Is NASA worth the funding?

Whenever I go shopping with my mom, I always venture off on my own and find a random array of things that I want to buy. Most of the time my mom just shakes her head and I have to go back to the aisles where I found my treasures and place them back on the shelf. I never understood why she wouldn’t just let me buy the mini-pink handheld vacuum I wanted, I promised it would help me keep my room cleaner. My mom saw the bigger picture; she was probably thinking about all the bills we pay, or about the things that are much more necessary for us to buy. Sometimes when you are wrapped up in something, you only see the immediate benefits. When you step back you may realize that the negative repercussions outweigh the benefits. If you look at NASA as a single entity, the benefits seem literally out of this world. When you look at the world as a whole, NASA shouldn’t be a top priority when it comes to federal funding. Global warming, overpopulation, death due to unsanitary water and countless other issues need our attention. However, NASA’s countless failed or irrelevant missions have wasted many of those federal funds. We need to solve the problems on our Planet before we spend millions of dollars annually exploring other ones.   

Many people envision NASA as a profound institution that betters the nation and world through discoveries and the obtainment of knowledge. While this is true, there are a lot of negative repercussions that also need to be recognized. NASA consistently wastes federal funds. Recently, NASA spent 270.5 million dollars on the Constellation Project, a project aimed to send astronauts back to the moon. (Fox News). The Constellation Project was eventually cancelled by Congress, but because Congress failed to create a budget NASA still wasted $1.4 million dollars a day on other constellation projects (Fox News). Also, have you heard about the Orbiting Carbon Observatory; the project that was launched in 2009 and proceeded to crash into the pacific ocean not long after wasting $278 million dollars? Think about how many ways the United States could have better used 278 million dollars (Degroot); health care, water sanitation, education, or research to stop the growing environmental crisis. On a larger scale there are a lot of international issues that require our attention and funds. President Eisenhower once stated that “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). It seems almost silly to spend so much money on exploring a never ending field of research while we have so many unsolved problems on Earth.

NASA's Constellation Project aimed to revisit the moon.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/penguinbush/2768719983/

Not only is it seemingly silly to spend money on something that we will never truly understand but it also takes massive amounts of time to acquire information for research or to build a spacecraft. The years it takes to build spacecrafts are years of continuous burning of fossil fuels to make parts and supply energy to make parts. The universe is endless and therefore the research and studying on it is endless. If there is no final goal, no answers that can ever really be found, why spend so much time searching for something that as humans we can never really find?

The information that NASA obtains through their endless research doesn’t even render importance to many people. The voyagers, one of NASA’s big projects, are celebrating their 35th year in space (Kalser). Have you heard of the Voyagers before? Chances are unless you have done some research on space discoveries you haven’t. Have you heard about increased climate change or Cancer? 1,500 people die each day due to Cancer (cancer.org).These issues are much more prevalent in our day to day lives because they directly affect us. These issues are not solved and require funding and attention. Things such as climate change, cancer, water sanitation, malnutrition, and overpopulation are issues that affect a large number of people; they can result in tragedy and without a really big effort to solve these problems they will escalate exponentially. These problems need to be addressed before we spend time and money on anything other than them.

With all that being said, NASA shouldn’t become obsolete. Exploring is part of human nature. Our curious minds are what in the past has lead us to groundbreaking discoveries that change the way we live. All I am saying is that before we can focus so much attention, money, and time on exploring outer space, earthbound issues need to be solved. As NASA’s website states, it is important to explore so that we continue “our self-preservation as a creative, as opposed to a stagnating, society” (Dick). I think learning and growing for mankind is very important, and I think outer space holds lots of questions that allow curiosity and allow our minds to grow. However, there needs to be limitations. As Jerry Degroot, author of The Telegraph article, “The Space Race is a Pointless Waste of Money”, argues that “obscenely expensive manned missions mean that practical, earth-based science suffers, as does the genuinely valuable satellite research so essential to the way we live today.” To me, it is ridiculous to allow billions of government dollars go to a single organization. There are nearly 100 current missions lead by NASA. All of those missions require funding.

NASA need to prioritize, limit themselves to the missions they decide are most important and decrease their governmental funding. They could create a panel, to vote on missions they think would most benefit humankind, and then we can use the money that NASA doesn’t on more prevalent issues on earth. The panel could be comprised of all different types of people; NASA scientists, politicians, doctors, teachers, etc. Its important to get a broad range of types of people so that they can decide what missions are most relevant and deserve the most attention in an unbiased way. NASA’s benefits are stellar, however, they just need to prioritize; to pay the bills before they buy the mini-vac.

Works Cited

Dick, Steven J. "NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration." NASA. NASA.com,
22 Nov. 2007. Web. 03 Oct. 2012. <http://www.nasa.gov/missions/solarsystem/Why_We_01pt1.html>.

Fox News. "Wasteful NASA Constellation Spending." Fox News. FOX News Network, n.d.
Web. 16 Sept. 2012.
<http://www.foxnews.com/topics/wasteful-nasa-constellation-spending.htm>.

The Huffington Post UK. "Nasa Mars Landing: Curiosity Rover Touches Down On Red Planet
(PICTURES)." Huffingtonpost.co.uk. The Huffington Post, 06 Aug. 2012. Web. 12 Sept. 2012.<http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/08/06/nasa-mars-landing-curiosi_n_1745718.html>.

Kalser, Tiffany. "NASA Voyager 2 Space Mission Turns 35." Dailytech.com. The Daily Tech, 21
Aug. 2012. Web. 12 Sept. 2012.<http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=25470>.

Degroot, Jerry. "The Space Race Is a Pointless Waste of Money." Telegraph.co.uk.
The Telegraph, 25 Feb. 2009. Web. 12 Sept. 2012.    <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/4807506/The-space-race-is-a-pointless-waste-of-money.html>.  

Nature. "Moonlight Drive." Nature.com. Nature Publishing Group, 05 Sept. 2012. Web. 12 Sept.
2012. <http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v489/n7414/full/489006a.html>.