Here's what happened in the 1960's
we were at war with the Soviet Union,
Cold War,
and a little bit Hot War over in Southeast Asia.
So we fear them because they put up Sputnik,
which by the way, people forget,
was an emptied out casing of an intercontinental ballistic missile.
And Sputnick itself means "fellow traveler" so it was all peaceful.
But it was a ballistic missile head without explosives.
So that a signal and we freaked in America.
So NASA got founded on the fear-factor of Sputnik.
Alright so, we then go to the moon
on the fear-factor that Russia will control the high ground.
Then we go to the moon, space entusiasts say
"oh, we're on the moon in '69 we'll be on Mars in another 10 years."
They completely did not understand why we got to the moon
in the first place.
We were at war.
Once we saw that Russia was not ready to land on the moon,
we stopped going to the moon.
That should not surprise anyone looking back on it.
Meanwhile, however, that entire era galvanized the nation.
Forget the war, it galvanizes all to dream about tomorrow.
To think about the homes of tomorrow,
the cities of tomorrow,
the food of tomorrow.
Everything was futureworld, futureland.
The World's Fair, all this was focused on enabling
people to make tomorrow come.
That was a cultural mindset that the
space program brought upon us.
And we reaped the benefits of economic growth because
you had people wanting to become scientists and engineers,
or the people who enable tomorrow to exist today.
And even if you're not a scientist, or a technologist,
you will value that activity.
And that in the 21st Century are the foundations of tomorrow's economies,
and without it we might as well just slide back into
the caves, because that where we're headed
right now, broke.
I'm tired of saying this, but I have to say it again!
The NASA budget is four-tenths of one penny on a tax dollar!
If I held up the tax dollar, and i cut horizontally into it
four-tenths of 1% of its width it doesn't even get you
into the ink.
So I will not accept a statement that says
"We can't afford it!"
Do you realize that the $850 billion dollar
bank bailout, that sum of money,
is greater than the entire 50 year running budget of NASA?
And so when someone says we dont have enough money
for this space program,
I'm asking, "No, it's not that you don't have enough money,
it's that the distribution of the money that you're spending
is warped, in some way, that you are removing the
only thing that gives people something to dream about tomorrow.
The home of tomorrow, the city of tomorrow,
the transportation of tomorrow, all that ended in the 1970's.
After we stopped going to the moon, it all ended,
we stopped dreaming.
And so I worry that decisions that Congress makes
doesn't factor in the consequences of those decisions on tomorrow.
They're playing for the quarterly report,
they're playing for the next election cycle,
and that is mortgaging the actual future of this nation.
Tomorrow's gone!
If you double NASA's budget
,right now it's half a penny on the dollar,
make it a penny, go ahead,
make it a penny!
Be bold!
That would be enough to go Mars soon, with people.
And go back to the moon, and go out to asteroids.
NASA as best as I can judge
is a force of nature like none other.
And so what worries me is that if you take away
the manned program, a program which if you advance frontiers,
heroes are made!
There is a force operating on the educational pipeline
that will stimulate the formation of
scientists, engineers, mathematics, and technologists.
You birth these people into society.
They're the ones that make tomorrow come.
A half a penny!
That buys the space station, the space shuttles,
all the NASA centers, the rovers, the Hubble Telescope,
all the astronauts, all of that!
Nobody's dreaming about tomorrow anymore.
The most powerful agency on the dreams of a nation
is currently underfunded to do what it needs to be doing,
and that's making dreams come true.
How much would you pay for the universe?