I’m sure the budget of NASA is substantially smaller than government subsidies for billionaires and their corporations and the military, of course:
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Well said!
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I took "History of the Space Program" in college and we talked about this - there was this chart that showed NASA funding compared to other government spending- NASA was a tiny fraction of every other agency - especially when compared to military spending.
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Probably has more to do with rich folks wanting to cut capital gaines taxes 5% from where they were in the 50s and 60s, like when we were exploring space.
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If people want stuff like universal healthcare they need to get out and vote for candidates who promise to deliver it. Plenty do.

The people have the power and responsibility ultimately lies with the people to educate themselves about what their candidates are or are not promising.
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1.5 trillion on war and hate. Completely unnecessary.
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Quite simple no universal health care because of the idolatry of money and the AMA!
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Support from voters is gained through fear propaganda about the evils of socialism, then fools vote against their own best interests out of both fear and ignorance.
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You don't have healthcare cause 163 little girls on the other side of the world HAD to die. There simply was no alternative.
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Fear, blame and violence are the only languages they understand
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Universal health care would be deflationary too. everyone talks about how to “pay for” universal healthcare but total spending would go down so if anything you’d have to reduce taxes
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Not one person in Australia has ever gone bankrupt due to hospital or medical care. Can the USA say that?
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About 10% of bankruptcies in Australia are from medical debt.

That's much, much better than the US, but it's not zero.
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👍
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NASA has developed so many things we use in everyday life.
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I cannot understand why anyone would be against universal healthcare, no matter how it is delivered. They’re under the impression that Medicare patients see specialized Medicare doctors. It’s ridiculous.
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Billions in propaganda and misinformation programs over a century, hinging upon racism. After all, you don't want YOUR money being spent on THOSE PEOPLE, do you?
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It is also the level of support (money) from lobbyists. Please support 100% Democracy and 100% money out of politics on my website: www.nationalfinancialplan.com
It only takes a few minutes/it doesn't cost any money. We don't need money in politics. We just need people to participate.
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I disagree.
You don't have universal health care since you:
1. Spend way too much on military corruption
2. Refuse to non-profit healthcare
(let alone non-profit human suffering, like prisons and detention centers).
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I don't think that is disagreeing ?
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youtu.be/_S0Pjhh2A9g?si=on_k8sTPWJ8bKJXp
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Fun fact: Iran has universal healthcare.
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This is one of those issues that will affect the money of everyone in the industry and support industries from Drs to hospitals to pharma and even medical supplies and more. It’s one of those rare instances where they buy off both dems and the gop regardless 80% of Americans want m4a
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Yes, but please remember that there have been many individual politicians who fought there entire careers to bring these things about.
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The universal healthcare sounds too good to be true, right?

We’re America! We prefer Social Darwinism over Social Democracy, ‘cause the elite says so!
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NASA and the military, driven by the need to squash communism, and its welfare systems.
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I'm guessing the billions per day the US are spending on illegal war might have more to do with it.
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This is why we don't have universal healthcare or a social safety net. It isn't NASA.
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You’re right that NASA isn’t the reason the U.S. doesn’t have universal healthcare or a stronger safety net. The scale just doesn’t line up cutting NASA entirely wouldn’t come close to funding or sustaining those systems.
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🤬...Agreed...NASA is important...it's the tax cuts for those who don't pay taxes and the obscene Military budget and our forever wars...And the Nazi Republican Party that hates regular people...🤬
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Total health spending in the US is approximately 212 NASA budgets (5.3T vs 0.025T)
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👀
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Yeah, that comparison is actually pretty close and it’s a striking way to visualize scale
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www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDK2chgNPZM
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Disaster Capitalism wins hands down. Plus, there is nothing you can do to stop it.
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What probably deprives American from these benefits it’s not the military but these endless wars
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While they have it themselves on our tax dollars.
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The stat that gets me is that the spending for the entire Artemis program over the past fifteen years is less than the amount the US govt spends in ONE WEEK.

NASA and Artemis are not the problem.
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You’re not wrong and that comparison is exactly why a lot of policy folks say the same thing: NASA isn’t where the big tradeoffs are happening.
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This. This is what has me absolutely torn. The anger abt funding scientific research PMO. We need to be spending money on this, not wars & bullshit. I want to be excited but I feel like being excited somehow puts a mark on my back. Reading posts here has had me questioning my own reality all day.
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amerikkka would be nothing without the achievements of NASA.
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It's a gift to Musk.
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You're against scientists, engineers, and skilled workers getting paid because Elon wants to go to space, too?
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It's frequently pointed out that NASA activities (and basic/exploratory science in general) have a fantastic return on investment, contributing far more to the economy than they take. But even if they didn't, no one's actually taking from the "cure sick people" pot to put money in the "rockets" pot.
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We could take the money for rockets to send astronauts to space from the money we're currently spending on rockets that kill people
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Oh but they are. But it's not the "space rocket" pot, it's taking from every pot to put in the "murder brown people rocket" pot.
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Well, not THOSE kinds of rockets anyway.

Slap a warhead on there and they'll cut whatever they want to fund it.
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Correct. Because the cure sick people pot essentially isn’t really funded in the way that the military industrial complex is.
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"It's frequently pointed out that NASA activities (and basic/exploratory science in general) have a fantastic return on investment, contributing far more to the economy than they take."

Humor me, please. What's the actual evidence? I'm not saying it's not true, I just don't know. Please help.
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So can you please elaborate? tell us about all the benefits and returns nasa has produced?
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sure but climate change sure needs more rocket fuel to be burnt.
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Well not THAT rockets pot.
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It seems they want to abandon learning and improving our situation on this planet in favor of death and destruction.

And money. To pay for more destruction, i guess.
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Yes, they are. It's all one pot, pretty much.
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Didn’t Trump just drastically curtail overseas aid? Yet the USA can still fund a project involving astronauts repeating what was achieved half a century ago. Why not sort out the problems on this planet before exporting human folly & selfishness beyond it?
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Yeah, the real problem is that they keep taking from the "cure sick people" and "rockets" pots and put them in the "war stuff" or "money for rich people" pots.
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I think what has complicated liberal enthusiasm for space exploration (I'm using "liberal" here as a proxy for the values of collectivism and love of science) is that it's been co-opted by some astonishingly evil villains. Musk most obviously, but Bezos too, and Trump with "Space Force".
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Yet there’s always money for the rockets pot and the feeding and keeping people healthy pot gets jack squat.

Probes and telescopes are great. Human spaceflight is a dead end biologically and too expensive to justify. We’re on the verge of extinction and people wanna burn money on cosmism nonsense.
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I’m still waiting for someone to list what specific advances or benefits this mission is bringing. What is the specific return on investment here? Everyone trots out your argument but never follows up.
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I wish more people knew *anything* about the huge amount that the "rockets" pot has put into the "cure sick people" pot. Example: technologies first developed for astronaut health monitoring, and now in almost every ER and delivery suite, being used on people who've never left the planet's surface.
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Technically it's not even coming out of the missiles budget, is it.
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People are absolutely unaware how small a share of the federal budget is going to NASA
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Sadly I feel like we have Marvin Gaye to blame for this. It's just hard to put nuanced policy analysis into a song.
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I'm not American. But if people are thinking NASA or any other science is reason they don't have healthcare. . .🤦‍♀️
I mean it could be the billions spent on weapons, or ya know not taxing billionaires!? When Nasa launched Artemis 2, we all watched & were amazed & I thought 'well at least they've Nasa'
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No, there’s definitely mutually exclusive pots, and Elon Musk owns the pot where the military rocket Research and Development goes, and it really is why we don’t have a cure sick people pot.
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The problems with US government spending priorities are vast and extremely depressing/enraging much of the time. I desperately wish much more was spent on improving people's lives directly, and much less on war. Science spending just isn't really part of that particular equation.
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All wealth inequality and artificial scarcity is manufactured by the US antimeritocracy long before we reach the point of rockets and healthcare - we can and will easily do both once we defeat the people who are deliberately sabotaging both for their own amusement in the imminent war.
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Yeah, money from the “cure sick people” bucket goes to the ultra wealthy, people whose yachts require little yacht escorts, like a carrier group.
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