In just one year, the expenditure of of the U.S.'s military budget is equivalent to the entire 50-year running budget of NASA combined.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the vast difference in funding between military expenditures and space exploration.
Neil DeGrasse Tyson emphasizes the staggering amount of money allocated to the U.S. military compared to the total budget spent on NASA over a half-century. This comparison prompts reflection on national priorities, particularly regarding investment in scientific exploration versus military capabilities, urging a reevaluation of how resources are utilized to benefit society and advance knowledge about our universe.
In practice
During a discussion on national spending priorities, this quote can be used to illustrate the need for more investment in scientific research.
The problem is that many people operate on the assumption that NASA should go to Congress every year with hat in hand and justify it every year. Well, I see it as the greatest economic driver that there ever was. Economic drivers don't need justification.
The press still thinks [global warming] is controversial. So they find the 1% of the scientists and put them up as if they're 50% of the research results. You in the public would have no idea that this is basically a done deal and that we're on to other problems, because the journalists are trying to give it a 50/50 story. It's not a 50/50 story. It's not. Period.
As a scientist, I want to go to Mars and back to asteroids and the Moon because I'm a scientist. But I can tell you, I'm not so naive a scientist to think that the nation might not have geopolitical reasons for going into space.
One of my great laments is that education today seems to have... be less about passion and more about process, more about tactic or technique.
Lots of people think, well, we're humans; we're the most intelligent and accomplished species; we're in charge. Bacteria may have a different outlook: more bacteria live and work in one linear centimeter of your lower colon than all the humans who have ever lived. That's what's going on in your digestive tract right now. Are we in charge, or are we simply hosts for bacteria? It all depends on your outlook.
Let me tell you something about full moons: kids don't care about full moons. They'll play in a full moon, no worries at all. They only get scared of magic or werewolves from stupid adults and their stupid adult stories.
Half of what we know is wrong, the purpose of science is to determine which half.
It's hard to imagine anything more interesting than learning how we're woven into the enormous tapestry of existence. Where did our universe come from? How special is our world, and how special are we? We allocate tens of billions of dollars annually to NASA, NSF and academia in search of the answers.
All of my life, I have been fascinated by the big questions that face us, and have tried to find scientific answers to them. If, like me, you have looked at the stars, and tried to make sense of what you see, you too have started to wonder what makes the universe exist.
The cloning of humans is on most of the lists of things to worry about from Science, along with behaviour control, genetic engineering, transplanted heads, computer poetry and the unrestrained growth of plastic flowers.
I am on the edge of mysteries and the veil is getting thinner and thinner.
In the material sciences these are and have been, and are most surely likely to continue to be heroic days.
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