Outer Space is Running Outer Money

  

“We have a 20th century infrastructure for a 21st century space program.”

In order to accommodate rich folks and corporations, which most definitely do not need more money, the United States – often under the false premise of indirect job creation – has championed a conservative path to cut taxes for these scions of wealth… while cutting benefits for Social Security and Medicare recipients, while slashing budgets for the real job creators: education and pure scientific research. Rightwing candidates are throwing pablum at the masses (like not taxing tips, overtime and social security, if they can even get those through Congress) while proposing inflation busters like across the board tariffs. And no, nations do not pay those tariffs; the consumers of those impost almost always do.

Even Trump’s alma mater, Wharton, projects that Trump’s tariffs and tax cuts will increase our deficit by over $4 trillion, double the net economic impact of Kamala Harris’ proposals. Remembering that the single largest federal budget item is interest on the deficit (not even reducing principal), it seems clear that Trump is benefitting his rich cronies and saddling everyone with the cost of that cronyism.

Today, however, I want to talk about one particular budgetary item that has had a miraculous track record of creating job-rich cutting-edge technology. But before I dive in, I would like to differentiate between investments and expenses. The former is all about spending money with the hope of a hard-value return. The latter may protect us or pay our bills, but it does not create long-term economic values.

Modern austerity is too often built on refusing to upgrade our productivity necessary infrastructure, increasingly shoving the costs of higher education and trade school on students (or simply dispensing with sustainable quality) and finding scientific and medical research to be a budgetary expendable. Just take a look at the absurd level of student loans, the deplorable plunge in our high school scores on international tests compared to other countries, and our tsunami of dependence on foreign medical/pharmacological research, patents and manufacturing. Our habit of kicking the can down the road seems to be the new American self-inflicted “fentanyl-like” addiction.

For those alive in 1969, witnessing American astronauts walking on the moon, it was a matter of American pride and determination. Born of the American “can do” reaction to the first launch of an Earth-orbital satellite, the 1957 Soviet launch of Sputnik, Republican President Dwight David Eisenhower, with Congress clearly feeling the painful embarrassment, embarked on a multipronged effort to bolster infrastructure, education, research and an invigorate space program. We dug in and built a highway system like no other, our schools became the finest on Earth and NASA brought us a litany of invention an innovation… OK, and Tang orange mix too. Trump may have created a new Space Force, but he sure as heck had no idea what to do with it.

From launch towers to more ancient computers than we are willing to admit, to our space station, NASA’s infrastructure is crumbling like much of what we see every day in our highways, dams, bridges and levees. Military priorities still abound, but everyone is making do with less and older. Corinne Purtill, writing for the September 15th Los Angeles, Times, brings it home: “In a report commissioned by Congress and released [in early September], experts said that a number of the agency’s technological resources are suffering, including the Deep Space Network — an international collection of giant radio antennas that is overseen by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge.

“Report authors warned that NASA has, for too long, prioritized near-term missions at the cost of long-term investments in its infrastructure, workforce and technology… ‘The inevitable consequence of such a strategy is to erode those essential capabilities that led to the organization’s greatness in the first place and that underpin its future potential,’ the report said… The choice facing the agency is stark, lead author Norman Augustine said last week: Either the U.S. must increase funding for NASA, or the agency must cut some missions… ‘For NASA, this is not a time for business as usual,’ said Augustine, a former executive at Lockheed Martin. ‘The concerns it faces are ones that have built up over decades.’...

“‘This report aligns with our current efforts to ensure we have the infrastructure, workforce, and technology that NASA needs for the decades ahead,’ NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement provided by the agency. ‘We will continue to work diligently to address the committee’s recommendations — and drive our cutting-edge work on Earth, in the skies, and in the stars.’

“Another key problem the report identified is neglect of NASA’s facilities, 83% of which have exceeded their designed life span… Attempts to repair and improve the agency’s infrastructure are stifled by a rule requiring a lengthy and labor-intensive review process for all requests over $1 million, a figure that has not changed since the rule’s inception despite a 30% increase in costs from inflation…

“As a key example of a facility whose funding has failed to keep up with its increasing demands, the report highlighted the Deep Space Network, which makes up the world’s largest scientific telecommunications system… JPL manages the network’s three terrestrial sites in Goldstone, near Barstow; Canberra, Australia; and Madrid. The network’s budget has declined from $250 million in 2010 to roughly $200 million today, even as demands on it have increased.” As of this writing, there were 19 astronauts circling the Earth, four are Americans working on NASA-launched projects, and the balance are “astronauts” working on private missions, Russians, Chinese, etc. Iran just launched its first orbital satellite. Four!!!

Not only are such future technologies what have always created jobs at the edge of technology, space-related projects are essential for our own economic survival. If you are wondering what our enemies can do to us from their orbiting satellites, please see my September 6th What Can a Weak and Hobbled Russia Do Against the US? blog for some nasty details. For one of the greatest value investments our federal government has ever made, we sure should be spending a whole lot more than one-tenth of one percent of our GDP investment in our future.

I’m Peter Dekom, and running a government is not remotely like running a business; it has to make sense, but it is not required to make a direct profit.