NASA Budget

Since the creation of the National Aeronautics and Space Agency in the 1950s, NASA has become an icon of space exploration and mankind’s accomplishments. NASA has created countless scientific advancements and created the stepping stone to the future. No one would have thought that NASA’s future would be as uncertain. Now, with the decimation of NASA’s budget by the congress, thousands of jobs are threatened and mankind’s advancements in the field of science is questionable. Congress funding for the space agency is at an all-time low and many deep space exploration programs are being retired (“Planetary Exploration” 2). No longer can NASA send astronauts to the moon, or into space at all. The country that revolutionized space exploration and …show more content…
Many congressmen fell spending billions in tax dollars on unneeded NASA deep space exploration is a waste. Billions of dollars that the new budget saves can be used towards the nation’s poor, the nation’s healthcare system and helping the nation’s educational system. NASA and its contractors have wasted billions of dollars on the shuttle and other space programs despite “warning after warning by Government inspectors that such heavy losses were occurring through bad management” (Gingrich 3). Instead of asking for more funds for its deep space exploration, NASA should focus on rebuilding its management team and locate more funds from the given budget by eliminating funds for its unnecessary missions and research. It is necessary for the congress to prioritize funding towards helping the nation’s poor, the healthcare system and the educational system instead of wasting the tax dollars on unnecessary …show more content…
It is also important to provide sufficient funds for NASA so the agency can grow in the right direction at a reasonable speed. At only “0.004” percent, NASA’s budget is nothing when compared to the nation’s healthcare budget, educational budget and the welfare budget (Wallace 5). By cutting NASA’s funding, the nation will only end up suffering more by eliminating thousands of job opportunities and slowing the nation’s scientific progress. Instead of taking funds away from NASA, the congress should provide more funds for NASA. To provide sufficient funds for the healthcare system, the educational system, the welfare system and NASA, the congress should cut the unnecessary spending in the military budget. “The 2017 budget proposal is set to increase the military’s Fiscal Year 2017 budget to $600 billion from the previous year of $586 billion” (Evans 1). The US spends more on the military than the next 20 top nations combined and that number is only growing bigger. By helping NASA, new innovations can be achieved and those innovations have the potential to solve many problems that mankind is facing such as space mining to help solve mineral shortages and fusion energy to help solve energy