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 danger359 rated 11 months ago - Is it really so surprising that the "average" American has no idea how much the government spends on different agencies and programs? Not really. What is surprising is that the estimates people make are so far off. This study reports that people believe the NASA budget is about the same...
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2 Reviews
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- danger359 rated 11 months ago
- Is it really so surprising that the "average" American has no idea how much the government spends on different agencies and programs? Not really. What is surprising is that the estimates people make are so far off. This study reports that people believe the NASA budget is about the same size as the Defense budget! In my own informal surveys, this is also what people say to me. When I tell them that two weeks of the war in Iraq cost about the same as NASA for a whole year, people are amazed and shocked. The conversation usually ends up more about the war than raising NASA's budget, but that's OK. My last comment about this is, "so what?". The average joe citizen has nothing to do with setting NASA's budget, and even less with setting the Defense budget.
From the page: "Most members of the public have no idea how much any government agency's budget is. What we do knowand have recently documented is that the public perception of NASA's budget is grossly inflated relative to actual dollars. In a just-completed study, we asked respondents what percentage of the national budget is allocated to NASA ...
[People estimated] NASA's allocation, on average, was estimated to be approximately 24% of the national budget (the NASA allocation in 2007 was approximately 0.58% of the budget.) "
- dennisshows rated 11 months ago
- In a just-completed study6, we asked respondents what percentage of the national budget is allocated to NASA and to the Department of Defense, the Department of Education, the Department of Agriculture, and the Department of Health and Human Services, among other agencies. NASA's allocation, on average, was estimated to be approximately 24% of the national budget (the NASA allocation in 2007 was approximately 0.58% of the budget.)
In the course of deciding whether to rethink value, NASA must identify who its customers really are--including customers that it may not recognize as such. To begin, it must first understand that real value is created in the marketplace, not mandated by policy. It is customer-driven, not internally-focused. Even more fundamentally, however, the agency and the larger space community need to have a shared understanding of what is meant by the word "value", and why it is so important to NASA's future and to the future of space exploration.
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