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NASA Budget

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“We start by increasing NASA’s budget by $6 billion over the next five years” – President Obama, 2010 (Dunbar, “Obama on Space Exploration”). Six billion. That’s 600,000,000,000 pennies, 24,000,000,000 quarters, or 111,822 Americans making the average US income of $53,657 (Luhby, “Typical American Family Earnings”). It’s quite a lot of money, bringing the total budget NASA has to 18.4 billion. But that number is measly compared to 1200.7 billion that the US spends on the defense sector (“Federal Spending: Where Does the Money Go”). Off the bat, an imbalance is noticeable. In fact, it’s 99.5% noticeable. That’s because NASA’s current budget breakdown in comparison to all the other sectors the US government falls into the bottom .5% of the entire …show more content…
Maybe it was because I watched too much Star Wars as a child, or perhaps the twinkling of the stars in the deep black night sky captured my little imagination; regardless, the final frontier had always captivated me. My family and I would take trips to visit NASA’s various museums across the country, and I was even on the beach across from the Kennedy Space Center when America’s Atlantis shuttle took off for the final time. I had become motivated to do well in school with the aspirations of working at the National Aeronautics & Space Administration and it was even, to an extent, my reasoning for majoring in Computer Science — so I could design the programs that manipulate rovers on far away planets. NASA had become a fundamental part of my life, and it was why I developed an interest as to why the program’s budget was so small. Upon further research, I was even more befuddled as to why there were continuous budget cuts received by NASA all the way up until the present (Simon, “Spending on Space Travel since 1958”). It made no sense to me; did people really believe NASA wasn’t that important? Do you think it isn’t? I mean, you must — congress, which represents the people, hasn’t provided much funding to NASA. Do you really believe NASA is just a waste of your …show more content…
The peripheral evolved from technology developed to better manipulate data on a workstation screen (Dunbar, “Birth of the Mouse”). Do you enjoy sleeping on that memory foam mattress (if you have one)? It was created from technology designed to greatly improve crash protection for aircraft travelers. I bet you’re glad knowing if a fire happened you’d be warned by that smoke detector above you, huh? NASA first deployed such a device in their first space station in order to detect smoke and toxic gases. Enjoy running with your athletic shoes? The soles derive from moon boot components designed for shock retention. Do you like taking pictures on your phone? NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory together developed the concept of digital cameras, paving the way for the photographic technology that we have today (NASA, “Image Sensors Enhance Camera Technologies”). The list goes on, and these are only a few NASA’s beneficences to society; appreciate NASA more now? You

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