A Modest Proposal: Funding NASA

Funding NASA
Imagine this for a second. A young teary-eyed boy sits in the waiting room of the hospital as the doctor informs him about his father’s failing heart. As awful and heartbreaking as this situation sounds, that boy’s father is able to stay alive via a ventricular assist device that will continue to pump blood through his veins until he can receive a necessary heart transplant. This device is ever-present in the field of medicine and is responsible for saving countless lives. Well this device is just one of the numerous technological innovations that would not exist without the National Aeronautics Space Administration (NASA) whose future is in doubt due to its detrimental budget cuts. In the frequent media’s light, NASA has been negatively portrayed as a useless organization and this has led to many believed the whole organization
It is believed that competition among private companies striving to earn their quarterly profit could lead to a more efficient approach to space exploration (Kluger). This ideal of competition leading to success is what American capitalism is based on and has been proven to be efficient. The resolution, however, does not fully reconcile the problem. Private enterprises are typically so worried about quarterly profits, which hinders long-term projects such as putting a man on Mars or exploring Europa, a moon of Jupiter that has the most potential to support extraterrestrial life. This being the case, programs showing no immediate return on investments will be weeded out and plucked from existence before they can actually benefit society; therefore, space exploration is best left in the hands of