Video: NASA's Pursuit of Light and Big Science

By Nancy Atkinson - May 1, 2012 at 5:19 PM UTC | Physics
NASA-budget-graph.jpg

The folks at

NASA Goddard's multimedia division

have outdone themselves this time on a new video compilation which, really, shows how NASA dreams big science. Its asks the big questions of why we really explore and how important these explorations can be. It shows views of the Earth, the planets, the Sun, and the endless universe beyond. The video description says it best: "Come for the cool, stay for the music, take away a sense of wonder to share. It's six minutes from Earth to forever, and you can see it here!"

And what will be lost if NASA is allowed to just fade away through neglect? If you live in the US,

contact your Congress members

and encourage them to support NASA. Currently NASA's budget isn't big enough to even show up as a line on a pie chart, and represents 0.46% of the US budget -- less than half a penny for every dollar spent in the US, and has been relatively unchanged for 25 years.

Here's a graph of what NASA's percentage of the budget has been like over time:

"NASA contributes to society in massively huge ways in terms of technological, economical, and inspirational progress," says the website

Penny4NASA

. "The progress that we have seen in the last 40 years comes largely from the world's extremely talented scientists and engineers. Now, talk to most any scientist and/or engineer of the last 40 years, and we are willing to bet that they were drawn into their chosen field by something NASA related."

Check out

Penny4NASA

for more information and to sign a petition to ask for more funding for NASA.

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com