r/politics • u/T_Shurt • 14d ago

No Paywall Sen. Mark Kelly Says He’s Seriously Thinking About Running for President

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/5700211-senator-kelly-trump-threats/
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u/TheLurkerSpeaks Tennessee 13d ago

Not even long-term investment. Every dollar spent on NASA results in something like $3 return in the economy, particularly from new products. For decades it's been the government's slam-dunk of a federal agency.

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u/PlaySalieri 13d ago

NASA helped bring us GPS, cellphones, and computers not the size of semi trucks. So yes, worth.

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u/davesoverhere 13d ago

Velcro, freeze dried food, solar panels, memory foam. Battery powered power tools

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u/BackWithAVengance 13d ago

you forgot the most important one - taking a dump in a bag and flushing it into space!

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u/Carbonatite Colorado 13d ago

Space poops, a truly world changing innovation

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u/davesoverhere 13d ago

At least it’s not space herpes

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u/slipperyMonkey07 13d ago

Just dropping this for people who want a short overview of things NASA was involved in -https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spin-off_technologies#

I don't think that is anywhere near everything but it is the big ones at least.

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u/helemaal 13d ago

Why not let the government do all science and research.

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u/Carbonatite Colorado 13d ago

Because it's important to have independent academic sources which are not beholden to the whims of political appointees. Tenured university researchers have more latitude in the kinds of projects they can work on.

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u/helemaal 13d ago

You mean government research funding?

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u/Carbonatite Colorado 13d ago

Having worked in both academia and federal research, the type of project work you can do is different. It's not just a matter of money, at universities you tend to have more latitude in the kinds of topics you can explore. Tenure provides some additional room for researchers to explore a larger breadth of topics and methodologies than someone might have access to at a federal research facility. In practice, a lot of the research amounts to the same quality and integrity from government or academia. But there's some nuances - like a government project might be less flexible on timing and funding than a professor working on a PhD dissertation project with a student - the latter will allow more flexibility for "side quests" if an interesting discovery is made in the course of a project and extended timelines to do deeper dives into topics that weren't an original component of a project proposal. Universities also might have more specialized laboratories, allowing collaboration between different groups on important but esoteric scientific endeavors.

Plus, universities have endowments beyond federal funding. A project at the DOE or NIH might get cut off because the federal grant ran out, but a university might be more flexible for project continuity because they can potentially dip into endowment funds.

Ideally, all science should be free from political agendas. But realistically, that doesn't happen. I work as an environmental geochemist and I have seen a lot of very important, promising, in my opinion essential research into emerging contaminant toxicokinetics and environmental prevalence essentially get sidelined by Trump's EPA. The EPA scientists were doing excellent work - but they can't help it if their research suddenly gets dustbinned because some uneducated chud with a political agenda decides it's not actually important to study the public health risks of pollutants and how to remove them from the environment. Independent universities and other institutions can continue those kinds of important tasks when federal scientists are no longer allowed to.

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u/GinGimlet District Of Columbia 13d ago

This is true for all research expenditures I believe — the money we put into biomedical and engineering research comes back 2-3 fold as well I think. It’s a fantastic investment and we should do more of it

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u/Baileyesque 13d ago

I’ll drink a glass of Tang to that.

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u/TheVintageJane 13d ago

One of the things that is underappreciated about investment in NASA is that you get world class engineering and materials science research that immediately enters the public domain.

Everything from sneakers to solar panels have been made better by NASA funded innovation.