For those who didnt know
The US Military spends more every year providing just air conditioning for our solders in the Middle East than Congress gives to NASA.
NASA's budget is right around 7 billion dollars per year. WE"RE SPENDING MORE THAN 7 BILLION DOLLARS PER YEAR JUST TO KEEP OUR SOLDERS COOL WHILE LIVING IN TENTS! In 2007, the amount of money labeled 'wasted' or 'lost' in Iraq -- $11 billion -- could pay 220,000 teachers salaries. Remember that is just "lost, wasted" money that never saw a real purpose. In 2008, the Pentagon spent more money every five seconds in Iraq than the average American earned in a year.
NASA is planning missions to Mars and even an Asteroid. New commercial spacecraft are being developed and tested, and NASA is working on the Multi-Purpose Cew Vehicle (MPCV), the Ares, for operations beyond Low Earth Orbit. Until these new vehicles are deemed safe to carry humans, the United States will rely on Russia's Soyuz to send astronauts into space. The fact that NASA needs to borrow another country's vehicles because it receives such little funding that everything takes much longer then it should, is just ridiculous.
It boggles my mind that the US's defense budget is of World Conquest proportions, meanwhile the important things like medical research, space exploration and science, receive the bare minimum funding. The Pentagon spends more on war than all 50 states combined spend on health, education, welfare, and safety.
As the economy fell apart, the banks have been bailed out, and America lost its jobs, but the defense budget continues to grow, its defense spending doubled in the same period that its economy shrunk from 32 to 23 percent of global output. For the past 13 years U.S. military spending has increased 114 percent, making it a country with 5% of the world's population -- but 50% of the world's total military expenditure.
The defense budget just for 2010 was $663.84 billion. Compared to NASA's budget of 7 billion. I think advancements in technologies, learning about the universe, and colonizing other places, is much more important then occupying country's that are no longer a threat and harassing others. If NASA received even half of that $663.84, for only 1 year, the technology and advancements that would result would be unbelievable.
This is simply unacceptable.