On the last day of fourth grade, I asked my science teacher why we haven’t gone back to the moon. “It’s too dangerous,” she said, “it’s not worth risking their lives.” Later that year, I asked my friend’s dad, an aerospace engineer at JPL, that same question. He laughed out loud and told me that NASA was “damn too poor for that.”
In light of what’s been going on in U.S. public-sector-funded space exploration over the past several decades, I think I know who to believe.
As a high school student passionate about the future of space exploration, it truly hurts to see my own country allocating, on average, less than 0.5% of its federal spending on government-funded space programs like NASA. The 6-year-old boy frightened out of his blankets by the alien under his bed — heart beating, cold sweat trickling down his neck — now entertains himself by scrolling through NASA and SETI papers online, but his heart isn’t beating the same for the future of space exploration in his country.
In the beginning of sophomore year, I began a petition to increase funding for NASA. I reached out to everyone, from company executives to some distant relative I hadn’t seen since my uncle’s wedding a decade ago. While a handful of like-minded peers eagerly offered their signature in support of the cause, I had a long-overdue realization: we as Americans have a wholly distinctive approach to space exploration.
That is, nobody cares. In a country increasingly obsessed with hyperpartisanship on a seemingly infinite supply of things to yell about, the state of our innovative capacity doesn’t even make it onto the debate stage; it’s simply not “relevant” enough. It is disheartening to witness the overwhelming silence that surrounds this issue, as though the stars, the moon, and our very ability to travel beyond our home no longer captivate our collective imagination.
Recently, seeing the Indian Space Research Organization’s Chandrayaan-3 land on the moon’s south pole was a true turning point — or rather, tipping point — in my perspective.
In a 2023 article in the Harvard Gazette, Tarun Khanna, director of the Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute, said in reference to India, “We still are a very poor country.”
“It’s encouraging nonetheless that several scientists across several domains have been able to compete and collaborate with the best,” Khanna said.
In the U.S, however, this is a sight hard to come across. Little to no attention, whether from the general public or the government, is given to this realm of exploration, and recognition has been in a constant decline since the end of the Space Race and the Apollo missions.
I am tired of pouring my heart out over how excited I am about NASA’s Europa Clipper to the five people (three, actually — the other two stopped coming) who show up to my weekly Space Club meetings. And when the one kid out of the three who actually listens in the front row lets me know that “the two guys in the back are not paying attention,” I want to shout out that I know. I know a bit too well they’re here for a line on their college applications and I know that, like the rest of America, they wouldn’t notice (or care) if I had brought an alien in for show and tell. But I do not respond; I continue talking about the Europa Clipper.
As citizens of the United States of America, we take pride in our nation’s rich history of space exploration. But there is a disparity between this pride and our financial commitment to the endeavor. NASA’s budget has remained stubbornly stagnant over the years, with the 2016 fiscal year budget request at approximately $18.5 billion.
Although we have been making progress, (NASA’s budget for fiscal year 2023 was $25.4 billion, which was a 5.6% increase from the previous year) this budget is nowhere near enough yet. Most recently, NASA’s budget has represented a fraction of the federal budget, typically ranging between one-half and 1%. To put this in perspective, Americans spend $38 billion on pizza annually and $253.8 billion on alcohol, far surpassing NASA’s budget. Given the remarkable achievements of NASA, it’s evident that a more substantial investment in space exploration is not only warranted, but a necessity.
And it is on these grounds that I question the United States’ relationship with space exploration. Do we really care all that much? Was the 1960s hubbub a mere political stir, a short-lived, televised dream during a time of conflict?
Is space exploration in the U.S. really no more than a national boast of military might? Or do we still have what it takes to reignite the flame of wonder that once fueled our greatest explorations?
I pray the latter.
