NASA Needs More of Your Money

  On October 9^th, 2009 the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite  (LCROSS) crashed into the moon in a search to find water.  The plan was to shoot particles into space from the force of the impact to be analyzed by another satellite that would determine if there was any water in the sample.  The total cost of the mission was 79 million dollars.  While the mission was successful, was it really necessary?

  According the US Office of Management and Budget, the 2007 NASA budget was 15.9 billion dollars.  Under Barack Obama’s approval the budget was raised in 2009 for 17.2 billion dollars.  The proposed budget for 2010 is 18.7 billion dollars.  And NASA is asking for even more in order to fund a manned mission to the moon by the year 2020.

  This money is going to a program that is completely wasteful.  Our tax dollars are being spent to blow craters in the moon and fund projects that are irrelevant to the American people.  How can the government justify spending billions of dollars on such a useless program?  Our money should not be spent on exploring space when our national debt is over 12 trillion dollars, and our budget deficit for 2009 is 1.4 trillion dollars.  We could be using that money for much more important things, like our own planet.

  Our government could possibly put some of that money into education, transportation, health care, and defense; or something that actually benefits Americans.  Pretty much anything would be a better cause than NASA. 

  However, the government does not have the right to take our tax-money and smash holes into the moon with it.  If NASA receives a budget cut (assuming the money is not put into another government program), that would mean more money where it belongs, in the pockets of the Americans who earned it.

 

You can read about the LCROSS here.  http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LCROSS/main/prelim_water_results.html

Men don’t like to wear condoms? Really?

This is so horrible that it’s almost laughable.  The National Institutes of Health are funding a $423,500 project to study why men don’t like to wear condoms during sex. 

I’m curious as to which government officials decided this was a necessary expenditure of taxpayers’ money.  I’m appalled.  Half a million dollars to go to something that Americans can figure out for themselves.  This is yet another example of a poor government decision.  How can they even think that they are representing the American people  with this sort of waste.

It’s not that I’m against studies on condoms.  I think that whatever you want to spend your money on is up to you.  It shouldn’t be decided by the government.  I guess I’m laughing to prevent myself from crying.

If anyone has such a great curiosity to know why men don’t like wearing condoms, just go ask someone!  It’s not that hard to figure out.  You certainly don’t need to spend $423,000 to find out peoples’ opinions.

And this isn’t the only time the NIH has spent taxpayers’ money on something questionable:

They have studied why gay men have risky sex while drunk, why prostitutes on drugs in Thailand have a greater risk for HIV infection, and they spent $2.6 million to teach prostitutes in China to drink less while having sex.

Does this make you laugh, or cry?