Southwestern College Collegian

Issue date: 2/20/08 Section: Editorial

Banana 79 cents, a roll of toilet paper 88 cents, coke $1.79, space travel priceless? Not exactly, each year $23 billion of our hard earned tax dollars goes to funding NASA's expeditions and experiments and each year this number will increase by about $1.3 billion, said the US Government Accountability Office. Which makes me think, what has NASA been doing? Although I am not well versed in the space world, I have not heard of any outstanding news on recent space discoveries. So is the investment of American tax dollars worth the amount of outer space progress made yearly? To me it seems silly that $23 billion gets literally shot into space each year, with out any mind blowing discoveries. Has NASA really benefited America? I would really like to know where my generous donation goes. NASA's official website said its mission is, "To pioneer the future in space exploration, scientific discovery and aeronautics research." According to CNN currently we have 6 tons of space garbage circling the earth, including $5 million worth of cameras. Isn't one of our modern day objectives to stop pollution? It has been 35 years since the landing on the moon, which was the last big break through in space exploration. Yet their abundant confidence gives the illusion they know precisely what they are doing. Which is good, because you would not want all that money going to a sketchy organization, right? Actually NASA has made many mistakes, in fact they wasted $4.8 billion on one project that lasted from 1980 to 2007 according to the GAO. The purpose was to make a reusable space shuttle, they made four different fully functioning space shuttles with incredible scientific advances but none of them were reusable. They have crashed at least three space shuttles killing a dozen astronauts, and wasting billions of dollars, and for what? What if we could put our tax dollars to good use and tackle an issue like hunger or cancer? We could have used the $4.8 billion to feed the 35.5 million hungry mouths in America, everyday, for over four years. According to the World Health Organization, everyday 16,000 children die from hunger- related causes. This is unnecessary when a food bank can provide nine meals from just $1. We can not seem to meet the needs to feed the starving children in the world, but we have more then enough resources to provide for space travel? What mixed up world do we live in? Where have our priorities gone? The International Space Shuttle cost about 96 billion, but the photos it produced were beneficial in observing the processes at high latitudes affect global climate and climate changes said NASA. This means they can see the affects of global warming and better predict weather. Is predicting the weather worth 96 billion dollars? To be fair, congress has made drastic cuts on NASA funding about $31 million last year, said GAO. Figuring that we have been studying space since 1958 the minuscule amount of knowledge we have gained is discouraging. Space travel is a luxury, shouldn't the welfare of others come before our curiosity? It almost seems unpatriotic to question NASA's existence. At the same time why do we give so much control to our politicians? We need to not be so nonchalant about where our tax dollars are going and be proactive in how they are spent. There are thousands of other organizations that we should invest in to better our country and strengthen our future. Until we are able to take care of the problems we have here on earth let's put our na've childish adventures on hold. Samantha Gillis is a freshman majoring in journalism. You may e-mail her at samantha.gillis@sckans.edu.

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