Debunking
Myths about NASA
Approximately
46% (maybe more in recent years due to the recession) believe that NASA does
not justify its funding and it should be cut, according to a Gallup Poll.
Let’s clear
the air about publicly funded space exploration:
Instead of
just listing the myths and explaining why they're untrue, I want you to see
actual quotations from arguments made by the 46%.These are actual quotes and
rhetorical questions found in online debates and threads.
“It’s way
too expensive! It costs 50% of every dollar we spend on our taxes!”
It costs
half of a penny on every dollar spent in our federal budget.
It’s
surprisingly inexpensive considering how much NASA benefits the economy by
adding hundreds of thousands of the highest quality and highest educated jobs
in the country, the private sector is benefited through the discoveries of new
technologies and the sale of patents to NASA’s technology. It also has yielded
a return of 5 – 10 dollars on every dollar spent on NASA. (There are many differences
in opinion on what return it yields, the fact that it yields any is
justification enough.)
4% of the
total federal budget of 3.4 trillion was devoted to NASA.
“With the
debt America has, NASA is not our priority.“
When you’re
in a recession; with rising unemployment, falling job creation, and huge debts
while the federal government increases spending on social welfare programs, it
would actually benefit the economy if NASA’s budget was doubled tomorrow
and here's why:
NASA
creates, discovers, and engineers new technologies that add to the innovation
of the private sector, not only would it create some of the best quality jobs
in the world and build an incentive for education and scientific literacy,
which would benefit our economy greatly and not add only minimum wage jobs but
highly paid positions, it would create more jobs in the private sector and
ignite more entrepreneurship opportunities.
With a
deficit like ours, it should be our top priority to increase wealth
opportunities and value in order to repair our economy. Too many uneducated
people whom don’t understand how to fix the crisis are in charge of fixing the
crisis, that’s why it’s not getting done.
“Instead
of finding another planet to live on when we destroy this one, why don't we try
to save this one.”
NASA is
doing just that. On the international space station, astronauts are doing quite
a lot to understand the changes in our climate and testing new science in order
to attempt to find new ways of reducing our carbon emissions. They have
helped engineer the best solar panels in the world, they also have engineered
an energy efficient method to filter the absolute cleanest water in the world.
Astronauts do a lot of charity work for third world countries, sharing this
technology with them to benefit them. If anyone is going to “save this planet”
it will be the scientists at NASA. They also give us advanced warning of
natural disasters that can be seen from space very early on. For example,
hurricanes that are beginning to form, they study a lot about our Earth in
order to prevent the loss of life and to understand our planet more.
That's just
one example of several projects trying help the planet.
“we got
more important things to do.....OK, seriously? We don't immediately need
another planet to live on another 5 billion years, and come on, what about our
ever-escalating national debt? How about education, poverty, world poverty,
cancer research, hospitals etc.... With so much to worry about do we really
need to worry about space right now?”
I think I
can cover all that;
First; we have a climate crisis on our planet that may
become dangerous to our species before the death of our sun… and if we can fix
that somehow we still have to worry about 5 billion years from now. We are half
way through the life of the Sun. That’s a big deal.
Second; Cutting NASA’s budget would not help the
national deficit. It would actually hurt the economy more.
Third: On
Education;
Thanks to
NASA, PUBLICLY FUNDED SPACE EXPLORATION, everyone has access to the
educational benefits provided by NASA, without NASA we’d be even more
scientifically illiterate, which would lower the jobs in the country that have
the highest quality, contribute the most, and pay the most.
If you were
to cut social welfare program spending by only 1% you could double NASA’s budget.
Welfare
programs are where the vast majority of tax spending goes. Considering the many
loopholes and abuses in the system, there is probably more money spent on
people who receive benefits fraudulently than what NASA takes in.
Fifth: On
cancer research;
Had a breast
exam lately? Thank NASA.
Click this
link for a page that shows exactly how NASA has contributed to cancer research.
You might be surprised and amazed.
http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/268137main_AARP_IPP_FACTSHEET.pdf
“I used to
support NASA and thought it was well worth the money but now the spend more
time debunking end of the world rumors and chastising us all about a
non-existent global warming problem. I say shut them down and take the money to
pay down the debt. The excitement has worn off and private companies can do
space exploration more efficiently. We are NOT going to run out of raw
materials to feed and house humans so there is no reason to look for another
place to colonize. That's just ignorant.”
First; Science is supposed to debunk myths, thank you.
Second: Global
warming is a real issue, there is a lot of empirical evidence backing science’s
claim. Many skeptics have tried debunking global warming but to no avail. NASA
is actually on the forefront of trying to help solve the dangers that global
warming poses. (If you still don't believe in global warming, worry not I will
spend extra time convincing you in a later post.)
Third: Which
private company sent a man to the moon? Which private company sent several
rovers on Mars and landed them successfully? Which private company is that
again?
There are
many private companies with big ideas out there which is great! NASA is
actually the reason for the birth of private companies in the field of space
flight and exploration. They sell their patents to the technology those
companies need in order to operate their business. I assure you they aren't
better, so far no private company has outdone what NASA has.
Fourth: We will run out of resources eventually and
thanks to NASA and their help in the private sector, we will eventually figure
out how to mine asteroids for their plentiful natural resources.
Fifth: NASA is not solely trying to find another planet
to colonize they do much more than just that.
Here are
some of NASA’s projects that you probably didn't know about;
The Aquarius
Mission is a
satellite that will scan oceans for saltiness in order to understand climate
change on a global scale. It is a first in research of water cycles.
The Juno Mission is a
probe to scan Jupiter to understand how the gas giant came into existence and
how it effects our own planet.
The Chandra
X-Ray Observatory: We can see a lot more in space than any telescope; how about
being able to see the split second particles disappear into a black hole.
The
International Space Station (you've all
heard about it, but probably don't know it's purpose) not only does it
help study our Earth, study climate change, and has the most energy efficient
and advanced robotic technology together in one place from the collaboration of
several other countries, but it's direct purpose is to improve human being's
ability to be in space for extended periods in time. Private companies may be
planning manned missions to Mars, but without NASA opening up new possibilities
for prolonged space flight due to the adverse effects space has on the human
body, they will never get there alive. Since 1998, we've had a permanent home
in space.
NASA has
also been using EOS satellites to monitor Ozone layer depletion since
the early 90s.
Dawn, an
asteroid orbiter.
Cassini, a Saturn
orbiter.
New Horizons, a probe on
it's way right now to Pluto.
Lunar
Reconnaissance Orbiter, orbiting the moon.
Messenger, orbiting
Mercury.
The Fermi
Gamma-ray Space Telescope; This one is awesome, it's going to help us
understand our accelerating universe, the early universe, and dozens of other
highly significant discoveries. Its complexity far outreaches a few sentences.
Solar
Dynamics Observatory will observe
the Sun for 5 years and learn about radiation and information about how our sun
was born.
The Kepler
Mission is a
spacecraft currently designed to detect other Earth-like planets orbiting
similar suns. We have found numerous exo-planets which will not only help us to
understand how our solar system was formed, but also help us to possible find
life on other planets, and also provide us with a new place to call home one
day.
That's just
a few of the current ones.
(Just for
the record NASA is not hiding evidence of intelligent extraterrestrial life,
otherwise we wouldn't spend years and money developing complex robots to detect
micro-bacterial life. NASA also really landed on the moon, how could we land a
rover on Mars, but not have the technology to get to the moon? I've spent
enough time on those outrageous claims.)
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