Why does it seem like no one talks about NASA in politics?

I am a 20 year old college student looking to be an astrophysicist and applying for a NASA internship this spring. This election cycle, I am also voting for the first time and I've noticed Its as if no one ever talks about NASA or the space budget in political parties. I wanted to bring this topic up and discuss why NASA is so important and see why its never talked about. In my opinion, people don't normally grasp how much space exploration and science are funded. As of right now, if you take the funding of NASA's program and compare it to the tax dollar, NASA gets a 1/4-1/2 a penny. Half a percent of taxes goes to a program that creates heroes, explorers, and future scientist and engineers that care about this planet. The bank bailout cost more than THE ENTIRE HALF CENTURY BUDGET OF NASA. It's one of the only programs that actually let people dream about tomorrow. Mostly no matter who you are, people are filled with wonder and excitement on the mysteries and vastness of the cosmos. Big space projects fuels the science craving of not only the United States but humans across the globe.After the moon landing, people looked at America as not only heroes, but leaders of innovation. The generations that look up to big projects like that will be filled with scientifically literate people that create and invent. Because of this,new technology would be made, jobs would stay here and the economy would prosper because we would be making and innovating things that no other country would. Also people genuinely get excited about space exploration, and I feel as if America needs to step up and be that optimistic country that says "it may be hard, but we will push the boundaries of space and science". Also if we learn about stuff out there, we can learn about how things operate down here. For example, Venus is much like earth except one thing, it has a runaway greenhouse effect. The surface temp so hot, it can melt lead. If we learn more about how this happened, we could learn how to protect and save our own planet. If we don't push the frontiers of science, we stagnate while all the other countries blow past us. The value of NASA on the US is too important to not think about. What are your thoughts on this? If people are interested, Neil deGrasse Tyson stood before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce to fight for a larger budget. He makes great points in this video :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmKlA_UnX8c

Submitted July 31, 2016 at 10:48AM by Jooshwa http://ift.tt/2amwzkU