Dear Future President,                              

        NASA, our own country's space program has numerous times unearthed new discoveries, invented new technologies, and enlighten the minds of the American people. Once said by Neil deGrasse Tyson in How Space exploration can make America great again an article by The Atlantic he says “Give NASA the money it needs… and the agency will stimulate the economy and inspire students to pursue innovative, ambitious projects.” Today NASA receives less than half a percent of the federal budget which is restricting the extent of human knowledge and opportunities of mankind.

      1960 the federal budget has dropped NASA’s funding from 4% to less than .5% today. A little bit under 15 billion dollars is the annual NASA budget which may seem like a lot but in the scheme of space exploration it’s not. This shows that since the Cold War a time of achievements, space exploration has been losing its priority. Homeland Security and Defense currently receives around 57% of the federal budget. Even dropping it a percent or two would grant the space program billions and revamp the space initiative. While we keep taking away from our program, countries like Russia and China, some of our biggest rivals keep advancing their own programs and beating America. Space is being forgotten and that can not stand Mr/Madam.President.

     I ask you what will happen to the human race when an asteroid strikes the Earth, major disasters occur, nuclear war, or humans destroying the planet wipe out the entire Earth's human population? What then? We will cease to exist. We need a backup plan. SpaceX founder Elon Musk has laid out a plan to land humans on Mars within the decade with a major goal of building a self-sustaining city of a million people. This is one privately funded company with big ideas out of many. If the government could bring back NASA to its former glory with increased funding NASA could work together with these companies and ensure that the legacy of humans live on.

      You may ask what good has ever come out of Space Exploration that actually affects us everyday. Well many inventions and products such as GPS, CT scans, microcomputers, digital cameras, firefighting gear, MRIs, DVDs, LEDs, Fire resistant reinforcement, smoke detectors, velcro, cellphones, even enriched baby food and composite golf clubs were created using knowledge gained. This shows how big of an impact the knowledge we gain from space affects us everyday and how most people who think nothing comes out of us studying the ways of space our actually affected.

     Without revolutionary ideas and motivated citizens what can truly set us apart as a great nation? There is so much out there waiting to be discovered we just need the money to reach the stars we all watched while we were kids. Nothing is impossible. Thank you for reading future president. Please take a deeper look into the funding of NASA. Space needs to have a larger priority in our government.

    Sincerely,

               John Finn

               Niskayuna, New York