Aspirations are what make you not kill yourself.

BTW this is Neil deGrasse Tyson

#3 Thanks, however I got that from the titles at 0:04!!

This man is brilliant!!

He is incredible, he has so much enthusiasm and knowledge, I want to pick his brains!

I've watched a lot of his videos, and they're all interesting, mind stimulating...you can't go wrong.

#3 Thanks, however I got that from the titles at 0:04!!

Neil is awesome squared: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=danYFxGnFxQ

Watch out, we got a dumb ass over here. (#3)

Alright smart guys (and the real genius at #13), it's just I wish I had written his name in the description: video content is not usually indexed.
Hope you still listen to the man!

#3 Thanks, however I got that from the titles at 0:04!!

Bear with me while I repost the following:

"A 1997 poll reported that Americans had an average estimate of 20% for NASA's share of the federal budget. In reality, NASA's budget has been between 0.5% and 1% from the late 1960s on. NASA budget briefly peaked at over 4% of the federal budget in the mid-1960s during the build up to the Apollo program."

(More: http://si.academia.edu/RogerLaunius/Papers/93299/_Public_Opinion_Polls_and_Perceptions_of_US_Human_Spaceflight_)

"Many years ago the great British explorer George Mallory, who was to die on Mount Everest, was asked why did he want to climb it. He said, "Because it is there." Well, space is there, and we're going to climb it, and the Moon and the planets are there, and new hopes for knowledge and peace are there. And, therefore, as we set sail we ask God's blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked."
—John F. Kennedy, Speech at Rice University

We the people ... what have we become?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWiIYW_fBfY

Lets cut to the chaff, NASA is not capable of returning to the moon. They are in the entertainment business. Mars is better PP, but too far for us to travel from a practical sense. NASA has a space station that 99% of the experiments can be performed without astronauts. Incidentally, it was to cost 40 billion now it's over 100 billion, need I say more about waste. We can't barely pay the interest on the national debt we owe, yet the education system is bleeding the taxpayers from the local to the national level without producing viable results. I would rather pay for a cure for cancer in children then finding out if water existed on Mars.

#18 You are very short sighted. You don't seem to get the point but there it is: buck for buck NASA generates the most inspiration for science, medecine and technology. And you cannot pay for a cure for cancer, if you take the whole of US GDP in cancer research, you will deprive society of other things and you're not guaranteed result.
The question is what is best to do with any amount of available money.
I think Neil makes a great case for the NASA effect.

Brilliant man, but NASA has fallen down hard on its perceived mission. They are masters at drawing a plan out for decades and doling out thin rewards for the money. They used to be great, but the people who got them there are dead or retired- the guys there now are just warming their chairs.

The future is not with government, it's with private efforts. NASA probably now means No Actual Science Allowed.

#3 Thanks, however I got that from the titles at 0:04!!

#18 Short sighted, I think not, you assume that I'm suggesting we don't continue to fund NASA but there is a need for serious oversight to determine if there is practical benefit associated with the expenditure and its not another grandiose plan that will never happen is being funded. NASA forgot that discovery is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration. Speaking of 1 percent, it is 37 billion dollars the 2012 budget and most of that will have to paid by our grandchildren.

I'm also sure you not suggesting that a cure for a disease is not related to the investment in research.

#3 Thanks, however I got... ahh screw it...

#14 I hear you, and him for that matter, loud and clear, and am already packing for my grand grand grand grand children for Kepler 22b

Awesome discussion. Great Video. Smart man. BUT, what I really want to know, do you think maybe he doesn't have pants on??

is he high or something!?