It was recently stated that the NASA budget is not going to have the funds needed in order to go to the Moon in the year 2020. I think that it is a sad day when the United States doesn’t have the will to send people into space for the good of the country. I realize that there are many ways we can spend the billions of dollars that are cut from the NASA budget, but I think it would be good if we could eventually go to the Moon and eventually to Mars.
Why is it good for the American public to eventually go to the Moon and Mars? Well, if we go to the Moon, it will be reliving the pride that the previous generation felt when we first hit the Moon. As Neil Armstrong said “One small step for man, a giant leap for mankind.” Imagine what those words would mean to a new generation if they could actually witness a man going back to the Moon.
It will be good for the American people because anything that we undertake from scratch means more jobs for the American people to do. Whether it be high tech jobs, or just cleaning out the underside of the shuttle, it means that people are employed. Side businesses can spring up too, and the industry that could be built up around the launch of the shuttle to the Moon can bring more money into the economy.
Science will benefit from going to the Moon and then to Mars. We can only learn so much from probes, and we need to actually go to these places to find out what is there. What do you think we would have learned had we simply sent a probe to the top of Mount Everest? What if no one had bothered to actually travel to the poles?
The human spirit of exploration will have to be fulfilled somehow. Sending robots to do our jobs for us just isn’t going to cut it. People want to explore, and going to other planets just is an extension of our curiosity. Besides, how can we know what is out there besides Earth if we don’t actually go to these places? We need to be ready to move in case something happens to Earth.
There are many good reasons why we should go to Mars, and the Moon too. The sooner we get there the better, and I think we should do all we can to get there. We have done it before, so why not now? We are pumping enough money into GM that I think we can do the same to NASA.
