Strategic Investment and NASA

When I was back in corporate America there was a phrase tossed about frequently, "Strategic Investment" which was a euphemism for, "we really want to spend this money but have no idea if it will ever make a return". I spent time at NYNEX cleaning up quite a few prior "Strategic Investments". They are investments because one spends money and "Strategic" because no one had the faintest idea as to how it will ever make a return. "Strategic Investments" are corporate waste. In the case of the current Administration their "Strategic Investments" are just outright squandering of taxpayer funds.

Now where does NASA fit in? Simply, in my early years I spent a few on NASA programs at MIT. They took valuable assets, intellectual talent, and wasted it sending a man to the moon. We could have allowed the economy to work its way and have entrepreneurs, instead we had moon landings. NASA has been a colossal waste of taxpayer money for decades. It continues to be such. DOD launches its own spacecraft, why use NASA. So is what is being proposed nothing more than an extension of that waste? Most likely so.