Henry Womack
Crocker
English 3AP
15 November 2015
A Penny for Exceptionalism I have grown up listening to stories about the uncontainable excitement that my parents felt when the T.V. cart got wheeled into their classrooms to watch the fuzzy images of the Apollo missions come through. I have grown up hearing about the immense pride that one felt on July 20, 1969, when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon. You were never more proud to be an American than in that moment, and we were never more envied by the world than in that moment. The sad truth is that the United States does not do great things anymore. NASA can help us return to the vanguard of innovation, to the society of explorers we once were, and to a culture willing to …show more content…
According to Neil deGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist and director of the Hayden Planetarium, people often grossly overestimate the portion of their tax dollar that go to NASA – estimates often come in around 10%, when in reality, only ½ of 1% of the federal budget is allocated towards NASA. In other words, only half of a penny from each dollar in taxes goes to space exploration and research. Now imagine if the funding were doubled. We could maintain a presence on the Moon while simultaneously put a man on Mars. We could explore the oceans of Europa or the surface of Venus. For still only a single penny on the dollar, and still only ¼ of the level reached during the Apollo missions, but enough reassert the capabilities of an entity that shaped the destiny of nations in the 20th century. There will be people who ask why we should spend money on NASA when there is unrest here on Earth, some of you may even be in this room, and to you I say that there has never been a better time. There are countless arguments to made in favor of space exploration, but only two are needed: to put America back at the helm of technological innovation, and to preserve the American way through the intellectual and physical expansion that comes with a robust space
Crocker
English 3AP
15 November 2015
A Penny for Exceptionalism I have grown up listening to stories about the uncontainable excitement that my parents felt when the T.V. cart got wheeled into their classrooms to watch the fuzzy images of the Apollo missions come through. I have grown up hearing about the immense pride that one felt on July 20, 1969, when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon. You were never more proud to be an American than in that moment, and we were never more envied by the world than in that moment. The sad truth is that the United States does not do great things anymore. NASA can help us return to the vanguard of innovation, to the society of explorers we once were, and to a culture willing to …show more content…
According to Neil deGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist and director of the Hayden Planetarium, people often grossly overestimate the portion of their tax dollar that go to NASA – estimates often come in around 10%, when in reality, only ½ of 1% of the federal budget is allocated towards NASA. In other words, only half of a penny from each dollar in taxes goes to space exploration and research. Now imagine if the funding were doubled. We could maintain a presence on the Moon while simultaneously put a man on Mars. We could explore the oceans of Europa or the surface of Venus. For still only a single penny on the dollar, and still only ¼ of the level reached during the Apollo missions, but enough reassert the capabilities of an entity that shaped the destiny of nations in the 20th century. There will be people who ask why we should spend money on NASA when there is unrest here on Earth, some of you may even be in this room, and to you I say that there has never been a better time. There are countless arguments to made in favor of space exploration, but only two are needed: to put America back at the helm of technological innovation, and to preserve the American way through the intellectual and physical expansion that comes with a robust space