NASA Budget Analysis

The main outreach of the United States government that explores new boundaries never investigated before, designs products never thought possible before, and most importantly inspires people, has had its budget slashed. According to Goldstein (2007), NASA was originally created to beat the Soviet Union in the Space Race has taken on many different roles. In an article for NASA’s website, J.R. Wilson (2008) uses Dr. Michael DeBakey, a heart surgeon, as an example of someone who felt the benefit of NASA’s wide research scope. Dr. DeBakey now uses a heart pump in surgerys, invented because of the research done by NASA (Wilson, 2008). One of NASA’s many inventions that directly improve the lives of Americans. Unfortunately, the budget for
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The budget has been diminished completely all the way to half of a percent (Zeller, 2014). The U.S. needs to make a larger investment into NASA, by increasing their overall budget therefore benefiting citizens and the country. In this essay, I will go over the history of NASA and their budget, the problems a low budget for NASA generates. Next, I will explain the causes of NASA’s decrease in budget and the effects this has had on the US. Finally, I will advocate why the US should increase their budget to double what it is currently at also addressing counter-arguments.

Due to the fact of low funding, the problems caused have been immense. Underfunding NASA affects many different industries and the citizens of the US. The effect it has on citizens is a disheartening one, people are being deprived of inspiration. No longer are heroes being created for people to idolize. Nor is there a large movement looking forward to the ideas of the future. When NASA was being properly funded, kids and adults alike had astronauts to spark their scientific interest. This spark changed many people 's lives, encouraging citizens to become more familiar with science. Creating a scientific
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A large amount of Americans are either misinformed or not informed at all on what percent NASA accounts for in the national budget. In a study done by the University of Houston, they surveyed college kids on what they thought about NASA’s budget. The survey found that 68% of college kids thought that NASA’s budget was double what it is actually at, as a percent of the federal budget. Of those 68%, 52% overestimated NASA’s budget by at least 10 times as much (Steinberg 2013). This is obviously a huge problem as citizens put pressure on their representatives to do what they want. If the vast majority do not know what NASA’s budget actually is it leads to disastrous results when deciding NASA’s budget because people will want to lower the budget when they think it is astronomically higher than it actually is. The problems of NASA’s budget being so low is not solely on the politicians, citizens are also to blame. If more citizens would become informed on the actual numbers involving NASA’s budget public perception would greatly change. Many citizens will see, through the news, that a project NASA is doing costs millions of dollars. To an individual millions is a lot of money so they assume that NASA is being overfunded, when in reality for the federal budget millions is not a large part of the pie. The problem of NASA’s budget still exists because many people are not informed as they should