The United States has been known for its pride and power over the course of its history. The United States has shown its power through winning wars, overcoming internal conflicts, and being the first to reach the moon. The NASA space program is responsible for this last accomplishment listed. This program has been such an important part of the United States government and aided in establishing their power worldwide. NASA's influence on the United States status around the world started during the late 1950's, although over the years the government has not shown as much interest in it as it once had. The NASA space program has been underfunded for far too long and painfully needs an increase in funding in order to promote space research and new technologies that develop from the research. This American space program was once funded correctly and at has been the center of science and technology since the beginning of the space race. The current United States government has been stingier than in the past when it comes to funding the space program. Specific projects that NASA's funding would produce would include: exploring space in search of possible resources, sustainable life, or launching a mission seeking answers to the universe's greatest mysteries. All of these aspects can help aid the United States in technology and their strength as a world power. While in comparison to the other American agencies, NASA has been overlooked and stripped of its funds by the United States Congress and the White House. The NASA space program needs to be given more appropriate funding by the national government in order to promote the crucial technology and geo-political positives that are created by NASA. 

Some of the United States general population say that the United States needs to cut down on the national budget, but in regards towards NASA, the program takes up such a small percentage of the federal budget that the average person would not even know it is included in the budget. In fact, in Kimberly Amadeo's article "NASA Budget: Current Funding and History" she compares NASA's budget income to the other leading departments, where it is said the  "[the department of defense] budget is $523.9 billion, or 12.6% of the total. DoD's budget would pay for 29 NASA departments" (1). NASA, holding the budget of $18.5 billion has many agencies ahead of it, for example a few departments such as veteran's administration at $75.1 billion, homeland security at $40.6 billion, housing and urban development at $38 billion, and the state department at $37.8 billion (1). David Brown of The New York Times states "The United States asks NASA to do an extraordinary amount with very little money. Explore Mars, document climate change, stop doomsday asteroids, find life on Europa  --  all for less than one-half of 1 percent of the federal budget" (1). While it is great that the United States funds NASA and its research, accomplishing all of these tasks are impossible without allocating more money to back up the expectations. The general population may believe that the NASA space program is highly overfunded to say the least, and although they still receive millions of dollars, compared to the rest of the federal government's budget the space program gets an insignificant amount of money. As stated in the Youtube video "What Could NASA Do With Double The Budget?", if the government were to even double the NASA budget they would be able to start the mission to Mars and do what the government asks of them. Currently, the space station is not even fully funded with the little means the program receives due to the lack of revenue in the United States. 

The NASA space program set the pace for global space travel since the beginning the program was created. Back in 1969 during the space race, the Americans did something that no other country had done before, which was to be the first to land a human being on the moon. This was such an astonishing accomplishment for the United States that they continued in space research and landed more people on the moon. Now the space program has satellites circling the Earth and sent out the Hubble telescope, which explores deep space and takes beautiful never before seen pictures of galaxies and stars from its journey. The NASA space program is determined to conduct more space missions in the near future, including NASA's latest innovation, which is an X-ray satellite to track black holes (Bhattacharjee 1). With the help of these telescopes, scientists can gather more information on what is beyond Earth's realm and allow the world to become more educated of what lurks out in deep space, other galaxies, and may answer questions that the human population have about our existence and how the world was created. The X-ray satellite may very well further our understanding of black holes by an enormous amount and will reveal resources that may be used on Earth for various reasons. While the Hubble telescope continues to give the United States rich photography of the cosmos and further our understanding and perception of deep space, there is still so much that NASA and its scientists do not know about space. These machines show people of the world just how small they are and really help people understand what else is out there to see. That is why it is necessary to continue NASA research to discover what else is out there and what could possibly aid the world in the years to come.

NASA has set the bar for innovation over the years, coming out with new technology for their space missions that would eventually be used in the average Americans' everyday lives. They are responsible for many products in the United States economy including GPS, heart defibrillators, weather satellites, and ATMs according to Kimberly Amadeo's article (1). In an interview with the well-known astrophysicist, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Chris Barth records Tyson stating, "NASA innovates when it advances a frontier, and that innovations in science and technology are the engines of tomorrow's economy" (2). This statement represents the possibilities that NASA holds in the future due to the innovation aspect of the program. This program is said to rejuvenate the current economy as it has before with its vast amounts of products produced for the general American public. There are so many possible outcomes for the innovation at NASA that even the military is benefitting from it. In an article by Taylor Dinerman of Gatestone, he said, "the sensors used on interplanetary probes are similar and sometimes identical to the ones used on the most advanced spy satellites. Life support technologies developed for the shuttle find their way into the flight suits worn by pilots who fly high altitude military jets" (1). These are all crucial parts of the military's efforts to fight for our freedom. 

NASA has a history of great and successful launched missions, although they were not all successful, or even launched for that matter. The NASA space program has been submitting mission proposals for years and have been shot down almost every time. This explains why Americans see them as a luxury now or see them as a waste of money. In fact, Charles Miller writes in his article, "U.S. Government Funding of Major Space Goals: A Historical Perspective" that "NASA, with support from the traditional aerospace establishment, has officially requested major budget increases from the White House and Congress on 3 specific occasions over the last 4 decades to conduct a repeat of Apollo. In each case, the request was rejected in a bipartisan manner" (1). Over the years there have been a vast majority of projects rejected because they did not pass an affordability test by the White House and the United States Congress including another landing on the moon, deep space exploration, another high tech satellite, and a landing on Mars. NASA wanted to initiate a new mission by the name of Constellation, which would close the International Space Station to free up funds and set up a station on the surface of the moon by 2020. This idea was of course shot down even though the space program was asking for a slight increase in funds over a course of five years. As an example, NASA was planning to launch a mission to capture an asteroid and bring back information and pieces to analyze, although according to Andy Pasztor's article "NASA's Asteroid Plan Is Shot Down in House" in The Wall Street Journal, "As part of a stripped-down $16.8 billion authorization bill for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration -- more than $1 billion less than the White House and Senate envision -- the House panel approved language explicitly prohibiting the agency from proceeding with the proposed asteroid project" (1). This is a specific example of a NASA space mission that could have brought back asteroids that are most likely billions of years old which would have gave us some answers as to where it came from and discover the path of the asteroid.

NASA has been a major part of the effort in preserving the environment. For instance, NASA observes and tracks the weather patterns from the ISS (International Space Station) to track global warming. In fact, NASA has been so progressive in tracking the Earth and its weather patterns that support the global warming theory that they have found " ... 2009 was the second warmest year since 1880, when modern temperature measurement began. The warmest year was 2005" (Broder 1). The space program has also been working on a new mission to save the coral reefs around the world. Chris D'Angelo of The Huffington Post says in his article that NASA will provide state of the art technology and attach it to airplanes so that they may observe the reefs in greater detail and become more aware of where there are coral reefs (1). It is explained in the text that the instrument attached to the plane works "by recording the unique spectral signatures of living corals and algae (as corals die, algae numbers increase), the spectrometer will give researchers an extensive picture of what's happening to the world's reefs" (1). This will give the researchers collecting the data a greater understanding of where the coral reefs are trending in a decreasing manner and what may be affecting them by looking at their surroundings. These examples put to rest the general excuse to not fund NASA that "we have bigger problems here on Earth" because they are working just as hard to contribute to a solution on Earth while also looking for resources in outer space. 

The opposition often says, "NASA is a waste of time and money" and "NASA doesn't solve our problems here on Earth". People like Jerry DeGroot of Gatestone, who wrote "The US Government Should Cut NASA Funding" says that NASA is not a priority right now and that they are not worth the money the United States government gives them. Well, as stated before, the NASA space program receives less than one percent of the US national budget, which means that however much is being spent on NASA, there is still significantly more being spent in every other agency the government has. To further strengthen the argument, DeGroot states " ... NASA is stuck in the 1960s. That explains the desire to go to Mars, an aspiration given the seal of presidential approval in 2004" and although it is a plan of the past it would still bring many benefits; this mission could give the United States resources, global power and recognition, and ultimately the answer to whether there is life or once was life on the seemingly baron planet (1). Along side this mission, the United States space program has been researching more technologically advanced subjects also, like their ambitions to create a solar powered spacecraft to reduce the cost of fuel used to power a traditional spacecraft. NASA has also been on a mission to capture an asteroid and harness its information and resources while possibly searching for cost efficient resources in space. DeGroot also states that NASA has been taking money, food, and shelter from people who need it by wasting money on its useless missions, but in the end, if NASA has proven to boost the economy every time it has been fully funded and it is now at less than one percent of the national budget, then why not just increase it to better the economy at the least and in turn improve the lives of those citizens involved in the economy. 

The NASA space program is helping not only the environment by raising awareness, but also changing the game of clean water. The astronauts in the ISS use a recyclable water source to consume safe to drink water, they have also brought that technology down to Earth to places like rural Mexico where people do not have access to clean water. With the increase in the budget NASA may further this initiative into other poverty struck countries. In fact, in a recent article published on NASA's official website, this initiative is described and the Mexican president stated the importance of the water by saying "'If we could put one of these plants in every community and have people use it, it would resolve one of the most important sources of health problems, at least in the rural areas of Mexico'" ("Benefits for Humanity" 1). With this new technology increasingly proving its worth in Mexico, it proves that the world would be a better place if areas struck by disaster had no clean water source for a prolonged period of time. 

Along with the health of peoples' diets comes their internal health and immune system, which is also heavily affected by NASA. NASA has created a vast amount of medical equipment that is used to this day in the world of medicine. These medical spinoffs each come from the need for more efficiency in the NASA missions and the need to keep the astronauts healthy in space without a doctor to aid them. Some examples of the equipment that has been created as a result of the NASA missions are "tiny transmitters to monitor the fetus inside the womb,  ...  cool suit[s] to lower body temperature in treatment of various conditions,  ...  voice-controlled wheelchairs,  ...  Light-Emitting Diodes (LED) for help in brain cancer surgery,  ...  [and] programmable pacemakers" just to name a few (Brinson 1). With the help of the federal government's budget increase for NASA there may be hope to cure some of the most devastating diseases in the world at the moment. The possibilities are endless with the outcomes from the NASA missions when it comes to health because the astronauts have to adapt to new environments when they explore different realms of space. 

If NASA were to get fully funded as they request to be, there will be major changes in the technological world and a rippling effect in both the country's and the population's health. The outburst of new innovations and technological advances will send the economy soaring into the national record books. The concern with the problem being here on Earth can be solved by also using NASA technology and initiatives while preserving the environments. It is shown that NASA has taken up little to none of the national budget and if the United States government were to increase this margin of funding the margin of production from the government agency would spike also. Back at a time when tensions were high with the U.S.S.R. and the cold war was at its peak (producing the space race) the NASA space program was fully funded and was fully prepared to take on anyone or any challenge that was put in their way. This is not the case today, as they are no longer able to make it past one percent of the United States government and no longer able to even fully staff the International Space Station (ISS). Giving NASA the funds they request would be extremely beneficial to the United States and the environment, this would change the perception of NASA in peoples eyes once again and give them something to be proud of. Average citizens have the capability to change this funding allocation just as much as any powerful politicians can by petitioning, protesting, and/or getting more involved in the government by voting for candidates who advocate the increase of NASA's budget.

  
