Nate Silver has a post on the potential outcome of the debt-limit deal, in which he draws on public polling data from 2010:
The table below reflects the views of Democratic and Republican adults toward cuts in 18 areas of federal spending as derived from the 2010 General Social Survey. The scale runs from 0 (meaning that voters would like to see increased spending in that area) to 100 (meaning that voters would like to see spending cuts).
His post is mostly about defense spending, but note the category that is number three in terms of preferences for cuts — “space exploration.”
Four points.
First (the trivial one), it’s not a recent poll, but I’m not aware of anything that has happened in the past couple years that would change this, with the possible exception of the Shuttle retirement, and potential unhappiness about that, particularly given the nonsense and hyperbole that it represents “the end of US human spaceflight” (if not the end of all human spaceflight, US or otherwise). On the other hand, I don’t know the methodology.
Second, there is no weighting for the amount of spending. I haven’t seen the poll questions, but I’d be willing to bet that prior to being asked about their priorities, the respondents were not informed of the size of the thing they wanted to cut. For instance, there are no doubt many people who think that we spend as much on NASA and foreign aid as we do on defense, and if I thought that was the case, I’d want to slash them, too. The reality, of course, is that both NASA and foreign aid are a tiny fraction of the money that we spend on defense (as is appropriate). I think that when asking question like this, the polling should be done in a manner that would be reflective of how a rational decision maker would do the cutting, taking into account both the utility of the activity, and the effect of the cuts on the budget (that is, all other things being equal, a larger budget is worth expending more political capital to cut than a tiny one). Like Willie Sutton’s explanation as to why he robbed banks, we should go to the high-ticket items because that’s where the money is. Which means, of course, that entitlements should be first on the chopping block, whereas they are one of the lowest priorities for cutting according to the polling.
Third, in addition to being one of the top three (at least among Dems, though it’s high among Republicans, too) it was one of only two items on which there was a majority of two parties in favor of cutting (the other was foreign aid, with even higher numbers). Defense was favored for cuts by the Dems, but not by Republicans. (As a side note, Republicans don’t seem to be interested in spending cuts in general — there are very few categories that got majority support from them. This is a partial explanation for the rise of the Tea Party.)
Fourth, like all such polls, it is flawed in how the question is framed, and that is particularly the case with the space question. Without taking the time to dig into it, I am assuming that the respondents were simply presented with that list as worded, and asked if they favored cutting the item. Such a poll will only give impressionistic results and, like the issue of how much is spent in each category, is highly dependent on the individual’s interpretation of what the words mean.
I could write a long essay on this (and I actually am, as a chapter for a book), but “space exploration” is such a nebulous phrase as to be meaningless for making public-policy decisions. It’s just short hand for whatever NASA is doing, most of which has nothing to do with “exploration,” nor should it if one reads the agency’s charter. I wonder what the responses would be if instead of whether or not they were being asked to support space “exploration,” they were asked to support space “development,” or space “technology,” or space “industry”? And told how much we are actually spending on those things, with a pie chart compared to the others?
I think the difference between space exploration and scientific research is telling, and goes to your point that people don’t really know what they’re voting for in such a poll. Granted, NASA’s human space explorer’s haven’t been responsible for a lot of science, but NASA robots are. If you ask me about NASA funding, I think first about telescopes and probes, not the space station – even though that probably doesn’t weight by funding as you want either.
It looks like Republicans are more in favor of making cuts across the board.
Interestingly, more pro-science intellectually elite Democrats wants cuts to space exploration than Republicans.
By accident I caught part of a TV interview with a conservative financial advisor named Lance Roberts who complained about Obama ending the space program (himself having grown up in Houston). I haven’t got a Fase-book page, but I wish someone who does would post the Whittle/Simberg new-space video on the wall of Lance Roberts: fase-book dot com slash streettalk
wodun, the fun thing was watching the NASA civil servants complain about Republicans cutting their budgets as if that was the party posing their greatest threats. Oh, because we were just mere contractors, we didn’t understand what the Republicans were doing to hurt NASA. Then we’d watch them drive away with the Obama logo stickers pasted next to their Co-Exists stickers. Good times, good times.
As for the other spending areas, I’d expect more Republicans wanting cuts in aid to big cities and mass transit. If the federal would quit taking so much money, there would be plenty left for big cities without the middleman.
I can’t believe how much red ink there is on that table – especially in the second (Republican) column.
Where in the enumerated powers does NASA fall?
I’m as big a space fanatic as one could possibly find, but one can’t call himself a fan of limited government and then start listing the “except for these programs.”
I think that the private sector unfettered by overbearing government will do exploration just fine.
I just can’t see the logical path to get from I support limited government to I support funding of NASA.
Flame away…
“Where in the enumerated powers does NASA fall?”
If I had to pick one, I’d go for this particular part of Article II, Section 8:
“Congress shall have the Power….
“To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts”
—-
I’ll admit it is a bit weaker because that clause goes on to establish copyrights and patents, but that is the clause which Thomas Jefferson invoked to establish the Lewis and Clark expedition as well as what is being used to help finance the Smithsonian and run Los Alamos.
Mind you, when NASA went from scientific exploration to becoming a trucking company to LEO, they substantially exceeded their constitutional scope of authority. It is for this reason that having NASA truely be an exploration agency that makes it constitutional. It certainly doesn’t need to be an employment agency for unemployed technical staff.
Dang it, that was Article I…. but the principle holds.
If we have a government by virtue of the constitution and the government has made the constitution null and void… doesn’t that void the government?
Their only power is force. We need to vote most of them out.
NASA is going to get a big cut, and there is nothing that can be done to prevent it.
A more important question is whether a big cut will end up being beneficial to “space exploration” as a whole? It may be easier to get rid of big cost- plus projects, reduce the number of centers, be small enough to get below the pork radar of the congress?
Just wondering…
I do hear ya Paul. So many people who used to start their sentences with “if we’re going to have a government space agency at all….” have since stopped saying it and started just spouting off about what NASA should be doing with no preamble. That said, I don’t remember any of them saying NASA should be defunded.. but that could just be my memory.
NASA itself has hopelessly confused the term “exploration” by applying it to the pilgrimages of celestial travelers, launching astronauts for the sake of launching astronauts, rather than to projects that are cost-effectively designed to discover new things about space.
Paul Breed:
one can’t call himself a fan of limited government and then start listing the “except for these programs.”
There are exceptions to every rule, but the pathological aspect is that these people usually expend more time lobbying in favor of the exceptions than the rule.
Robert Horning:
“To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts…”
Nope. Invoking that clause beyond the enumerated patents and copyrights is an obvious abuse of the Constitution, even if Jefferson did it too (and on a far far smaller scale).
I’d say NACA was founded, quite reasonably, under the “Progress of Science” clause. When we got thrust headlong into the space race against the Rooskies, the expansion of NASA into the moon rocket business was, quite reasonably, justified under the military clauses of Article I, Section 8. And in the heyday of the Shuttle, when its main purpose seemed to be to deliver mail to the ISS, I contend that NASA’s constitutional authority derived from the “post office” power…. 😉
You had a post on this a while back…
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-244