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NASA: Increasing Awesome

2011-04-27 · explainer · Hank · 4:00 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Science & nature (also: US politics & society) · mode: Advocacy & fundraising · tags: timely hook

After paying his taxes, Hank argues that government should increase awesome as well as decrease suck, and lists what NASA does with under half a cent of each federal dollar (about $18 billion, 0.45%) to show he is happy to fund it.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Tax day: death and taxes, and constants more certain than both

00:00:15 — Hank's $16,000 tax check mostly decreases suck; little goes to increasing awesome (Enterprise as shipping barge)

  • ★★ Hank just paid about $16,000 in federal taxes; most of it, he says, goes to decreasing suck: unemployment help, education and healthcare for people who could not afford them. — 00:00:15 · world suck
  • ★★ Hank is not happy to lose the money but is in favor of government; still, little of what he paid will be used to do cool stuff. — 00:00:15
  • ★★★ Hank, in a line jokingly credited to his grandfather, says using government only to decrease suck, never to increase awesome, is like using the Starship Enterprise as a shipping barge. — 00:00:44 · world suck

00:00:56 — Budget graphic: science is a sliver, NASA under half of it, less than half a cent per dollar, about $18 billion

  • ★★ A few percentage points of the US budget increase awesome, such as government spending on science and technology. — 00:00:56
  • ★★★ Less than half of US science spending goes to NASA; NASA's share of a federal dollar is under half a penny, yet it is about $18 billion. — 00:01:12

00:01:39 — 'Besides...' list of what NASA does: ISS, Mars rover, Webb telescope, private space, Mercury orbiter, climate satellites, exoplanets, shuttle and new crew vehicle

  • ★★ NASA maintains a space station, 'a five-bedroom house in outer space', constantly inhabited for over ten years: our first permanent foothold in space, where countless studies are done. — 00:01:39
  • ★★ NASA is launching a remote-controlled laboratory, 'pretty much a remote-controlled SUV', to Mars with ten times the payload of any interplanetary mission, to ask whether Mars once harbored life. — 00:02:00 · Mars
  • ★★ NASA is building a successor to the Hubble Space Telescope that can see 13.4 billion years into the past, to the origins of the universe. — 00:02:16
  • ★★ NASA invites the private sector into the space industry with patents on its technologies, fostering a new economic sector. — 00:02:30
  • ★★ NASA placed the first artificial satellite around Mercury, makes air travel faster, safer and greener, and is building the first high-resolution X-ray telescope. — 00:02:39
  • ★★ NASA is adding three more climate-monitoring satellites to its fleet to help understand and respond to global climate change. — 00:02:50 · climate change
  • ★★ Hank says NASA's work helps inspire the next generation of engineers, mathematicians and scientists and is our best chance of answering fundamental questions about ourselves and our place in the universe. — 00:02:57
  • ★★ NASA has identified thousands of planets outside the solar system, many apparently Earth-like with liquid water. (hedged) — 00:03:03
    • check: thousands — doubtful
  • ★★ NASA is flying the final two Space Shuttle missions while developing a multipurpose crew vehicle that could reach Earth orbit, possibly the Moon, Mars, Venus and beyond. — 00:03:09 · Mars

00:03:25 — 0.45% of tax dollars; Hank is happy to pay for awesome things; government is about combining efforts; sign-off

  • ★★★ Hank says NASA receives 0.45% of US tax dollars. — 00:03:25
  • ★ Closing his list of NASA projects ironically, Hank says that besides all that, NASA does not do much with its money. (playful) — 00:03:25
  • ★★★ Hank is happy to give his money to NASA because he wants his government doing awesome things; he believes in his country's ability to be awesome. — 00:03:30
  • ★★ Hank fears the country increasingly focuses on maintenance rather than the amazing things people can do by combining efforts, which is what government is about. — 00:03:36
  • ★ Hank thanks NASA and says he can almost not wait to give it his money again in 2012. (playful) — 00:03:47

In the description and comments

  • ★★ In the description Hank answers friends who say space money should go to problems on Earth: he finds that mentality flawed, since we cannot wait until all problems are solved to do inspiring things. — video description
  • ★★★ Hank says what drives him to make the world better is not knowing how horrible it is but its greatness, and that NASA has done more to uncover and create awesome than any other government agency. — video description
  • ★ Hank thanks NASA for its help with the video, saying it was really amazing to work with them. — video description

Threads in this video

Mentioned

Central: NASA

Also: Organizations: Federal government of the United States

Terms: world suck

Concepts: climate change · exoplanet · patriotism · tax

Places: International Space Station · Mars

Events: Mars Science Laboratory

Characters: Starship Enterprise

Products: Hubble Space Telescope · James Webb Space Telescope · MESSENGER · Orion (spacecraft) · Space Shuttle

fact: NASA's annual budget · NASA's share of the US federal budget

Also centred on NASA: Hank Talks to NASA About the Space Shuttle · It's HANKO DE MAYO!!!!!

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