
NASA's budget is still infinitesi
mal compared to other agencies. you owe a lot to the spinoffs and discoveries made by the program. quite a few have been medical in nature. NASA's paid itself back over and over and over again.
go to the NASA Spinoff page at http://www.sti.nasa.gov/tto/ and go to the spinoff database. enter almost anything into the search fields and you'll likely find a spinoff. they range from better bicycle wheels to meals for the elderly.
politics is the reason you don't see what you want. most of those problems are ideological in nature, and you have to deal with ideologues to get them, especially if you've been reading the news for the past few years.
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