NASA: The Threat of Reducing The Budget for Inventions

Have you ever been curious about space? Do you want to quench that curiosity with the knowledge that our ancestors would have never been able to fathom? National aeronautical and space agency or NASA is a federal agency that answers your curiosity. NASA’s purpose is “to discover and expand knowledge for the benefit of humanity”. NASA can do amazing things with a small amount of money. Amazing technology that isn’t related to space is invented through NASA. There are some positives that can come from cutting their budget. NASA and its future inventions are threatened by people wanting to cut their budgets.

NASA was created in 1958, by Congress, in response to the launch of the first satellite, Sputnik. Sputnik was launched by the United Societ Socialist Republics or the USSR. The event of Sputnik launched what is referred to as the Space Race where the United States and the USSR where trying to make it to the moon before the other country. This Space Race led to the establishment of the Apollo series of missions that put a man on the moon in 1969. NASA is also responsible for the International Space Station (or ISS) and many other services for the earth. NASA is a non-profit organization that receives most of its money from the United States government, through the governmental budget.

NASA provides all of its findings for free to all nations and people. Some of their missions directly impact other nations, not only the United States. One of their missions, such as the Apollo-Soyuz included the docking of the Apollo 18 and Soyuz 19 spacecraft. This improved the diplomatic relationships of the United States and the USSR. This mission had the United States and the USSR inventing technologies together to make their rockets compatible with each other.

Some may think NASA has been able to do these extraordinary things with a huge budget, this notion is unfactual. Currently, NASA’s budget is 21.5 billion dollars, and this figure looks very big. This number is very small considering it is only about 0.49% of the entire United States budget, if the US budget was $1.00 NASA will get about half of a penny. With this small amount of money given, they have made large strides in the fields of science and technology. NASA spends the bulk of its money on Human spaceflight, but they also employ about 17,000 people who specifically work for NASA and contracts with about 5,000 more organizations that help produce technology with them for use in space. According to The Planetary Society “NASA’s major contractors-Boeing, Lockheed-Martin, SpaceX, and Orbital Sciences- are the biggest recipients of NASA funding “.

A counter-argument is to privatize NASA. NASA wasn’t created to have a return on investment. NASA is a humanitarian organization where that studies space and earth to better all life on the earth, not to make a profit. Privatizing NASA would cause numerous problems including stopping the Soil Moisture of Active Passive or SMAP. SMAP is a satellite that is in orbit that measures the moisture level in the soil of the whole plant every 2-3 days. This data is free for all countries over the world. The United States has almost no use for this mission but in less prosperous countries in Africa, it can tell farmers what crops to plant to have a greater yield. The food farmers' plant isn’t given to them for free, thus stimulating their economies. Former NASA engineer Mark Rober said of SMAP “SMAP costs to 900 million dollars. Africa is the continent with the most extreme poverty today. I did the math and for 900 million dollars you can feed all of Africa for less than a day, but instead, we invested in research and technology which empowers them to better help themselves. Increasing the amount of food they can make on their own”.

Most Americans love to go home and sleep on their memory foam pillows. If NASA didn’t exist memory foam wouldn’t exist. Memory foam, Also known as temper foam, was created at Ames Research Center, run by NASA, to create a foam that improved crash protection for airplane passengers. Many other spinoff technologies that were developed by NASA has been used commercially by private business. Include, but are not limited to: ventricular assist device, chemical detection, firefighter gear, enriched baby food, water purification, structural analysis, and food safety systems. These items were created through public funding causing them to be free to use by businesses, making the final cost of the items to go down.

Some counter-arguments made against NASA bring up valid points. For example, every bolt and sheet of aluminum expense could be spent to feed the poorest of the poor. It doesn’t stop with monetary resources, but it involves human resources. For instance, NASA can employ a scientist to create pumps that work without gravity or they can invent inexpensive pumps to put up in Africa.

In conclusion, NASA is a great Congressional agency. NASA has an action-packed history. Also, NASA is great because it can do amazing things with a small amount of money. NASA can invent and innovate on pre-existing technologies that aren’t necessarily related to space. NASA’s budget could be put to better use by feeding the poor, but nevertheless, it is still a humanitarian cause. NASA’s future is unclear, it is still a useful government agency that should retain its funding.

Work Cited

1. “Should We Cut NASA Funding?” The Tech, https://thetech.com/2010/04/09/nasap-v130-n18.
2. Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. “National Aeronautics and Space Administration.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 12 Aug. 2019, https://www.britannica.com/topic/NASA.
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4. NASA, NASA, https://spinoff.nasa.gov/Spinoff2008/tech_benefits.html.
5. NASA, NASA, https://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/apollo/soyuz.html.
6. Rober, Mark. “Is NASA a Waste of Money?” YouTube, YouTube, 14 Feb. 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lARpY0nIQx0.
7. “What Is NASA's Budget?” The Planetary Society Blog, http://www.planetary.org/get-involved/be-a-space-advocate/nasa-budget.html.
8. NASA, NASA, https://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/apollo/soyuz.html.