Government Funded Versus Privately Funded Human Life

American citizens have to pay taxes and some of that money is going towards space exploration. With a 12.7 trillion national debt and high unemployment in the United States, Americans simply aren’t willing to invest in human spaceflight right now (Naeye). America is not in a financially stable place and people feel the money should be used to do more useful things such as funding schools and repairing roads. However, American citizens are only having to pay 33 dollars a year to fund these programs (Life’s Little Mysteries Staff). Also, exploring space is very useful because exploring space has helped scientists learn many facts about all the planets, suns, and moons in the solar system plus about the other systems out

As President Eisenhower once stated, “Every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed” (qtd in DeGroot). According to Jerry DeGroot, a lecturer in the Department of Modern History at the University of St. Andrews and author of the widely acclaimed biography “Douglas Haig”, every year, the United States federal government funds the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) with over $17 billion. When Keith Yost, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), was asked about government funding on NASA, he replied, “NASA is not only spending money, but also the sweat of our laborers, the genius of our scientists, and the hopes of our children.” As a powerhouse in the work industry, NASA is taking away from the remainder of the country. Before venturing off into space, the US needs to realize the importance of tackling the issues that lie before the citizens here on Earth. As Richard Truly, a retired Vice Admiral in the United States Navy, stated in agreement, “...I didn’t go to NASA for the United States to make international commitments that wouldn’t keep, to design space vehicles that will never be built (or will be then fail), or to make promises to the American people that will never be kept.” It would be in the best interest for the citizens of the United States federal government to cut NASA funding.

The world today revolves around technology and is in an ever upward spiraling path of new advancements. This path is now at what some people call the “final frontier”, or the space age. The discoveries being made on this front are overwhelming in comparison to the technology that the world had only twenty years ago. Space exploration was once left up to the governments, as they battled to be the first country in space, but with national debts raising and the cuts made in response, space exploration is beginning to become new grounds for private business owners. Private companies are already beginning to send off rockets at a fraction of the cost that government does, but if more money was put into the government space program, then they

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is perhaps the most well known space agency in the world. Since its formation in 19581, it has pioneered in space science, yet is also renowned for its large budget. NASA has the highest budget of any space agency, $18.6 billion2 in 2015, the equivalent of every American paying $54 towards the agency3, meaning 0.14% of total GDP is spent on NASA3 . This money is spent on the ISS, sending astronauts, probes and satellites into space, astrophysics and planetary science research, maintaining and developing NASA’s space telescopes (the Wide Field Infrared Survey telescope searching for dark energy and exoplanets, the James Webb Space Telescope and the Hubble Space Telescope) and developing spacecraft2. Space exploration is an incredibly expensive process with one shuttle launch costing $450 million4 however NASA’s colossal budget benefits the USA greatly; the agency employs 18,000 people5 as astronauts, engineers, scientists and teachers and G. Scott Hubbard, former director of the NASA Ames Research Center estimates that every dollar spent on NASA returns $8 to the economy6.While this figure is an estimate, it demonstrates NASA’s worth and capacity for money making. NASA works on pioneering research and as its patents and licenses return to the US treasury, it

Americans have now found more important things to worry about in their lives. Why risk lives in space when we're already risking enough lives here in our country and overseas? The space program just can't hold its own anymore. The loss of lives and money in the Columbia and Challenger missions also plays as part of a power struggle in the government. Facing a growing debt and public criticism of NASA's failures, the government is forced to cut funding to our space program and subsequently, NASA begins to lose the struggle of power in the public eye.

Although it is true that there is no concrete outcome “for using taxpayer money” to fund space programs, it does not mean in any way that the money is not being used to help our society grow (Source H). The bulk of the money funded to space exploration goes towards the incomes of thousands of skilled employees who create such successful space missions. It can be assumed that less than one percent is being used from the federal dollar on manned space programs, as space exploration falls under the “All others” category which spends six percent of every federal tax dollar (Source C). Space exploration programs have the potential to discover new technologies and expand on what we have here on Earth, but in order to succeed, there needs to be slight altercations with how each federal tax dollar is spent. National defense gets nineteen percent of each federal tax dollar – a proportion that is too extraordinary considering the United States has access to a nuclear arsenal which is far less expensive and just as effective as maintaining conventional forces (Source C). The United States is pretty much the military for half the world, so instead of collecting all the money from our tax payers here in America, we should collect from other counties that we protect as

“Sputnik marked the beginning of the "space race," a period of nearly twenty years during which fierce US and Soviet competition spurred both countries to make rapid progress in aeronautic engineering,” (Lee). This period of time birthed a new program from the American government, called the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, or NASA. NASA has been building rockets, training astronauts, and studying space for the benefit of science, the government, and the people of America since 1958. Unfortunately, many people don't realize how important NASA is, and there have been efforts made to stop the government from funding NASA. This program is essential for increasing knowledge of outer space, protecting planet Earth, and creating

To go to space, there are many tools required, and to say the least, it is exceedingly expensive. Source C exhibits charts displaying what the Federal Government spends money on and how much money they spend. Space and technology fall under the category of “Other” which is only 6%. This is very reasonable. Functions like health, medicare, social security and national defense should all come before anything else.

With only roughly $10 of the annual personal income tax going to NASA, it's a wonder how they make due with such a smaller budget. (1) President JFK had made it clear that he wanted them to do such a task before the end of the decade and they delivered on that. Now, it today's world, space travel is becoming more and more like it might be the new way to get around, similar how airports and airplanes helped change that as well. The one issue is that they can't do that or even help other countries, who have a much stronger space program, work on new ways to make such a thing possible. More recently, to get astronauts from the United States to the ISS, NASA has had to rely on the Russians to take them aboard their shuttles and up to the station. That says a lot when we were able to step foot on the moon and come back to tell the tale. Yet somehow the percentage of funding that they do receive is still too much for some to think that they get. How is NASA supposed to keep delivering on new ideas and inventions when they have to focus on how to get the astronauts into space? Well in truth, they can't. They have to focus on getting

    How much do you think it costs to fund a satellite launch? Maybe $10 million, or $20 million? According to www.airspacemag.com, it can cost anywhere from $50 million to $500 million, depending on the equipment and materials used. This amount is miniscule compared to the substantial $728 billion spent on military/defense in 2011. With the less than 1% given to NASA, it has already made a great deal of discoveries and achievements. Some of these tremendous accomplishments include being the first country to the moon and never-before-seen images taken by Hubble telescope and Chandra X-Ray Observatory. Not only has NASA changed exploration of space forever, but some of their great effort has affected humans directly! We need to keep exploring, and discover new information and knowledge of where we live!

In the past 50 years, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has sent out many planned space exploration missions which have lead to numerous advantages in society and culture. NASA’s technologies benefit American lives with the innumerable important breakthroughs by creating new markets that have spurred the economy and changed countless lives in many ways. NASA is a federal agency and receives its fundings from the annual federal budget passed by the United States Congress. However, there are conflicting opinions that consider whether or not funding for NASA is a waste of government spending.

With the threat of Congress cutting NASA 's budget, the United State 's sixty year preeminence in space exploration is in serious peril..

The common misconception in the scientific community is that there is only one way to get things into space- a combustion powered rocket. However, recently there have been talks and designs floating around about other methods to travel to space. Currently the technology and tools existing regarding space are seen as revolutionary and ahead of our time. However the possibility for even more advanced and efficient technology is within the grasp of humanity. We first launched a rocket to get to the moon in 1969, and since then the design for space rockets has varied slightly. The use of space shuttles was first introduced in 1981, and since then almost no changes have been made for space travel. In our world if you are not progressing, you are falling behind. We have been using dangerous and unreliable rockets for 47 years now. The recent explosion that occurred for the company SpaceX has highlighted our case and point. The current way to get into space is not only unreliable and dangerous, but it is also highly inefficient and expensive. The main focus in recent years is launching things into geostationary orbits, or orbits that stay in the same spot relative to the Earth. The cost to launch a rocket into a geostationary orbit is currently around 20,000 dollars per kilogram, which is an outrageous amount of money (http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/176625-60000-miles-up-geostationary-space-elevator-could-be-built-by-2035-says-new-study). Furthermore the rockets themselves are

One of the most significant issues is the cost. According to Washington Post, funding for space exploration in America is at an all-time low of one half percent, reduced from four percent of America’s government spending. With this low percentage of government investment, the costs that are required to send

It is impossible to stimulate our economy or to find new things in space without a space effort. The space exploration has only begun and it has only been happening for four decades so why stop something that only has truly begun.