Our world today is big. It’s bigger than I will ever see. It’s  bigger than I can even imagine. It’s not just bigger than our earth or our solar system. There is an entire universe out there that many scientists are studying, spending hours researching and learning about stars, planets, asteroids, and maybe even alternate life forms. Our government is spending billions of dollars to discover what is out in space, what is light years away, all the while many of our everyday needs are being neglected, because there just isn’t enough money. If we focused more about the unknown on earth, would there be more cures for diseases, less starving and homeless children, or even more jobs for the unemployed? We could take care of our home, our environment and invest in what we have, instead of what we don’t have. What amazing things could change our everyday life in the United States if we only invested in the here and now; those things that could make a difference in our life today and tomorrow. Space exploration is insanely expensive, it has its benefits and disadvantages.But if relocate that money where could we spend that money.

Even if relocate half of NASA’s budget we could do a lot. According to Kimberly Amadeo who wrote the article “NASA Budget: Current Funding and History” written on March 22,2017. NASA’s budget for space exploration continues to grow. In 2017, Congress will spend 19.2 billion dollars on the space program. Nineteen billion dollars to send rockets into space, to potentially crash  prior to reaching their destination. While I know you have to make mistakes to learn, this type of risk and that dollar amount has me weary of this program. I know for a fact many bellies could be fed with 19.2 billion dollars. Since 1998, the federal government has spent 331.1 billion dollars to NASA’s program. In those 19 years, there has not been any significant advances to get our life form to Mars. They have discovered new planets that are years away. New moons that orbit these new planets are exciting to discover, but they aren’t benefiting the immediate crisis that American’s face each day.  We have a problem with air pollution, hunger, and poverty and we choose to be as far as we can from that mess exploring way beyond our solar system.

  By studying way beyond the solar system we have gotten a lot of spinoff technologies. According to Jonathan O’Callaghan on december 1, 2012 in the article “How have space technologies affected life back on Earth?” Satellites have provided us with forms of communication and navigation. Also it keeps us safe by telling us when the next storm is going to hit alone with keeping an eye on remote areas in the world. These are things we use every day and we take them for granted and still there are many things that are still to come from space exploration. We  haven’t just gotten these technologies from space exploration but we have learned of the human body reacts in space. A big part of that was the International Space Station. The International Space Station is the most expensive thing built by humans at 150 billion dollars, which is an astronomoical sum. The US has paid just under half of that. It blows my mind that they have no clue what they are going to do with it in the year 2030. According to Regin Olimberio from “The Science Times” states that it costs NASA 3.5 billion dollars each year to keep people on the International Space Station.

That 3.5 billion dollars is a good chunk of NASA’s budget and what if we spend that money on the parts of our earth that aren’t being explored. We know very little about the bottom of the ocean which is 70% of our earth and we have only explored 5% of the  oceans. Also there animals out there that we haven’t discovered yet and we are looking for life on other planets. We have no clue how to predict earthquakes and we don’t get the weather right all the time. So why are we studying planets that are light years away instead of our own planet?
I’ve always heard the statement, “you can’t help anyone if you don’t take care of yourself first.” If America doesn’t help those that need it today, where will they be tomorrow? Many americans face terminal cancers, diseases, life threatening viruses each day; they are born with defects, heart conditions, and many ailments that will hopefully be curable soon. The problem is that hoping doesn’t make it happen. We need funds, scientists, programs, education for these ailments and diseases. We need medicine to provide to patients. If we relocated even half of 19.2 billion dollars to feeding the hunger, curing the sick, think of how strong our nation could be.  Helping the american people with more of an immediate need gives us and our government instant gratification or a way to see progress. Continued research on missions that fail with such a high price tag is exhausting to say the least. All that money we are spending towards a failed mission is a waste of money and time. One could argue that it is beneficial to make mistakes and learn from them, but this program, in my opinion, continues to make expensive mistakes. Billion dollar mistakes. In a society, that faces debt daily these mistakes are too costly. 

If we get rid of these mistakes and every attempt is successful then our money is going in the right spot. With the amount of money that we are spending with the success rate it is not worth the money. Instead I feel we would benefit more as a nation if we spent that money helping the sick, feeding the hungry, or learning more about where we live. This world we are in is huge. We will continue to dicover new planets and galaixs as our planet sufures.  I know money can’t solve every problem, but it is the people on this earth to solve the problems this world has today. The money we spend on space exploration will help lead us in that direction. Witch I hope that direction is towards the people in need and not out in space