The Space Race was one of the most incredible scientific periods in human history. Not only were enormous technological leaps made during this period, but all of these advances also occurred in rapid succession. In April of 1961, Yuri Gagarin was the first man to enter space, and just over 8 years later, Neil Armstrong stepped foot on the moon. Even though 50 years have now passed, human civilization has yet to venture further; so what exactly is the hold up? People have been speculating about civilizations on Mars for hundreds of years now, shouldn’t we be able to confirm or deny their suspicions by now?
This is a question that rings in my head every night when I look up at the stars. However, it is clear that this lull in scientific advances has to do with money; the study of our universe requires a lot of pricey technology, and many people do not see the value of astronomy. Lots of people believe that we have no need to waste money studying other planetary bodies when we have problems of our own here on Earth. While this is a somewhat valid point, it would be silly for us to save money we would have spent on science and instead spend it in more useless areas like the defense budget. In 2011, the military budget was well over $900 billion, where NASA’s budget was just over $18 billion. In its 55 years of existence, NASA’s accumulative budget is only around $800 billion, still considerably less than what the military spent in 2011 alone.
Graph of US military budget vs. NASA budget
Now, we do of course need the military; it would be naive to dismantle our armed services for the purposes of furthering science, but clearly there needs to be a change. The disparity between the sizes of the military and NASA’s respective budgets could be evidence a fundamental problem with our society – maybe we simply value our physical power as a country more than we do our intelligence.
If this is the case, then what could have caused this change to occur? It probably had to do with the fact that in the 60s, the search for knowledge was not the United States’ only motivator. While the scientific advances were incredible, they were only occurring because of competition with the Soviet Union. It was fear that was motivating the country to put a man on the moon, not a yearning to learn. While the reasons behind the scientific push might not be the best ones, the Americans and the Soviets did prove that humans are capable of achieving magnificent things. If that mentality had continued for the decades following the space race, maybe there would be a human colony on Mars today.
Military Budget vs NASA budget information from:
