Would You Give More Or Less Money To Science?

Science is a well funded area of spending, however it's not funded as much as it should be. Science projects, entire big scale ones have been dumped because of lack of funding. These projects aren't unimportant, they are very important but someone somewhere decides something else is slightly more important at the time. However at some point someone will still have to come back and start up the experiment that didn't have funding.

Science helps us understand the world around us, improves our quality of life, extends life expectancy, feeds the starving, powers our homes and is the best hope of prolonging our species and making sure we get to other worlds and guarentee our continuing existence.

NASA's budget has been absolutely obliterated over the years. Or how about the international space effort? This is where i think a ton of europes money should go, instead of giving it to the ambassadors and commisioners for nice dinners at very pricey restruants. Imagine what would happen if the countries of the world really funded space research together, and seriously commited a high budget to it.

Overall though science needs more funding, biotech does it on it's own because a lot of money can be made from medicines and cures. However physics and chemistry are less funded. Basically overall science needs a good boost and a higher commitment by the governments of the world. Providing scientists with the tools they need will no doubt help encourage more to the field anyway .

A final thing would be to fund science more in schools and show kids the fun side of science (yes it exists). Show them the explosions and bubbling stuff in chemistry, show them the fun physics experiments like water boiling in a vacuum, the classic static and hair experiment, the pendulum experiment where it nearly hit you. All of this should be encouraged.

What does everyone else think? Should we fund science more, fund less or leave it as it is?

I think science should be our main focus.

Science and Education.

just think if we took 50 billion $ out of the US military annual budget, purely to fund Science/Education...

It would make an awesome impact. It would be extremely noticable.

And you wouldnt notice the US military lose any power at all. They are so far ahead already. The negative impact on their budget is nearly negligable, in my opinion.

But the effects on Science /Education development would be so significant, it would push society ahead by leaps and bounds.

reply to post by muzzleflash


You could build roughly 10 LHC experiments for that cost. We wouldn't need to of course i just wanted to put it in perspective. Or how about this, NASA's current budget is around 18 billion a year. They cancel a lot of prjects because they can't fund them. You can say what you like abot NASA but they do science well, thoroughly and work out some great stuff. So imagine what would happen if you doubled their budget.

Originally posted by ImaginaryReality1984
reply to post by muzzleflash

 

You could build roughly 10 LHC experiments for that cost. We wouldn't need to of course i just wanted to put it in perspective. Or how about this, NASA's current budget is around 18 billion a year. They cancel a lot of prjects because they can't fund them. You can say what you like abot NASA but they do science well, thoroughly and work out some great stuff. So imagine what would happen if you doubled their budget.

Well NASA would be great if they didn't commit monumental screw ups everytime they launched something into space.

I think they need to give more funding to science in the Quantum Theory area. I think we should be devoting way more time and research to Quantum Physics. Just my opinion though.

reply to post by ImaginaryReality1984


Oh i definatly believe NASA deserves way more funding than it currently gets.

In fact NASA should be the main focus of the entire global community (and their respective space agencies)

Imagine a 400billion annual NASA Budget!

Those hotels on the moon would be up and running in no time lol.

THe only problem I have with NASA is withholding information. I would want a totally honest 100% transparent NASA that discloses all discoveries.

Thats why so many people suggest there is a secret NASA with a secret budget, because 18billion $ a year for space exploration , just doesnt make any sense.

Logical forward thinking humans, would inevitably see Space Exploration as the # 1 priority in our civilizations advancement to a Type 1 civ.