Ever since the age of sputnik and the race to the moon, The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has been propelling humanity forward through innovations in technology and providing a brighter future for America. However, recent years have seen cuts to the overall budget of NASA and more budget proposals are seen every year. Our country cannot afford to let NASA fade into irrelevance and be left to romanticize about what could have been. Instead, we should increase NASA’s budget to give them the funding they need. A well funded NASA can guide America into the future of science, technology, and exploration as well as fabricate stable jobs and industry across the globe. Before we dive into the intricacies of NASA’s budget we
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One of the earliest examples dates back to the space race during the Cold War, the invention and implication of satellites. Although originally meant to the platform for Ronald Reagen’s Strategic Defense Initiative, lovingly dubbed the Star Wars program. Although doomed from the start with promises of satellites built to stop nuclear missiles through the use of lasers, the Star Wars program opened the door to new scientific advancements such as satellites and more importantly, keeping things in long term orbit. While the first satellite, Sputnik, was launched in 1957, the first real use of this technology didn’t arise until 5 years later with the first communications satellite that was launched in 1962. Telstar-1 provided the world with the first ever transatlantic broadcast and provided a new industry for Intelsat, an organization that would go on to manage a network of international broadcasts provided by a constellation of satellites orbiting the earth. This alone provided hundreds of thousands of jobs and brought international broadcasting to new heights. This same series of events also applies to companies today, in his essay, “Government Funding For NASA Should Not Be Reduced Yet” published in the Fall 2013 edition of Northeastern’s Undergraduate Writing Program Journal, he cites other previous industries that have benefitted, and even gotten their start, from technologies created by NASA. The …show more content…
Luckily, NASA records all of its innovation impacts by state on their website, http://www.nasa.gov/offices/oct/tech_transfer/economic_impacts.html. Their article NASA’s Innovation Impacts Across the U.S. is filled with documentation of the amounts invested into each state accompanied by programs that these investments have benefitted, and lists of the individual companies invested in. According to their records on our own state of Pennsylvania, NASA invested over 39 Million dollars into companies like Surtreat Holding LLC that developed an anti-corrosive spray for concrete and steel, or Universal Remediation Inc that create several different oil removing products using NASAs own microencapsulation delivery technology. These types of investments propel innovation in their fields with the assistance of technology created by NASA and create multiple jobs across varying labor pools from high end chemistry related positions to unskilled labor, every degree of talent is required for these companies to succeed and everyone involved in the process benefits. During an interview with Chris Barth for his March 13 2012 article in Forbes Magazine “Neil deGrasse Tyson: Invest In NASA, Invest In U.S. Economy” Neil deGrasse Tyson goes into detail about the
One of the earliest examples dates back to the space race during the Cold War, the invention and implication of satellites. Although originally meant to the platform for Ronald Reagen’s Strategic Defense Initiative, lovingly dubbed the Star Wars program. Although doomed from the start with promises of satellites built to stop nuclear missiles through the use of lasers, the Star Wars program opened the door to new scientific advancements such as satellites and more importantly, keeping things in long term orbit. While the first satellite, Sputnik, was launched in 1957, the first real use of this technology didn’t arise until 5 years later with the first communications satellite that was launched in 1962. Telstar-1 provided the world with the first ever transatlantic broadcast and provided a new industry for Intelsat, an organization that would go on to manage a network of international broadcasts provided by a constellation of satellites orbiting the earth. This alone provided hundreds of thousands of jobs and brought international broadcasting to new heights. This same series of events also applies to companies today, in his essay, “Government Funding For NASA Should Not Be Reduced Yet” published in the Fall 2013 edition of Northeastern’s Undergraduate Writing Program Journal, he cites other previous industries that have benefitted, and even gotten their start, from technologies created by NASA. The …show more content…
Luckily, NASA records all of its innovation impacts by state on their website, http://www.nasa.gov/offices/oct/tech_transfer/economic_impacts.html. Their article NASA’s Innovation Impacts Across the U.S. is filled with documentation of the amounts invested into each state accompanied by programs that these investments have benefitted, and lists of the individual companies invested in. According to their records on our own state of Pennsylvania, NASA invested over 39 Million dollars into companies like Surtreat Holding LLC that developed an anti-corrosive spray for concrete and steel, or Universal Remediation Inc that create several different oil removing products using NASAs own microencapsulation delivery technology. These types of investments propel innovation in their fields with the assistance of technology created by NASA and create multiple jobs across varying labor pools from high end chemistry related positions to unskilled labor, every degree of talent is required for these companies to succeed and everyone involved in the process benefits. During an interview with Chris Barth for his March 13 2012 article in Forbes Magazine “Neil deGrasse Tyson: Invest In NASA, Invest In U.S. Economy” Neil deGrasse Tyson goes into detail about the