Neil deGrasse Tyson NASA's Budget and Dreams of the Future

Features: Current EventsCritical Path Innovation: Popular Perception of Space TravelInstitutions: NASAPeople: Neil deGrasse Tyson

"It's not that you don't have enough money. It's that the distribution of money is warped in such a way that you are removing the only thing that gives people something to dream about tomorrow. Do you remember the 60's and 70's? You wouldn't have to go more than a week before there was an article in Life magazine, 'The Home of Tomorrow' , 'The City of Tomorrow', 'The Transportation of Tomorrow', all that ended in the 1970's after we stopped going to the moon. It all ended. We stopped dreaming. And so I worry that decisions that Congress makes don't factor in the consequences of those decisions on tomorrow. Tomorrow is gone. They're playing for the quarterly report, they're playing for the next election cycle, and that is mortgaging the actual future of this nation. The rest of the world is going to pass us by."