NASA: Should You Stay Or Should I Go?

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

NASA Funding The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was booming in the late 1960's because the U.S. government invested over 4.5 percent of the Federal Budget into it. Unfortunately, in the recent years the Government has slashed funding for many of NASA’s projects to cut back on the spending and boost the economy. Despite the plummet in NASA's budget, the program has proven its prominence in the U.S., by leading into missions that conclude in ground-shaking results such as the recent water finding on Mars. A space program like NASA continues to face difficulties in increasing its funds; Because the Government currently doesn't think NASA is worth more than 0.47 percent of the Federal Budget.

According to a pie chart called, “Federal Spending for United States - FY 2015” from the NASA Data Charts, the budget for space in 2015 is not a percentage significant enough to have its own section. Instead, it is a subsection of the heading Other Spendings, which is given 2% of the federal budget. Also, in the Neil deGrasse Tyson article, it is said that the American government only gives a 7/10 cent of a tax dollar to space exploration (Tyson 2). He gives a brilliant resolution by saying, “ I’d prefer that it were more, perhaps 2 cents on the dollar.” even though we used to “. . . peak NASA spending amounted to no more than 4 cents on the tax dollar”. One of the most important technological advance was the invention of the Hubble Space

While NASA may have once been the leading space organization in the world, the cuts and budget changes are not giving NASA what it needs to succeed. Today, NASA makes up around .5%, or $17 billion, of the national budget. This number is much smaller than the 4.5% in 1966. The United States government is cutting many different organizations and administrations in an attempt to balance the budget. The launching of a NASA space shuttle alone costs around half a billions dollars. Along with research and other things being made by NASA, it is extremely hard for the administration to launch shuttles. The government is being forced to turn its money from NASA, due to the high cost of building and launching rockets, and pay the private companies to take materials and government equipment to the International Space Station. Because of the cuts, various NASA projects are being shut down and abandoned. In 2005, the funding cuts threatened the longest running mission that NASA was running at the time; the Voyager probes. The Voyager probes are two probes that are headed into

NASA is a key player in our technological growth. It leads in innovating technology development in both public and private industries across the board from aviation to zoology. In add-on, increasing the space program funding may increase our defense. As it will be exceedingly important that America innovates its space program for defense, from telecommunication to aviation. Likewise, what if an asteroid comes in our proximity and threatens our existence?, we ought to have something

One problem is that NASA, as an organization, has obstacles that inhibit effective communication of vital safety

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

The impossible was reached on July 20th 1969 when we sent the first man on the moon. The Apollo missions are the largest and most well known explorations that NASA has conducted. Ever since we reached this new high, our curiosity of space has grown even bigger. Funding NASA’s space program even further will continue to help us amplify our available resources and discover new information to benefit humanity. Not only that, but it could provide many ways for us to find a new home and expand our species farther into our solar system, potentially saving future generations. The expansion of this space program would be able to answer more of our questions than from what we can find here on Earth. Although there

The greatest number of advances in exploration and discovery were made during the Space Race (Rabinowitch, 1963). The Space Race supplied vital knowledge about space to curious minds, and allowed Americans to better comprehend the expanse of the area beyond Earth. With new satellites, such as the Transit Satellites, Americans could now receive warnings of hurricanes and storms, as well as view forest fires and icebergs. The Space Race also brought the establishment of NASA in 1958 to oversee the space program and to ensure America won the Space Race (Young, Silcock, & Dunn, 1969). Since then, NASA has made many discoveries, advancing our scientific knowledge, and currently employs about 18,000 Americans. The knowledge that the Space Race provided helped accomplish many historical feats and eventually allowed a man to visit the moon (Cadbury, 2007). The discoveries that were founded during the Space Race resulted in new ideas about galaxies, solar systems, and the universe (Rabinowitch,

These impact prevention techniques and detection programs all come out of NASA, and it is crucial for NASA to stay funded to prevent disasters from striking and killing all life on Earth.

NASA states on their website “To reach for new heights and reveal the unknown so that what we do and learn will benefit all humankind. To do that, thousands of people have been working around the world -- and off of it -- for more than 50 years, trying to answer some basic questions. What's out there in space? How do we get there? What will we find? What can we learn there, or learn just by trying to get there, and all this will make life better here on Earth.” NASA’s vision is for the good. They want what is best for Earth and they want to advance Earth’s

In the article, the author explained how much money was spent sending satellites into orbit. The author stated that the cost to send a small satellite into orbit was around $100 million. For a larger rocket that carries a heavier payload, it is around $400 million. The author also made the comment that

     NASA exploration is helps farmers which boosts the economy and keeps us from going hungry. NASA’s Landsat satellites are designed to observe the changing conditions on the Earth’s surface. This satellite

The concept of space exploration was first introduced to the American public in 1961 when President John F. Kennedy famously stood before congress and vowed that America would put a man on the moon “within the decade.” With hopes of defeating the Soviet Union in the “Space Race” and gaining a leg-up in the Cold War, NASA funding reached its all-time high in 1965-1966 when about four percent of the federal budget was devoted to exploring space. Since then however, funding dedicated to exploring space has nose-dived to about one-half of a percent of the federal budget (Tyson), with plans to cut that figure by an additional $260 million in 2017 (cite NASA funding cuts). Experts in the space-sciences field argue that increased funding in space exploration would re-ignite the American economy and return America to the scientific prominence it was once known for, while, on the other end of the spectrum, naysayers suggest that exploring space is an economic sink-hole that the United States can no longer afford to deposit to given its own earth-bound troubles.

Many critics believe that NASA and space exploration should not be the main focus of the government. However, NASA is not just about flying rockets and putting men into space. There is science and engineering that is being developed to push humanity forward in life. This space program is essential to answering philosophical questions, creating new technology for practical everyday use, the international collaboration with other countries, and the long-term survival of the human