The Importance Of Space Exploration In America

Celie Arnett

Diane Mercer

Honors Freshman Lit and Comp

13 February 2018

Space Exploration in America On July twentieth, 1969, Neil Armstrong became the first person to walk on the moon- a moment that is now read about in history books. Everyone knows the line, “One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.” Recently, on February sixth, 2018, the private company SpaceX successfully launched a rocket into space. These events leave some people questioning: Is exploring space even important? Even though space exploration is expensive, exploring space is necessary for the United States because it helps scientists make strides in other areas of science and provides an economic boost to America. Exploring space is necessary because it can

For example, Dr. Raman and his colleagues at Stanford University have found a way to reduce energy and cool buildings using highly reflective solar panels to 8.8° cooler than the air surrounding the buildings (Dussault). Most heat is absorbed by greenhouse gases in the ozone layer of the atmosphere and “bounce back” to Earth; however, some infrared wavelengths pass through the atmosphere and into space (Dussault). Radiative sky cooling is the heat loss. After receiving three million dollars from Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) program, three of the Stanford researchers founded SkyCool Systems, of which Dr. Raman is the Chief Executive Officer. Unfortunately, this technology would not work on existing buildings. Entirely new buildings would have to be built for radiative sky cooling to work. Then, they discovered a way to use the panel that would cool fluid in a closed loop, called solar water coolers, and would not require new buildings to be built. They are targeting a 10-20% reduction in energy use, which would save a lot of money

$18.7 billion dollars went toward NASA in 2012, which is less than one percent of the total U.S. budget. Only $3.8 billion of that money went specifically toward space exploration (Adamu). By comparison, 26.3 percent of budget was allocated to Department of Defense and 4.8 percent to education. It has the “smallest budget of any major agency” (Adamu). The most money NASA has ever used was during the Apollo missions in the 1960s and 1970s; even then, the taxpayer never paid more than four cents on the dollar (Tyson). Now, only seven-tenths of a penny per dollar is spent on space exploration (Tyson). Private companies like SpaceX are also bringing the cost of rockets down (Mascaro). Also, the Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. is the most popular, most visited museum in the world (Tyson). Eighteen federal agencies fund research on climate change, but only one funds space exploration (Smith