How Neil deGrasse Tyson will save America

                                      Neil deGrasse Tyson - now here's a guy with all the answers.

Plato submit that "those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber." Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson illuminates a similar situation in America’s current political climate, but shows that we are all the ones being punished.

Neil (as I familiarly refer to him) is the director at the Hayden Planetarium, author, columnist, PBS host, and People’s Sexiest Astrophysicist Alive (clearly). He may also be one of the most inspiring and insightful voices of our generation.

His message?  To reestablish America’s progressive innovative culture, and invest in our economy by investing in NASA.

In an interview with Bill Maher last year, Neil explained that half of congress states their profession as law, with a few businessmen mixed in.  Even from a young age he questioned “where are the scientists? Where are the engineers?”

Of law, he states “the act of arguing and not agreeing seems to be fundamental to that profession, and congress is half that profession.”  Herein lays a fundamental indicator of our current predicament. In a 2010 interview with NPR's Linda Holmes he expressed that "you can't have people making decisions about the future of the world who are scientifically illiterate”. And he wasn’t just referring to politicians themselves, but the general public who is responsible for voting them in.

Neil is accustomed to putting things into a cosmic perspective, so it’s understandable that he is able to imagine the systemic overhauls needed to assuage our woes. From the way we stifle our children’s’ scientific curiosity to our ineffective policy and budgeting, the problem is the culture. We have collectively decided to stop investing in our excellence and accept mediocrity.

Our country seems to be facing too many problems to count these days, and we apply the same solution across the board. We throw money at each issue directly. We try to fix things one at a time.

Neil declares that “by my read of history, by my read of human behavior, by my read of government funding streams, these efforts amount to no more than Band-Aids on sores that have opened up in our society caused by a much deeper absence – the absence of an innovation culture.”

Innovation and space exploration are “the foundations of tomorrow’s economy” and we should learn to value this whether or not we’re a scientist or technologist.

NASA was founded on the fear revolving around Sputnik, but threat of war shouldn’t be the driver for our development. In the end "we reaped the benefits of economic growth because we had people who wanted to become scientists and engineers, who are the people who enable tomorrow to come today.”

Despite their recent budget cuts, Neil proposes that NASA’s budget be doubled. Although this is a hard sell in our current fiscal condition, it sounds reasonable when juxtaposed against the two-year U.S. military budget which exceeds the entirety of NASA’s half-century budget.

Washington seems to have trouble comprehending the fact that their return on investment would come in the form of innovation and technological advancement. By attempting to draw America and her policy-makers away from their fixation with immediate gratification, we can attempt to look towards a future where we live up to the type of greatness we ourselves once defined.