Neil deGrasse Tyson Will Make You Stand Up in Your Chair Over NASA
Posted by James_Knutila on Wednesday, Apr 07, 2010
In light of recent budget cuts, NASA has decided to forget about frontiers, ignore the moon, kick the Mars can down the road, and settle for promoting commercial access to ‘low-earth orbit.’ Would Neil deGrasse Tyson like to comment on NASA’s big fade? Yes, he would, and in no uncertain terms. In this thundering response, Tyson, astrophysicist and Director of the Hayden Planetarium, tells us exactly what NASA means to America:
‘NASA is force operating on the educational pipeline, that will stimulate the formation of scientists, engineers, mathematicians, and technologists — the stem research fields. You birth these people in society… they’re the ones that make tomorrow come. The foundations of economies in the 21st century will issue forth from investments we make in science and technology. We’ve known since the dawn of the industrial revolution that the nations that embrace those investments are the ones that lead the world."
He explains the importance of NASA for our economy, future, and collective dreams — and why it’s the only government agency that makes 8th graders stand up on their chairs. All for a half penny on the government’s dollar.
If this doesn’t make you a believer, check out Motherboard’s Q & A with Neil deGrasse Tyson, where he elaborates on why we should “spend money up there and not down here”:
“It’s almost mantra. The assumption is that if the money is up there it can’t possibly influence who and what you are and what you’re doing down here. Holding aside the fact that if you only ever look down you’ll miss the asteroid that’s on its way, holding aside that our original understanding of the greenhouse effect was on the planet Venus. Holding aside the fact that our understanding of local phenomenon affecting global climate came about from the study of the asteroid effect that took out the dinosaurs.”
If you care about the United States, dreaming, or the future, listen to this man. He is the Truth.
Filed under:
