NASA funding Quotes

We need to be very thoughtful about how we propose to spend the money that NASA does have for space exploration. And we need to be clear that there's the human spaceflight part of NASA, and there's the science space part of NASA, and there's also aeronautics. Those are all very different things that NASA does.

My plan to put Social Security in an ironclad lockbox has gotten a lot of attention recently, and I'm glad about that. But I'm afraid that it's overshadowing some vitally important proposals. For instance, I'll put Medicaid in a walk-in closet. I'll put the Community Reinvestment Act in a secured gym locker. I'll put NASA funding in a hermetically sealed Ziploc bag.

While NASA talks about 'Are we alone?' as a number one question, they are putting zero money into searching for intelligent life. There's a big disconnect there.

As long as humanity has been human, it has looked toward the heavens and dreamed that some day, some way, there would be giant federal contracts involved.

President Obama is launching a new $6 billion space policy that will ultimately take astronauts to Mars. Of course, it's $6 billion and $45 if the astronauts have a carry-on.

As chairman of the Senate subcommittee responsible for NASA appropriations, I say not a penny for this nutty fantasy.

Congress came to see NASA primarily as a jobs program, not an exploratory agency.

Man-made global warming was a potential serious threat, and NASA wanted Congress to fund new satellites to study the problem. It was a team effort to get that accomplished.

The problem is that many people operate on the assumption that NASA should go to Congress every year with hat in hand and justify it every year. Well, I see it as the greatest economic driver that there ever was. Economic drivers don't need justification.

I don't think I could advocate for increasing NASA's budget by a factor of two or ten, because I want us to have good roads in our country. I want us to have good education in our country. And NASA's budget is part of a discretionary budget, and we can't make that bigger without taking away other things.

In America, we have no means of getting to our own Space Station. We have to pay the Russians to put our people up there to send them into space - rendezvous with the Station and bring them back at the end of their stay, and that to me is just wrong. We're supposed to be the world's greatest space-faring nation, and to cancel our own means of getting there I thought was a mistake, even though it would save some money.

By the way, how much does NASA cost? It's half a penny on a dollar. Did you know that? ... The most powerful agency on the dreams of a nation is currently underfunded to do what it needs to be doing, and that's making dreams come true ... How much would you pay for the universe?

The U.S. federal government may be going broke, but it's not because of NASA.

I'm hoping that the suspension of the space program is just that, a suspension, and that it's not the final say in the matter, because I think we need it.

I hate to think that we may be out there seven to ten years out and dependent on the Russians for our journey into space.

My one concern is that when money gets tight, it's easy to cut R&D funding that isn't tied to a specific project - look at what's happened to NASA's aviation research.

I do not believe that anything really worthwhile will come out of the exploration of the slag heap that constitutes the surface of the moon...Nobody should imagine that the enormous financial budget of NASA implies that astronomy is now well supported.

The West Virginia NASA Space Grant took me under their wing and taught me everything about applying for internships, scholarships, and performing research at the undergraduate level.

The authorizing committees are free to set their agency budgets, and that includes NASA.

It is only by freeing NASA from routine human transport to low-Earth orbit that we can afford to once again see American astronauts exploring distant worlds.

Over the last eight years, the Obama-Clinton administration has undermined our space program tremendously. That will change. So many good things come out of it, including great jobs. And it will change very quickly under a Trump administration and it will change before it is too late.

I do not expect NASA to go out and build settlements and colonies. I do not expect them to give SpaceX all the money needed to colonize Mars. I do not expect them to realize the future of humanity is contingent on harvesting the wealth of the solar system overnight and suddenly subsidize my asteroid mining project.