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The Almighty Buck NASA Space

NASA Generated $76 Billion For US Economy In 2023 90

Posted by BeauHD from the economic-impact dept.
NASA's economic impact report highlights that in fiscal year 2023, the agency's initiatives contributed $75.6 billion to the U.S. economy, created over 300,000 jobs, and drove advancements in areas like space exploration, climate research, and technology innovation. The agency's budget for that year was $25.4 billion. Space.com reports: The Moon to Mars program alone created $23.8 billion in economic output and 96,479 jobs, while investments in climate research and technology contributed $7.9 billion and 32,900 jobs. The report also drills down into impacts in each state, with 45 states seeing over $10 million in impact and eight states surpassing the $1 billion mark. [...]

NASA's missions supported 304,803 jobs across America, according to the report -- the third agency-wide study of its kind -- generating an estimated total of $9.5 billion in federal, state, and local taxes. Additionally, NASA's technological innovations and transfers in 2023 led to 40 new patent applications, 69 patents issued, and thousands of software usage agreements. A number of NASA technology spinoffs have become everyday household items. The full NASA economic impact report can be found here.
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NASA Generated $76 Billion For US Economy In 2023 More

NASA Generated $76 Billion For US Economy In 2023

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  • Makes a good point, but uses the wrong argument. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Eunomion ( 8640039 ) on Tuesday October 29, 2024 @05:08AM (#64902235)
    The economic impact of NASA is overwhelmingly in long-term technology support. The jobs it creates via direct investment could just as easily be created by any other institution being hired to do this, that, or the other - it's just Keynesian economics. So the real argument for NASA is tech creation. Unfortunately, that's come to be seen as a danger to the jobs element, hence abominations like the Space Launch System that are literally designed to be less advanced than the state of the art rather than pushing it.

    • Probably not "just as easily". The private sector does not usually deliver a 3 to 1 return to the economy.

      • The space.com fanboys or fangirls did not analyze what alternatives would have returned. If space spending has such great ROI let's crowdfund it and 3x our personal wealth every year.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by MrNaz ( 730548 )

          You know that taxation is pretty much just crowdfunding right?

          • You know that taxation is pretty much just crowdfunding right?

            Yeah, and most paycheck-to-paycheck taxpayers wouldn’t be so pissed about that crowdfunding if it weren’t for the utter lack of billionaires paying taxes instead of paying for loopholes so YOU can be the “crowd” funding their fun.

            I also don’t risk going to jail if I choose not to fund. Tends to make your analogy, not one.

            • Re: (Score:1)

              by MrNaz ( 730548 )

              OK so if public goods and services were crowdfunded in a way that optional, then they would not get funded.

              Also, you can't enforce everyone pay their fair share AND simultaneously make it optional by removing the punishment for not paying.

              Yea, sounds like you don't know shit about shit.

            • "Yeah, and most paycheck-to-paycheck taxpayers wouldn’t be so pissed about that crowdfunding if it weren’t for the utter lack of billionaires paying taxes instead of paying for loopholes so YOU can be the “crowd” funding their fun."

              The irony there is that you have to pay taxes to accomplish the level of cooperation required to hold billionaires accountable. If you'd rather just skip the taxpaying part, then not only will billionaires be unaccountable, they will enslave you utterly.

            • Yeah, and most paycheck-to-paycheck taxpayers wouldn’t be so pissed about that crowdfunding if it weren’t for the utter lack of billionaires paying taxes instead of paying for loopholes so YOU can be the “crowd” funding their fun.

              What a load of crap. Musk (as just one example) paid $11 billion in tax in 2021.

              What pisses this paycheck-to-paycheck person off is the way the federal government (and the states too) just PISS the money away. Story after story in the news about the outlandish amounts of money being spent on public-works projects that should not cost anywhere near what the government is paying. So much money was being thrown around during COVID and nobody was checking anything. Most of that spending was pure debt.. And

          • No, taxation isn't the same as crowd funding. Crowd funding is voluntary. If you don't pay your taxes then you face guns in your face, confiscation of your property, and time in prison.

            • Re: (Score:1)

              by MrNaz ( 730548 )

              Funding of public goods and services cannot be optional, or nobody would pay for them. It's like the second lesson in economics classes for 15 year olds.

              • Re: (Score:1)

                by rcb1974 ( 654474 )
                I agree that some use of force is necessary, however that is the fault of the majority of people. Many people donate to charity willingly. If the country was sufficiently amazing, if the politicians weren't so corrupt, if the government wasn't so huge, if we weren't taxed to death to pay for its profligacy, then maybe more people would voluntarily donate to the State, especially if society appreciated and celebrated noble voluntary acts more than they currently do, rather than the stuff you see promoted d

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

              Hate to tell you, but if you didn't have the services provided by paying taxes then you'd face guns in your face, confiscation of your property, and time in prison if you were super lucky to stumble across an unoccupied one.

              Haven't you watched The Walking Dead?

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by rcb1974 ( 654474 )
                totally false. more than 90% of the taxmoney collected these days is wasted on "services" that didn't even exist 100 years ago, and 100 years ago we weren't in any zombie apocalypse.

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

                  Shockingly, taxes also existed 100 years ago. The top income tax rate in the us was 73% (recently reduced from 77%). Actual statistic, not made up like your "90%".

      • NASA doesnâ(TM)t even come close. For small business the economic impact on investment is on average 350%, for larger business it is around 400%. Small business is the best option if you are purely focused on number of jobs created and local communities.

      • I meant other government entities making direct investments would have the same Keynesian impact. A better promotion for NASA specifically would be how its support for innovation creates jobs that didn't exist before rather than how it just distributes jobs by spending money, which any public institution can do.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by MrNaz ( 730548 )

          I think the best plug for NASA is that it supports the sort of activity that the private sector would not engage in on its own. It's high risk, long payback, and with very little (arguable no) direct profit generated.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Rei ( 128717 )

            I think the best counter to that is how congress mandates a lot of that activity toward things that have no potential of useful payback and exist only as jobs programmes.

            • Most NASA programs are compromises rather than just one or the other. They do support innovation, but their level of ambition is moderated to gain political support by immediately providing jobs. Unfortunately, what would be its most inspiring type of program (manned exploration) is tightly controlled by the jobs politics, crippling its abliity to do important work, so there's a definite tension within the agency.

              Unmanned science missions tend to achieve stabler compromises when they survive, but they

            • Re: (Score:1)

              by MrNaz ( 730548 )

              It's possible. Remember that in the 1960s, the precursor work for what would become the internet was looked at as a silly boondoggle spinoff from the nuclear weapons program. So yea, sure money gets wasted, but it also funds things that could never be funded any other way.

          • I think the best plug for NASA is that it supports the sort of activity that the private sector would not engage in on its own. It's high risk, long payback, and with very little (arguable no) direct profit generated.

            Neil deGrasse Tyson makes exactly this point in this video where he talks about Musk and SpaceX: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]. I think most of what he says in this video is spot-on.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Rei ( 128717 )

        The private sector does not usually deliver a 3 to 1 return to the economy.

        Looking at literally any developing economy's GDP impact from receiving outside investment to build factories readily disproves this notion.

        Economic multipliers are not unique to governments and they're not unique to NASA. 3x is however generally a good multiplier relative to other types of government spending. R&D in general has a high multiplier, while simply buying things from existing capacity has a low one.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by MrNaz ( 730548 )

          Developing economies grow fast.
          But not 300% per year fast.
          Feel free to point me to an example that disproves this.

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by Rei ( 128717 )

            Where on earth did you pull "300% growth per year" out of ?

            This is a discussion of GDP multipliers from investment. The left side of the equation has a figure measured in dollars. The right side has no time units.

            • Re: (Score:1)

              by MrNaz ( 730548 )

              NASA delivered around $75b for the economy, on a budget of around $25b. It's in the summary. Admittedly, the summary is more than 12 words long so it may strain your attention span.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by Rei ( 128717 )

                That's a lovely reiteration of the article, and nothing to do with the absurd notion that it somehow has anything to do with "developing economies growing at 300% per year" a claim of which the left side of the equation is not dollars, and the right side of which is for some inexplicable reason based on unit-time.

                To reiterate: building factories - an investment of dollars, and irrespective of the time it takes the factories to be built - increases the labour productivity of previously non-automated work, an

    • 2024 spend was around $27 billion, which does not include federal civil service employee pensions. While we have benefitted from some space programs, we no longer can afford so much deficit spending for this non-critical group. Some reduction in NASA programs is approriate.

      • Re: Makes a good point, but uses the wrong argumen (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Eunomion ( 8640039 ) on Tuesday October 29, 2024 @06:39AM (#64902357)

        we no longer can afford so much deficit spending for this non-critical group. Some reduction in NASA programs is approriate.

        Hardly. Why the hell can't people count? That figure is 0.4% of the federal budget. During Apollo, it was 10 times that! With a 3-10x ROI on top of being such a trivial portion of spending, suggesting there's any purpose whatsoever in cutting NASA is unfounded.

        If you pay $10,000 in federal income taxes, and your rate was reduced proportional to a budget cut, the complete elimination of NASA would save you $40 a year. Merely making it debt-neutral would only save you a fraction of a cent per year while gutting the agency's capabilities. In what universe does that make fiscal sense? Its budget should be several times higher.

        • The counting indicates we don't have the money. It's time to spend less.
          • Then cut things that spend more and deliver less, rather than hobbling the MVP. How is this not obvious?

          • We have plenty of money and plenty of tax revenue. We can spend it more wisely, and stop giving it away with tax breaks and industry subsidies.

          • An excellent article in the Berkeley Economic review covers [berkeley.edu] some of the politics and real economics around austerity policies.

            Austerity, once the bedrock of economic conservatism, has been relegated to the wastebasket of defunct and disfavored ideologies. And in the United States, this flavor of unbridled government support has little postwar precedent.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by e3m4n ( 947977 )

          Or another option, find new ways for NASA to bring in profits outside federal tax spending. It seems like they have the some options. Leasing patent rights for their R&D is definitely a good start. I never really understood why research universities like Stamford would discover and/or design something amazing and then give the tech to a corporation to patent and make billions on its own. Should lease that patent to cover more research and possibly free tuition grants to more students.

          • Not quite profit-making, but there are existing versions of this that have done a lot of good work: Space Act Agreements [wikipedia.org]. It's usually funds-neutral though. As in, you handle the money and they'll provide expertise, or they'll help you develop something and then they get to use it at a good price. That's the easiest way to go about it.

    • Unfortunately, that's come to be seen as a danger to the jobs element, hence abominations like the Space Launch System that are literally designed to be less advanced than the state of the art rather than pushing it.

      Maybe that is good engineering. As the saying goes, a legacy application is one that works...

      "It's state of the art." "But it doesn't work." "That is the state of the art!"
      - Conor O’Neill’s sig file, 12/99.

      • Maybe that is good engineering. As the saying goes, a legacy application is one that works...

        Anyone working on the SLS who tried to be a good engineer would be fired. Legacy technology works if it's being used for the same application, but flying a lot was at least in the Shuttle's job description. The application of the technology for SLS is to fly as rarely as possible (minimizes accountability) and cost the absolute most it possibly can, thus maximizing return on the cost-plus contracts behind it. An

    • A problem is that much of the NASA budget goes to a huge train wreck project.
      • Agreed. I would call it a train robbery rather than a train wreck. But it stays the case that even a train robbery has Keynesian aspects.

    • Everyone OK with giving $75 per year on average for decades to NASA?

      There's a reasoned discussion needed here for taxpayer funded programs where they are ranked according to direct benefits to citizens within 10 years.
      Programs which promise to solve problems for decades and haven't made more than minimal progress towards solving that problem would be ranked nearer to the bottom.

      Take that ranked list and determine and adjusted budget for each program. Some programs would be reduced, some would be increased

      • Reasonable arguments must recognize and address the partial unreasonableness of most people, and total unreasonableness of some. Civilization is compromise. Who is qualified to develop and implement a rigorously empirical and accountable system; who among that set is morally trustworthy enough not to be corrupted by that level of influence; and who among that even-smaller set is perfectly unbiased? The answer is "nobody." So we return to good old consensus and compromise.

        The functions of a society ar
  • ...is BAD! Everyone knows that. When you spend money it's gone, wasted, & gubbermint money is spending people's taxes. It's wasted, gone. We need more fiscal conservatism & debt ceilings to reign in gubbermint spending because reasons... and it's bad, I tell you... BAD!!!

    • Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)

      by gtall ( 79522 )

      Really? Then Grandma and Grandpa can come and live with you, and their meds are expensive.

      EPA tries to keep your water and air clean and prevent those nice corporations from fouling them.

      The air traffic system tries to keep your plane from running into another.

      The NHTSA tries to keep your vehicle from become a flaming death trap and your child car seats from spewing their contents in a crash.

      There is an almost endless list of things government does that you rely upon no matter now much you right wing-nuts a

      • EPA tries to keep your water and air clean and prevent those nice corporations from fouling them.

        Odd how residents of Flint, Michigan don’t see it that way.

        The air traffic system tries to keep your plane from running into another.

        A hell of a lot harder with 737 MAXs in the air, but we won’t talk about the FAA.

        The NHTSA tries to keep your vehicle from become a flaming death trap and your child car seats from spewing their contents in a crash.

        There are over 150,000 ICE car fires every year in the United States. Thousands every single day. I doubt you were even aware of that statistic, because you never hear about all that “success” in the news. Ever.

        There is an almost endless list of things government does that you rely upon no matter now much you right wing-nuts attempt to deny it.

        Yeah. And if all they do is “try” and not succeed very well, then all you get to do is pay for it again, taxpayer. And a

      • I'm sincerely shocked that you took that seriously. Didn't it seem just a tad too extreme & idiotic? Even the "because reasons" part?

        Poe's law strikes again! My bad.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

          Seemed like one of the more cogent arguments against government spending around here, actually. No harping on weird pet peeves, blaming immigrants or minorities, or shoutouts to Ayn Rand.

        • You say that but it was more coherent that the screeds from mi and Roman Mir

    • ...is BAD! Everyone knows that. When you spend money it's gone, wasted, & gubbermint money is spending people's taxes. It's wasted, gone. We need more fiscal conservatism & debt ceilings to reign in gubbermint spending because reasons... and it's bad, I tell you... BAD!!!

      If it's a magic money generator, then why not just have three more NASAs? Or thirty more NASAs?

      • I'm assuming that by "magic" you mean Keynesian. You know, the policies that brought the USA out of the depression faster, generated tens of thousands of jobs, & created massive amounts of infrastructure that's still in use today (but is crumbling from lack of maintenance due to austerity policies)?

        • Surely your're kidding?

          The US is $37T in debt and pays more per month in interest than it does on defense.

          The sound money is destroyed and hyperinflation is kicking in.

          People have less purchasing power per hour today than they did during the Great Depression.

          Keynes was an apprehend pedophile who was given a choice of supporting the Crown from prison or from his office desk. He decided that the government pillaging the people was sound economics rather than face prison gangs.

          The US didn't pull out of the Dep

          • Yeah, gubbermint gets into debt when it fails to generate economic activity that produces tax revenue. It happens every time any administration imposes austerity after a recession, i.e. austerity = less economic activity, which means less tax revenue. The principle's really not all that complicated but apparently too difficult for most US congress people.

        • I'm assuming that by "magic" you mean Keynesian. You know, the policies that brought the USA out of the depression faster, generated tens of thousands of jobs, & created massive amounts of infrastructure that's still in use today (but is crumbling from lack of maintenance due to austerity policies)?

          So you do want 3, or 30, NASAs?

    • Not only that, but indulging the whims of the hereditarily rich is what really grows economies! They're not just degenerate turds who spend the wealth of nations on solid gold toilet seats, no no no! They're enlightened, brilliant, genetically superior specimens who know what's best for everyone else because their great-great-great-grandfather found oil on his maximum-cruelty pig farm.
      • Finally, some who "gets" it. Thank you!
      • Alternatively, They're enlightened, brilliant, genetically superior specimens who know what's best for everyone else because they are US government bureaucrats.
        • Whining about "bureaucrats" is the pastime of men born without problems, largely because their ancestors enslaved other people. No need for paperwork or rule manuals on a slave plantation, just the whip, the gun, the noose, and the lie. Clearly some people see that as their paradise.

  • We've discovered magical money multiplication!

    Now we just need two NASAs!

    • We've discovered magical money multiplication!
      Now we just need two NASAs!

      Sure, and if you had nine women available, you could make a baby in just one month! If you could get even one to talk to you, that is.

  • Good lord (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Luckyo ( 1726890 ) on Tuesday October 29, 2024 @06:42AM (#64902359)

    449 pages of autofellatio is pretty hilarious, but makes sense in light of extremes of US bureaucracy today. Someone's got to earn their living.

    For those looking for actual tangible effects in their everyday lives, a good example is basic power tools. The reason why you no longer have to have corded drills, impact hammers and so on is because NASA needed portable tools for work in space. And then they figured out that results of that research also works on the surface. And now everyone is using what is essentially NASA's space tools for even the most basic construction work without knowing.

    They also created industrial scale things that enable modern life like modern water filtering systems and fire retardant gear firemen use.

    There are countless of similar examples. NASA develops the base technology, and then we figure out that it actually works great in everyday lives too. It is rapidly adopted and becomes an everyday commodity.

    Here's a good primer:

    https://www.nasa.gov/specials/... [nasa.gov]

    • You're making the assumption that none of these things would exist otherwise, which seems pretty silly.

      • Accelerated development is a plus also. WW2 accelerated a lot of developments that probably wouldn't have shown up for 100 yrs.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

        What is the practical difference between "these things would exist but decades later" and "these things wouldn't exist" considering relative shortness of human lifespan?

    • Re:Good lord (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Eunomion ( 8640039 ) on Tuesday October 29, 2024 @07:46AM (#64902479)
      The strongest argument is electronics. The Apollo program needed miniaturized circuits and had the money to develop them. The existing consumer base for computers were large, wealthy businesses who didn't give a shit how big or small a computer was: They could easily afford the floor space for a roomputer, and simply didn't see an ROI in plowing big money into making things smaller. So, NASA to everybody alive today: You're welcome.

    • IBM helped pioneer the personal computer, but you don’t see them running around with the arrogant mentality that they’re responsible for generating 378 bazillion dollars every year with computers that can be attributed to their contributions decades ago.

      Just how badly do we want to re-define “contribution”?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

        You NEVER dealt with IBM people, have you?

        They have THAT EXACT REPUTATION for a reason. "We're THE IBM, we're worth it".

      • IBM helped pioneer the personal computer, but you donâ(TM)t see them running around with the arrogant mentality that theyâ(TM)re responsible for generating 378 bazillion dollars every year

        Yes you fucking do [cringely.com].

        Are you ever correct?

  • The conspiracy people are right! NASA is raking in the cash claiming the world is round! ;)

  • Surely, a 25% increase, to $40B, would create even more economic activity. All they need to do is NOT give the DoD *MORE* than they asked for... and they could add 25% to the NIH as well.

  • Musk could probably do all that work for 1/4 the cost and get it done sooner.

  • I appreciate what they have done in assessing the economic impact of NASA from the perspective of money spent vs. return per state (no surprise there is a direct correlation between impact and whether a state has a NASA center in it). It would have been better to look at the impact of the various research areas to see which areas of investment provide the greatest return. They did break out Moon-to-Mars and climate change, but what about the work NASA does in aeronautics? There are a whole slew of programs

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