Should the U.S. Increase Spending on the Space Program

Should the U.S. Government Increase Spending On The Space Program

A group of children lie in the tall grass on a moonless night, staring in wonder up at the hundreds of diamond pinpoints glittering across the heavens. This peaceful scene could have taken place at any point in history, from the cave dwelling Neanderthal, to a family celebrating a warm summer evening together at a local park. The Heavens have always been a source of passionate fascination and wonderment for intelligent beings. Nearly every culture throughout known time has had legends about the heavens or the stars. In fact, to many cultures, Greek and Roman for example, the night skies were so magical that the heavens were the focal point of their creation myths. In more recent times, we have begun to be less superstitious about the star studded expanse above us, astrology aside, and begun to apply scientific fact and mathematical certainties to that very mysterious beyond. We began to have the technological advancements that would make it possible to actually begin decoding the mysteries of, and then amazingly, foraying into that last frontier which culminated in the U.S. being the only country to have ever put a man on the moon. So why did it essentially end there?

Think about this, every time you use your smart phone, you are holding in the palm of your hand more technology than was used to navigate the first moon landing. Yet, despite our marked leaps forward in the applied sciences in the last fifteen years, which have the potential to make frequent, smaller scale, passenger accompanied space travel plausible and much safer, the space program in the United States seems to merit less and less government funding every passing year. So with all of space waiting to be discovered, decoded, and explored, why do we as a country, seem to be turning our backs on the space program?

Arguments abound as to why the space program is a waste of our precious time, government resources and technology. Those opposed to the space program argue that the funds used to put equipment into orbit around the earth and used to build space shuttles and design rocket fuel powerful enough to launch hundreds of thousands of pounds of metal tens of thousands of miles, should instead be used to revitalize a sluggish economy, fix our severely inadequate public education system or be used to fund research geared toward helping to reverse some of the damage mankind has done to the planet we already inhabit. Proponents of shutting down space programs completely and diverting funds elsewhere also make points that if we had these brilliant minds working on projects like the U.S. Infrastructure or clean energy instead of frittering away their talents on useless space projects, that we could quickly solve some very large problems facing our country. Most of these arguments are well thought out and make very valid points however, they seem to miss the fact that our way of life would be very different if NASA had never existed.

Take for example during the early Apollo missions. NASA scientists realized that they needed better, clearer pictures of the moons surface in order to determine if landing a man on the moon was even a feasible idea. They put their heads together and in the 1960's they came up with digital image processing. A revolutionary step in technology that would allow the scientists to use computers to enhance pictures of the moons surface. Soon after the discovery this technology exploded on the scene in the medical industry as medical researchers discovered that they could modify NASA's technology to better see organs in the human body without surgery. These breakthroughs are still used today. We know them as Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and Computed Tomography (CT) scans which save millions of lives every single year.

Speaking of lives, another lifesaving device came from modified NASA technology, though not in the medical field. An engineer saw the massive rocket launchers that propel massive spacecrafts into deep space and it gave him an idea. He approached the government with the idea and was granted permission to partner with and research his vision. In a few short years they has modified the rocket propulsion system, minimized it and it is now used across the united states to fight fires. It propels the water at such a high pressure that it has revolutionized putting out fires. It's quicker, safer and it also wastes no precious water.

Even our comfort levels have been raised due to NASA's research. They needed something to reduce the bone jarring impact of spacecrafts landing. So they created a polyurethane, silicone, plastic blend to help protect astronauts and cargo. We know this today as memory foam and it is in everything from car seats to protect the most innocent among us to mattresses, motorcycle helmets, recliners and even Fido's bed. There are dozens, if not hundreds of examples of how space exploration technology vastly improved daily life in America.

Even if you choose not to look at the way NASA launched the American people into a safer, more comfortable America you would have to be wearing blinders to not recognize how NASA launched the U.S. Into the lead politically. The space race between the United States and the Soviet Union had it's origins in the missile based Arms Race that occurred at the end of World War II. The Space Race marked unprecedented spending on education and pure research which accelerated scientific advancement at a rate previously unheard of. In other words, most of the technology we have today in the United States as well as the comfortable way that we live is due to NASA and to our govenrment investing well in the future of its future generations. Spending on both programs has been cut steeply in the last fifteen years and we have had little new technology advance and also we are generating graduates that are unskilled for the hightech jobs and positions that need to be filled in order to keep the U.S. Advancing forward.

Take a look at the numbers. In 1012 NASA was allocated 18.7 Billion from the Federal Government. I know that sounds huge but it's actually less then 1% of the entire U.S. Budget. 69.8 billion went to education and that's obviously a lot more than NASA's funding but if you look at the bigger picture the Defense got 670 billion. To put it another way, science, advancement and technology received less than one percent of the nations budget. Education is doing a bit better at nearly five percent but Defense? That's almost twenty seven percent of our nations budget. I think we as a society need to come together and ask our government to help us launch America forward again by investing in out space programs. After all, as The President of the United States himself said “For pennies on the dollar, the space program has improved our lives, advanced our society, strengthened our economy, and inspired generations of Americans.” I would ask him to ensure that that never stops.