What is the international opinion of NASA? How is NASA viewed, if at all, by the larger global community?

NASA is amazing and does amazing 

Unfortunately, Nixon killed the Apollo program when there were rockets waiting to go to the moon. 90%+ of the costs were already paid for. Also that Space Shuttle thing? Never should have existed.

Because of the bureaucratic funding process, the Space Shuttle was designed to carry payloads for the Air Force (which it never did do). That's why it has the solid boosters attached and the giant disposable fuel tank. Not that those design change are what allowed the Challenger and Columbia accidents to happen. None of this is a criticism of NASA. NASA has done amazing work despite some unfortunate bureaucracy surrounding the U.S. space program. Actually the people trying to ‘destroy’ public education, are students, who are sick and tired of the current system, that was created to make factory workers, and was kept for over 150 years to keep the general population stupid, so people in power can stay in power. We’re finally waking up and getting rid of it. Dont you f*ckin ruin this!

Furthermore, while the second part is true, theres also major parts of Nasa that were affected by the large government in a negative way, most notably, SLS, and the end of the space era.

The only good government is limited government. As cliche as it sounds, thats what our country was built on, and even then, we failed by trusting the limited government too much.

The thing that really makes Nasa shine, is other than taxes being their main form of income, for the most part, they don’t have any say in your day to day life. Let’s face it, you leave them alone and let them do what they want, make rockets, they wont bother you. That’s the way nasa shines. And they have been known to make miracles happen with their money, take the MRVN rover prototype that they made solely off ticket sale funds!

Furthermore, I’m a conservative, and no, what you think about us is wrong. We dont wanna hurt anybody, we just wanna be left alone(also, have you ever even met the PO?! I have a really good one near my house and even that’s shitty!). Don’t assume the other party is evil or bad because they want x thing, because we all have our own opinions, and by doing so, youre worsening the problem by making it harder to build the infrastructure required to make a neutral political climate, which is our basic requirement for further survival at this point!

Well, this American takes a lot of pride in NASA, and personally wishes its budget grows substantially in the future so that it once again can inspire millions of Americans to pursue careers in STEM and space exploration.

That being said, I think the privation of space launch vehicles is a good thing for the space exploration industry, and for NASA. NASA’s bread and butter isn’t building big powerful rockets- its building high-tech, cutting edge probes, rovers, and instruments that greatly enhance our understanding of the universe and our solar system.

The agency ought to be a cause for national pride” and I completely agree. This is one area where the USA has truly done great things.

So why are people trashing it, particularly people from the USA?

It’s because the gates to the kingdom are largely shut. The educational system is hobbling people who grew up in poor neighborhoods, because schools are funded by property taxes. The costs of higher education are getting increasingly hard to surmount.

People hate things that they’re kept outside of, particularly things that are points of pride. They feel lessened by what they can’t participate in, or don’t understand themselves to be benefiting from.

Therefore, I think a restored sense of shared identity and value is needed if we’re to fix this problem.

Private rockets and delivery vehicles combined with cutting-edge NASA probes and instruments makes for good, productive, efficient space exploration.

A: Let’s face it: NASA built and flew those:

Many—I will even venture to say most—of us in the United States absolutely do recognize NASA in all its glory and do understand the extraordinary feats that NASA has accomplished. Many people, including me, find deep inspiration in NASA and harbor tremendous respect for NASA. We’re proud of it. I find it strange to hear that some people outside the United States have the perception that Americans don’t appreciate or value NASA, because this has not been my experience. In retrospect, I don’t think I’ve ever met a fellow American who didn’t think highly of NASA. Every person who is associated with NASA is truly brilliant. They are upstanding, highly driven people, and this is obvious if you pay attention and listen to the way they speak, listen to the passion in their voices.

However, if there are Americans who oppose or disapprove of NASA, it is probably because of the Space Shuttle Challenger (STS-51-L) disaster In 1986, which killed all seven crewmembers on board 73 seconds after liftoff, or because of the Space Shuttle Columbia (STS-107) disaster in 2003, which killed all seven crewmembers on board during re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere. More specifically, some Americans may have begun to view NASA more disapprovingly as a result of the Rogers Commission (which investigated the Challenger disaster) and the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (which investigated the Columbia disaster). The Rogers Commission found that the Challenger disaster was caused by a structural failure involving flawed O-ring design and by NASA’s failure to address the design flaw, even though NASA knew about the flaw as early as 1977. Similarly, the CAIB determined that the Columbia disaster could also be attributed to NASA’s organizational failure to address a structural design flaw—also previously known by NASA—involving large heat tiles made of insulating foam. A section of a heat tile broke off from the shuttle about a minute and a half after Columbia launched. It slammed into the shuttle’s left wing, causing damage. Columbia did reach orbit—orbiting the Earth some 36 times in about 15 days—and successfully completed its assignments. But the damage to the carbon heat shield that the shuttle sustained during launch (more than two weeks prior) rendered it unable to withstand the hypersonic velocity (28,646 km/h or 17,800 mph), extreme heat, friction, and physical stress associated with re-entry. The shuttle broke apart or exploded or both, then disintegrated, in the skies above northeast Texas and parts of Louisiana’s westmost extremities. And trust me—I should know. I live in northeast Texas and we were ground zero of the disaster. On 1 February 2003, a Saturday, the 11-year-old me was abruptly snapped awake, alert and startled, by an extremely loud boom that shook the ground, rattled windows, and shattered glass. Anyone who was still asleep at 8:59 would have been jerked awake. (When I think back, the boom had to have been just massive, because it woke me up and I “heard” it in my sleep.) The entire region was swarming with government agents, investigators, journalists and reporters, volunteers, and NASA and EPA officials for weeks after the disaster.

Here is an actual radar image from the National Weather Service showing debris from the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster in the skies above East Texas and western Louisiana, United States, on 1 February 2003:

The Columbia disaster and the findings of the CAIB directly led to the the eventual retirement of the American space shuttle fleet in 2011.

Alternatively, another reason some Americans may take issue with NASA is that NASA itself is a government agency. It is part of the U.S. federal government. Some people may (unfairly) view NASA in a negative light because of this.

In general, though, we Americans cherish NASA.

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And, together with a lot of other space agencies, that:

In short, it is bloody hard to not be impressed by what NASA has done since 1958. And one of the things that we non-Americans finds quite baffling is the scepticism and blame towards NASA for just about everything that many Americans show. The only “Americans” bad mouthing NASA are those that want the US to have nothing to do with space. This viewpoint has existed from the very beginnings of the US space effort. These people feel that the money invested would be better spent on more earthly concerns like want, and poverty, etc. Though very noble, they fail to realize that tech progress must also be pursued in order for our civilization to progress. The US can do both, aid humanity in it needs and more forward technologically.

The agency ought to be a cause for national pride, and yet we see you badmouthing the only agency in the world which has put not just one but twelve humans on the friggin’ Moon!

Picture Source Wikipedia

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