Should NASA Persuasive Essay

Space, a vast and cold vacuum that much is yet to be explored. It all started in 1957, when the Soviet Union launched the first satellite, Sputnik into space. This launch caught the attention of people all around the world. As a result, it sparked the space race between the U.S and U.S.S.R. Since then, there have been many missions to space, but all these missions come with a cost. In 1981, NASA launched the first reusable space shuttle which was subsequently used for thirty years, however this cost about $209 billion over the years to keep maintaining it. The launch of a single space shuttle costs approximately $450 million and over the years there have been 135 launches. So why should governments and taxpayers spend billions of dollars on organizations like NASA, when so many problems already exists here on Earth? Although space exploration and research may cost a lot of money, I believe it is worth the cost as it has benefited humankind.

In 2012, under the Obama administration the total budget was $3.73 trillion and $18.7 billion of that money went to NASA. Now this may sound like a considerable amount of money, but if the U.S budget were to be represented by one hundred pennies, then merely half of a penny would be given to NASA. Since landing the first man on the moon, NASA’s budget has gone down from 4.5% of the Federal budget to 0.5%. According to a survey, most Americans think that NASA receives 20% - 25% of the U.S yearly budget. In reality, they only receive 0.5% of the budget. It is amazing to see how the space agency has benefited people on Earth with this budget, but imagine the possibilities if they received a larger portion of the budget each year. How close would we be to colonizing Mars, or what other types of technology would have been