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THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
NASA funding necessary for advancement
According to Space.com, NASAs 17.5 billion budget for 2015 would fund new science missions such as an asteroid redirect mission and the James Webb Space Telescope scheduled to launch in 2018. Ultimately, NASA said it would like to facilitate manned missions to travel 35 million miles to Mars.
At the same time, a study published in Science Magazine said scientists have recently discovered massive water reserves 400 miles beneath our earth's crust that could fill our oceans three times over.
The questions on the table from skeptics and critics alike now are,
"Should space exploration be a priority with federal spending while we don't even fully understand what's under our own feet? And if we are shooting for Mars, what future do we have in space? Why should we let NASA spend any money when we have so many more pressing issues in the country and the world?"
While the benefits from NASA may not always be so obvious, their research has made daily life easier, and it's worth the money to invest in technological competition and advancement.
In 1961, John F. Kennedy put forward the audacious plan to do the impossible: put a man on the moon. The goal was met eight years later and inspired generations to come. The mission was only made possible because of determined politicians and billions of tax dollars.
But due to budget cuts and a lack of ambition, recent space programs have been compromised, and the
ambition that NASA once thrived on to take us to new heights has been lost.
In 1986, the world witnessed the disenttegration of the space shuttle Challenger and experienced a similar tragedy in 2003 when space shuttle Columbia broke apart during its reentry into the atmosphere.
Risk has always been a factor in manned missions, but imagine if we were to aim past the moon. It could inspire a generation of new engineers and scientists to witness something daring and successful. It could rekindle peoples' imaginations.
While it's never directly clear what NASA uses its budget for, much of the money is attributed to projects on Earth rather than just space projects. Some of these everyday contributions from NASA include medical applications, such as LED for brain cancer surgery or the digital imaging breast biopsy system. Also, engineering applications such as the infrared camera used by our military
and eco-friendly bio fuel for our jets are among NASA's contributions to human life.
By making space exploration a priority, it could help us solve environmental issues and create tourism and job development. Today, it takes approximately $12 million to launch a satellite into orbit. But with the rise of privately owned space programs such as Virgin Galactic, many of these experimental aircraft will break the atmosphere at a much lower cost, driving down the costs to a feasible level for consumers.
Why is space exploration funding vital? Because we are human, and reaching new heights, striving for exploration and discovery are core parts of who we are. It's time for us to revitalize our desire to reach for the stars.
Harrison Drake is a senior from Overland Park studying Journalism.
Find him on Twitter
@Harryson Ford
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