NASA used to be both a national
and international inspiration of what humanity could when we tried—yet today
NASA’s stagnant budget threatens to destroy that inspiration as well as the
vital technological and economical benefits NASA has given us.
To solve this problem the
Government should increase NASA’s budget from 17 billion dollars to 1% of total
Federal Spending—24 billion dollars.
In 2007
Astrophysicist Neil Tyson wrote in Parade Magazine that we could lose
everything that Apollo-era NASA gave to our country:
Humans
[landed] on the moon aboard Apollo 11 as part of an ambitious investment in
science and technology. That enterprise drove a half-century of unprecedented
wealth and prosperity that today we take for granted. Now, as our interest in
science wanes, America is poised to fall behind the rest of the industrialized
world in every measure of technological proficiency.
Science
and technology are the greatest engines of economic growth the world has ever
seen. Without regenerating homegrown interest in these fields, the comfortable
lifestyle to which Americans have become accustomed will draw to a rapid close.
Investment in NASA drove
America to the top, but today stagnant funding is threatening to topple our
international leadership and prosperity. More tangibly, reduced NASA funding
led to the loss of a second shuttle and crew in 2003. Joseph Trento working for
the National Security News Service, explained in 2007 how that lesson is still
unlearned:
NASA is playing with fire by trying to run the shuttle on the cheap. They're keeping the [shuttle] together with baling wire and matchsticks. The budget can fall no further without raising the risk of calamity. This is it; we can't get any closer to the bone.
Continuing to starve NASA of
the funds it needs will surely lead to more deadly mistakes due understaffed
operations or outdated equipment—it is a matter of life and death. Insufficient
NASA funding will also lead to lost American aeronautic competiveness, as Congressman
Mark Udall explained in 2007:
Most people have no idea NASA is essentially the only agency organizationally and technically capable of supporting the nation's leadership in air transportation, air safety and aircraft manufacturing. At these funding levels, NASA [can’t] come close to fulfilling national needs in the face of an already strained air-traffic control system, fierce international competition in aircraft markets, challenges of emissions and fuel efficiency, and demands for improved air safety and homeland security. This shows stunning neglect of national interests in the future of aeronautics technologies.
With current NASA funding the US will lose its international leadership in aeronautics and continues low funding will lead to lagging economy, decreasing standard of living, lost international technological leadership, further accidental loss of life and materials, and loss of national aeronautics industry.
NASA’s current budget is 17.3
billion dollars—0.7% of total Federal Spending including Social Security—a
pittance for what many experts agree has been the driving force in American
technological superiority.
The Government should increase NASA’s
budget to 1% of the Federal Budget, from 17 to 24 billion dollars. In 2007 US
Representative Ken Calvert of California explained the benefits of such a raise:
Increased
investment can have a profound and material positive impact on U.S.
competitiveness and technology leadership, as well as the nation's status as a
leader among nations. Civil space is so important to our nation on so many
levels that it warrants sustained funding of at least 1 percent of the federal
budget in any given year. Goods and services relying on space infrastructure
generate more than one hundred billion dollars in direct revenue and enable
important industries that are much larger. By investing in the space program,
we advance knowledge, improve the quality of life for our citizens back here on
Earth, and help maintain American technological competitiveness. In short, we
are investing in our future.
Spending on NASA yields
many-fold returns in capital and industrial development as well maintenance of
our life style. In 2007 US Senator Barbara Mikulski expanded on the need for
increased NASA spending to help the US’s struggling economy and scientific
leadership:
We need
NASA to spur our economy and inspire a new generation of scientists and
engineers. In 2004, China graduated 500,000 engineers and the U.S. graduated
70,000. In 2003, only three American companies ranked among the top 10
recipients of patents, and America spends less than 1 percent of its GDP on
research and development. The bottom line is that the President must increase
funding for NASA.
Clearly the US needs increased
educational and economic competiveness through boosted NASA funding. Such
funding will maintain the innovative climate necessary for our continued economic
and intellectual growth, as Astrophysicist Neil Tyson said in 2007,
The
cross-pollination of disciplines almost always creates innovation and
discovery. And nothing accomplishes this like space exploration. Those
collective efforts have the capacity to improve and enhance all that we have
come to value as a modern society. America’s former investments in aerospace
have shaped our discovery-infused culture in ways that are obvious to the rest
of the world. But we are a sufficiently wealthy nation to embrace this
investment for tomorrow—to drive our economy, our ambitions and, above all, our
dreams.
In conclusion, maintaining our
status as the international leader requires that we both acknowledge what NASA
done for us and then pledge to maintain NASA with funding at 1% of the Federal
Budget.
Thesis:
The
Government should increase NASA’s budget from 17 billion dollars to 1% of the
Federal Budget—24 billion dollars.
Continued low NASA funding will lead to
lost economic, technological and educational leadership of the US.
1
2
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Terrorism
and world troubles deserve the money:
No, firstly NASA takes
less than one percent of our budget. Secondly, what defines us as the leading
nation is our perseverance to push toward innovation and the future despite
obstacles.
NASA
Chief Historian Steven
Dick 2007
Today
there are ample reasons one might give not to continue space exploration. 2001
--supposed to be the year of Arthur C. Clarke's "Space Odyssey," will
forever be remembered instead for the events of 9/11. We do have to deal with
the reality of world events, but surely we should not let terrorism set the
agenda. H. G. Wells said many years ago that "Human history becomes more
and more a race between education and catastrophe."
We are still in that race today, and
surely an international cooperative venture into space -- with all that implies
-- strikes a blow against catastrophe, and a victory for civilization. It now
remains to be seen whether great things may be done even in the midst of great
unrest in the world.
NASA does not yield tangible benefits
No, the effects of NASA’s efforts are present in all of our
lives.
Matthew Rogers, Perdue University 2005.
The scope of discovery and invention resulting from NASA
missions is almost infinite: From astrophysics to material engineering to
medicine. For example, smoke detectors were invented by NASA to use on their
spacecraft. Quartz timing crystals that you find in most watches, bar codes you
see in retail stores, and much of the portable medical
equipment in ambulances are all derived from NASA inventions first used in
spaceflight. Composite materials designed to be light enough to launch into
space but strong enough to withstand the impact of a meteorite and other space
junk are now used in helmets, tennis rackets, and even some parts of cars. Over
30,000 products, procedures, and materials have come from the NASA labs
Other ventures would
yield more economic growth
No, NASA is one of the most efficient ways to get return for
tax dollars.
Matthew Rogers, Perdue University 2005.
The most immediate benefit of exploration is economic
growth; discovery of new goods and materials, and the inventions inspired by
the needs of exploration, generate enormous returns to the nation’s economy.
NASA’s own returns to the United States’ economy are not insignificant–on the
order of a 700% return for every dollar invested in space exploration (NSS).
This primarily comes in the form of new materials and microelectronics that
NASA more or less freely shares with the public or US companies.
Funding should go to
fight poverty instead
No, that diversion
wouldn’t even make a different—and would rob us of NASA’s benefits.
Matthew Rogers, Perdue University 2005.
Comparing NASA’s budget with agencies
whose mission is to alleviate poverty-related problems shows staggering
disparities that effectively nullify the argument for diverting funds away from
NASA. Most notably:
Housing and Urban Development ($40 billion), Health and Human Services ($560
billion), and the Social Security Administration ($50 billion), the agency that
figures out how to disburse Social Security payments ($502 billion).
Individually, each of these agencies already have many times the funding of
NASA, let alone their collective total of $1.15 trillion, 77 times the funding
of NASA.. Suffice to say, NASA’s funding is a drop in the bucket of the federal
budget. Taken from an economist’s perspective, NASA is one of the government
agencies with the highest return on the investment.
Space Travel is no
longer fashionable or Inspirational
No, aeronautics and
space travel is the most inspiration tool in the world, it is fundamental to
our progress.
Do you
know the most popular museum in the world over the past decade? It’s not the
Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Uffizi in Florence or the Louvre in
Paris. It’s the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., which
contains everything from the Wright Brothers’ original 1903 airplane to the
Apollo 11 command module. Visitors value the air and space artifacts this
museum contains. Why? It’s an American legacy to the world. But, more
important, it represents the urge to dream and the will to enable it. These
traits are fundamental to being human and have coincided with what it is to be American.
Funding would do better
elsewhere
Yes, we need funding
elsewhere but NASA is only a tiny expenditure of our government.
How many times have we
heard the mantra: “Why are we spending billions of dollars up there in space
when we have pressing problems down here on Earth?” Let’s re-ask the question
in an illuminating way: “What is the total cost in taxes of all spaceborne telescopes, planetary probes, the
rovers on Mars, the space station and shuttle, telescopes yet to orbit and
missions yet to fly?” Answer: less than 1% on the tax dollar—7/10ths of a
penny, to be exact. I’d prefer that it were more, perhaps 2 cents on the
dollar. Even during the storied Apollo era, peak NASA spending amounted to no
more than 4 cents on the tax dollar. At that level, NASA’s current
space-exploration program would reclaim our pre-eminence in a field we
pioneered. Right now, the program paddles along slowly, with barely enough
support to ever lead the journey.
We Can’t Risk More Lives
First, NASA has claimed
very few lives, second, we must push through disaster
for the greater good.
Elliot G. Pulham 2004,
president of the Space Foundation.
On February 1, 2003, America and the world lost seven brave souls who cheerfully gave their all and knowingly risked their lives so that humankind could benefit from the knowledge to be gained by 16 days of scientific research in space. When mission STS-107 ended in tragedy over the southwestern United States, the anguish of our loss was felt around the world.
How we respond to national tragedy is the measure of our character. The effect of the attacks of Dec. 7, 1941, and Sept. 11, 2001, was that our enemies had awakened a sleeping giant. We can be equally proud that our response to the loss of Columbia has not been to retreat from our exploration of space, but rather to strengthen our resolve.
Private Companies would
do it better
No, other nations
already are funding their aeronautics publically; we need to do so to compete.
Eric Hedman
chief technology officer at Logic Design Corporation 2007
NASA’s
aeronautics research has helped our aerospace industry stay ahead of companies
like Airbus that are heavily subsidized by foreign governments. The European
Union is now preparing to select and fund aeronautics research projects in the
manner NASA has done. This nation cannot afford to abandon aeronautics research
that has been part of the remarkably continually improving safety record of our
airlines and helped keep our trade deficit from becoming worse. With the long
time for payback from some cutting-edge research, publicly traded corporations
with the pressure from stockholders for every quarter to be better than the
last cannot always fund this research internally.
Funding Public Education
would be better
No, NASA funding is the
best way to get multi-fold payoffs for spending in science education.
Nils Hasselmo,
President of Association of American Universities 2005
As part of the overall investment in
the future of NASA and its workforce, AAU cannot stress enough the important
role NASA science programs play in universities nationwide in exposing
undergraduate and graduate students to high-tech programs in flight hardware,
advanced data analysis, and modeling. We point out that NASA activities
carried-out in our universities have a double pay-off – the first as NASA
acquires instruments and software for use in its missions and operations, and
the second in the development of students who will one day serve as our
nation’s technological and scientific workforce.
Other Nations will never be able to catch up
No, other nations are
already catching us.
Though
recent stories about China have focused on concerns such as tainted drugs and
food, China’s growth as a major world player demands our attention. During a
recent trip to Beijing, I expected to see wide boulevards dense with bicycles
as a primary means of transportation. Instead, I was surprised to see those
boulevards filled with top-end luxury cars, while cranes knit a new skyline of
high-rise buildings.
China
became the third space-faring nation. Next step, the moon.
Meanwhile, Europe and India are redoubling their efforts to conduct robotic
science on spaceborne platforms. This emerging
community of nations is hungry for their slice of the aerospace universe. In
America, contrary to our self-image, we are no longer leaders but simply
players. We’ve moved backward just by standing still.
Space travel isn’t worth
it, we should just leave it alone
No, pushing our
boundaries and exploring is vital for humanity. As Americans we are proud of
our achievements, it’s not the time to stop.
Elliot G. Pulham 2004 President of the Space
Foundation
The critics need to be heard, but not necessarily heeded. There have always been those who lacked courage, commitment or vision. They proclaimed that man would never fly. We did. They said that the accomplishments of the 19th century would never be eclipsed in the 20th century. They were. They said we'd never fly across oceans or land a human on the Moon. We have.
As Teddy Roosevelt said, "It is not the critic who counts . . . the credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena." The jackals may bark, but the caravan passes on.
It is not a question of whether humans will move out into the final frontier of space. It is only a question of whom and when.
Space
Travel Doesn’t Matter
No, it’s part of the
American identity to explore. It is vital for our nation.
Steven
J. Dick NASA Chief Historian 2007
For its part, the United
States has much at stake. Pulitzer Prize winning historian William Goetzmann saw the history of the United States as
inextricably linked with exploration. "America has indeed been
'exploration's nation,'" he wrote, "a culture of endless
possibilities that, in the spirit of both science and its component,
exploration, continually looks forward in the direction of the new." The
space exploration vision must be seen in that context.
NASA
has been doing fine with what it has
No, NASA is aging and
running off of past support. Besides, it uses less than one percent of the
nation’s budget.
JOSEPH A. BURNS of
Cornell 2007
Today's program is like
a powerful ship that appears to be staunchly cruising along. But our vessel is
sailing so smoothly nowadays principally because of yesterday's investments. In
fact, today's craft is running low on fuel, some of its machines are not being
properly maintained and upgraded, improved replacement instruments are
unavailable, and sadly the boat's crew is aging. Surprisingly, this ship is
from the Nation that has always led in exploration of the cosmos. Maybe other
nations instead will guide humankind's search of the next shoreline, just as
four centuries ago England replaced the Portuguese and the Spanish. Only if we
are vigilant today will our ship's journey be secure.
The US doesn’t need NASA
As I said in my speech,
we do need NASA. It is vital for our lives and economy.
Dr. Lennard
Fisk, chair of the Space Studies Board, said before the U.S. House of
Representatives 2007
We need to consider NASA
as an agency with many important tasks to perform. Space is integral to the
fabric of our society. We depend on it in our daily lives; we protect our
nation through our space assets; we use space to learn about our future; we
enrich our society with knowledge of our place in the cosmos; we are moving our
civilization into space; we expect the next generation of scientists and
engineers to be versatile in the utilization and exploration of space. NASA has
an essential role to play in each and every one of these national pursuits, and
its role in each pursuit needs to be properly funded.