Our in-class discussion of space exploration and Angle of Attack reminded me of an article on The Atlantic's website that was published back in March. Neil deGrasse Tyson went on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart in late February and made a case for doubling NASA's budget to one percent of the federal budget, which he termed "a penny on the dollar". His interview made its rounds in many Facebook circles that I belong to. When they watched the interview, my friends (science geeks, all of them) cheered him on, thoughtlessly so in my opinion, so I found an article to contradict them. The article on The Atlantic touches on what we discussed in class about the future role of private companies such as Virgin Galactic and Space X in space exploration. With a moratorium on regulation of commercial spaceflight extended to 2015 back in February, the future of manned space exploration was looking bright for private companies (and it continues to look that way, no doubt).
I think Tyson has point when he explains what an economic driver NASA's Apollo-era budget was, because it inspired popular culture and generations of scientists and engineers, but with the current state of the US budget Tyson's call for funding is impractical. Tyson said in another interview that "(e)conomic drivers don't need justification". When privately funded projects can accomplish a feat to inspire a similar popular reaction to that of Apollo and which need not be paid for in future decades by US taxpayers, a revival of NASA's former glory seems almost silly to me.
Sources:
The Atlantic: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/03/neil-degrasse-tyson-is-wrong-about-nasa/254059/
The Daily Show: http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-february-27-2012/neil-degrasse-tyson
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