I shall begin this blog by simply saying that, “I want my moon base!” I feel as though as so many other things a moon base has been promised to me, just like a hover board or robot slaves to do my bidding. All kidding aside though, this blog post isn’t for me to go on about all the technology that isn’t available for consumers yet, even though it is 2010 for crying out loud. This particular blog is actually for me to voice my opinion about why President Obama is cutting funds from NASA may not be in the best interest of us as individuals, a nation or even a world.
During President Obama’s State of the Union speech he chose his words well when he brought up the fact that as a nation we are in the largest deficit of all time financially and that his new budget would be cutting the fat and tightening the belt, so to speak. I totally agree with this idea because as a person I have been having to cut the fat and live within a very tight budget so that I may survive and pay all my bills in a timely manor. This thinking he has however seems to be coming almost, in my opinion, a year too late. This tightening of the belt comes after he allowed billions, yes that’s with a ‘”b”, of dollars used to bail out domestic and foreign companies whom were struggling. I know what you are thinking, had we not bailed out at least a few of these companies our economy, as well as the world’s economy would have tanked and then paper money wouldn’t be good for anything more than toilet paper and your thinking is sound. But then why still did he do this? Why is he almost telling the American public, “Oops messed that one up, sorry now we need to pinch our pennies now?” Also why are the little guys the ones that are suffering the most? Oh and by little guys I mean the voting American public and certain government agencies such as NASA.
What has NASA done to deserve such a cut back in their spending? They are doing nothing that they have not promised, unlike some people and things. NASA is and was set up as an organization to search outside of the planet we call home and they have always delivered in that. Sure they have had their glitches too with some of the Mars missions not going as planned and millions of dollars being seemingly wasted. But they still sent the satellites out which they had promised to do from the beginning.
Now that NASA wants to reopen their quest for the Moon and send men/women back there Obama decides that is wasteful spending. I do see his point a space program is kind of a luxury item for a country to have. Its like having a cell phone that does more than just send or receive calls or having cable/satellite TV installed in your home. These are some of the first items that can be cut when money becomes tight, but are they always the wisest options of things to be cut? That is a question that I pose to you now. I don’t believe that is right, I may be a little weird and watch too many Science Fiction TV shows and movies, but I truly believe that setting up a new and improved Moon Program by NASA is a very good thing.
It would give the world a place, for lack of a better term as a defensive outpost, if needed, from anyone or anything that is trying to harm our planet. That does include life forms foreign to our planet, which now everyone is calling me crazy for even saying that out loud, but that also covers rogue debris of various forms that may try to impact the planet that could/would cause major devastation. This outpost or moon base as I so aptly like calling it is not a bad allocation of our nations budget rather a necessity that we should at least start looking into. I am not too happy with 75% of where my tax dollars are going but I would gladly and whole heatedly get behind a moon base project and would love to see my tax money allocated as such. So in closing NASA spending and moon base good, large debt bad, so lets cut the fat somewhere else that won’t ruin my dreams, please.
This whole notion of cutting government spending has been the biggest sham in our nation’s history over the last fifty years. NASA is just another program that we create justification, legitimate or not, to shovel money into. You know what NASA was called before there was NASA? Prospecting. Private companies mined for gold. The only thing the government should do with NASA is to do what Thomas Jefferson did with Lewis and Clark. Send them up into space, figure out what’s out there that could be valuable, and let private “prospectors” have a run at it. Except this time let’s try not eradicate the indigenous population while we’re at it.