Curren 1

Sierra Curren

Dr. Kokol

Government 12-A, Per. 5

22 November 2016

Future Funding of NASA

Introduction

According to scientific research poll, many Americans believe that NASA receives about

twenty percent of the government's budget, when in reality, it attains less than 0.7 percent

(Launius). NASA needs to be funded and receiving less than a percent of the governments

budget is not enough for NASA to function the way it is expected to. This is a relevant issue

because, without NASA, the country loses jobs, its status as first in space exploration, and the

investment that brings in more financial wealth than is believed.

The existence of NASA and its subsequent funding concerns not only American citizens,

but also humans across the globe. This is because much work done by NASA is a joint effort

with other countries, and because the spin-offs it has created benefit everyone. NASAs funding

is interesting to study, mostly because the very existence and support of it directly show

Americas dedication and support to exploration and scientific discoveries. The history of

NASAs funding is bleak. At its highest, NASA received under four and a half percent of the

governments budget. NASAs many achievements, partnerships, and developments in

technology and science clearly exhibit the fact that NASA deserves more than the .7 percent it

currently receives. NASAs current general and specific funding are decided every fiscal year by

the President and Congress. Although some argue that NASA is only a waste of the
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governments resources and money, NASA should be receiving increased funding because it is a

source of thousands of jobs, it boosts the economy of our country, and choosing to not fund

NASA could have catastrophic ramifications on the well-being of society.

Graphic Support

Figure I - NASAs Budget as a Percentage of Federal Budget

Kring, David A. "NASA Budget as a Percentage of Federal Budget." Center for Lunar\

Science and Exploration. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Nov. 2016.

This graph demonstrates the percentage of the governments budget that NASA was

granted between 1962 to 2014. During the years of the Apollo missions, when NASA put men on

the moon, NASA received just under four and a half percent of the nations funds. Since then,
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NASAs percentage of the federal budget has been dropping, and the declining numbers continue

until the present fiscal year.

Policy History and Background

At the peak of its funding, NASA only received four and a half percent of the nations

budget. Congress has always had a tight leash on NASA, demanding lots and giving little. When

NASA started 1958, it received 0.1 percent of the nations budget. NASAs budget slowly

increased until 1966, when it received almost four and a half percent, since then it has been

decreasing every year.

Politics have had an effect on NASAs funds, and as said in an article in Nature, a British

science journal, ...NASA tends to run into trouble when politics is injected into a business that

is difficult even under the best circumstances, (Dont Blame NASA). Because the

development and exploration of space, earth, and technology are not issues with opinions

directly related to political parties, politicians are led by their individual opinions when making

decisions about NASAs funding.

Current Situation

NASA is a huge source of jobs, for direct employees, government employees, and

employees of contracted businesses. These businesses including Lockheed Martin, SpaceX,

Sierra Nevada Corp, NanoRacks, Orbital ATK, Boeing, and Bigelow Aerospace. (Wall). These

companies make a lot of ground-breaking technological advances, and NASA is a huge

customer. Without NASA, these places will lose significant amounts of business, and they could

close due to these losses. This concerns more than just a handful of Americans; in 2012 there
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were more than 60,000 employees given work by NASA through their respective employers

(Budget of NASA).

NASA itself has more than 17,000 employees at the seventeen in-field and research

locations around the country (Workforce Profile). When the Space Shuttle program was

stopped in 2011, an estimated 4,600 jobs were lost (McBrien). The Space Shuttle program was

stopped in part because of the tragic Columbia accident, which was caused by NASA rushing to

launch the shuttle before Congresss strict and unsafe deadline. This is evidence that proves that

NASA should be guaranteed even just a small amount of money from the government, so those

in charge are not pressured to follow extremely tight deadlines that compromise the safety of

employees.

While Congress is busy asking NASA to do the impossible, NASA is boosting the

economy of the United States just by existing. Back in 1989, research done by Chase

Econometrics Associates studied 259 non-space technologies developed and applied by NASA

during an eight-year period(1976-1984). But these 259 applications created $21.6 billion in sales

and benefits, 352,000 jobs created or saved, and $355 million in federal income corporate taxes.

These 259 applications of NASA developed technologies represent only one percent of about

28,000 Space Program spin-offs (Budget of NASA). Again, 352,000 jobs were created by only

one percent of NASAs spinoffs in 1984.

Besides the overall help to the nations economy, NASA has also improved the economy

of each individual state. In 2011, data collected by Internet Communications Manager, Brian

Dunbar, showed that NASA invested a total of almost 10,000 dollars in the states, ranging from

two million to three billion per state (NASAs Innovation Impacts).

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Catastrophic consequences will ensue if NASA is not treated as a priority by the

government. The decrease of NASAs funding seems to have no end in sight. As NASA slows

the creation of new projects and missions, less exploration is occurring. This must not happen. If

NASA, the front-runner of space exploration and earth exploration is killed, then history will

repeat itself. In the mid-fifteenth century, China was a prevalent and prosperous country. In a

NASA article written by Brian Dunbar, the Historian and past Librarian of Congress, Daniel

Boorstin was quoted saying, ... the biggest Chinese ships were up to ten times the size of

Columbuss later in the century. While Columbus had only seventeen ships and 1,500 men on

the largest of his four expeditions, the Chinese Admiral Zheng He had 317 ships and 27,000

crewmen on the first of his six expeditions, (Dunbar 2).

These numbers prove that China was superior in naval forces, yet the emperor decided

there were other priorities, and ordered the destruction of all the ships. The Chinese did not

explore and soon lost the ability to make those ships. As time passed, China built the Great Wall,

closing themselves off physically and intellectually. As Dunbar puts it, Fully equipped with the

technology, the intelligence, and the national resources to become discoverers, the Chinese

doomed themselves to be discovered, (The Importance of Exploration). If the United States

government decides it has priorities other than exploration, the same will happen to the United

States. NASA and the country will stop learning, expanding, discovering, researching.

Differing Viewpoints and Refutation

Some say that the money spent on NASA has been a horrendous waste of our societys

resources (Yost). An article published in The Tech in 2010 argues that money invested in

NASA is a waste and when that money could be used to buy food for hungry children. However,
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NASA has less than one percent of our nations money, and there is enough waste and flux in the

rest of the ninety-nine and one fourth percent to more effectively help social causes. If America

really wanted to spend money on feeding those in poverty, then different choices would be made

elsewhere.

In the aforementioned article, Yost states the opinion that NASA, while not a complete

waste, is still a waste. This is untrue. Michael McBrien, from Northeastern University, dissects

several third-party estimates of how much money NASA has generated and spent. The most

generous results showed that NASA created fourteen dollars for every one dollar spent on it. The

most conservative results claimed only three or two dollars made for every spent dollar. Even if

this most feeble of estimates is accurate, that means that every dollar invested into NASA means

two more dollars in the economy. This is the exact opposite of waste.

Yosts other main argument is that the researchers working for NASA should be

researching how to save Earth. While it is true that our planet should not be ignored, NASA is

already doing so much research on Earth, in fact, in the 2017 Fiscal Year Budget, NASA is

spending more than $2,000 million dollars on earth science (United States). Besides that, NASA

also funds, over 10,000 U.S. scientists in universities, industries, and government labs

(NASA FY 2017 Budget Request), which means that NASA is actually encouraging other

researchers, not stealing them.

Policy Recommendation

To fix these issues, the Congress need to alter how NASA is funded entirely. For

background information, the governments expenditures are split three different ways- Interest

on Federal Budget, Mandatory Spending, and Discretionary spending. Mandatory spending was
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about 64.63 percent of the overall budget, and Discretionary was about 29.34 percent (Federal

Spending). In order to raise NASAs budget percentage, other percentages have to change. This

new policy proposes that the Veterans Benefits fund, which receives 5.86 percent of the

discretionary spending, and 3.71 percent of the mandatory spending, be downsized slightly and

shared with NASA. This new policy will put NASA at about one percent of the budget and will

guarantee it about fourteen billion dollars guaranteed every year. However, this change still

leaves Veterans Benefits with 188 billion dollars. The math behind this is as follows. If NASA

took just ten percent of the Veterans Benefits discretionary spending and fifteen percent of its

mandatory budget, then NASA will receive 20.82 billion dollars more, which will increase

NASAs current budget by 109.6 percent.

The policy change will be good for NASA: besides more than doubling its current

budget, it will encourage the creation of more projects and missions. Most of the projects are

multi-year and having each years budget be uncertain makes it difficult for NASA to

concentrate on its actual purpose. This policy change will help the state of the nation because all

the benefits listed above will be increased for the American and global public. In 1966, the year

NASA had the most funding, NASA launched the Apollo spacecraft, the Lunar Module, and

three Saturn rockets (Budget of NASA). Imagine how many missions to Mars, asteroids, and

other projects could be completed by NASA each year if it received that same funding.

However, this proposed policy is much smaller and is completely feasible.

Conclusion

NASA does an incredible amount of research and creates innumerable benefits for

America and the world in so many ways, that the least America can do is fund it properly.
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Despite the few contradicting arguments, NASA should be receiving increased funding because

it is the source of thousands of jobs, its existence boosts the economy of our country, and

because choosing to not fund NASA will have catastrophic ramifications on the well-being of

our society.
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Works Cited

"2015 American Community Survey." U.S. Census Bureau American Fact-Finder. Data Access

and Dissemination Systems (DADS), 2016. Web. 12 Nov. 2016.

http://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?src=bkmk

"Budget of NASA." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 16 Sept. 2016. Web. 19 Oct. 2016.

"Don't Blame NASA Alone For Mars Mission Failures." Nature 404.6778 (2000): 527.

Academic Search Premier. Web. 24 Oct. 2016.

Dunbar, Brian. "The Importance of Exploration." NASA. NASA, 29 Sept. 2004. Web. 19 Oct.

2016.

Dunbar, Brian. "NASA's Innovation Impacts Across the U.S." NASA. NASA Tech Transfer, 26

Mar. 2012. Web. 15 Nov. 2016. <http://www.nasa.gov>.

"Federal Spending: Where Does the Money Go." National Priorities Project. NPP, 2016. Web.

12 Nov. 2016.

Klein, Philip A. "How Much Does Obamacare Actually Cost?" Washington Examiner. The

Washington Examiner, 07 Apr. 2014. Web. 13 Nov. 2016.

Launius, Roger. ""Public Opinion Polls and Perceptions of US Human Spaceflight""

Academia.edu. Sciencedirect, 2003. Web. 04 Nov. 2016.<http://www.academia.edu>.

McBrien, Michael. "Government Funding for NASA Should Not Be Reduced Yet."

Northeastern

University. NU Writing, n.d. Web. 19 Oct. 2016.

"Ocean Exploration." Explore NASA Science. NASA, n.d. Web. 12 Nov. 2016.

<https://science.nasa.gov/earth-science/oceanography/ocean-exploration>.
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United States. National Aeronautics and Space Agency. Space Office. NASA FY 2017 BUDGET

REQUEST. Houston: NASA, 2016. Print.

Wall, Michael D. "NASA Picks Companies to Design Habitats." Space.com. Space.com, 11 Aug.

2016. Web. 26 Oct. 2016.

"Workforce Profile." NASA. NASA/IBM, n.d. Web. 14 Nov. 2016 <https://wicn.nssc.nasa.gov/>

Yost, Keith. "Should We Cut NASA Funding?" The Tech. MIT, 09 Apr. 2010. Web. 19

Oct. 2016.