Bill Nye Argues For Budget: If The U.S. Loses It’s Space Edge, ‘It’s Going To Be Heartbreaking’

Bill Nye has long been known as “The Science Guy” to children growing up everywhere, however as Nye has been recently placed at the head of the Planetary Society he has taken a stand against the planned budgetary cuts in the NASA organization that aims to withdraw over $300 million worth of support, reports CNN.

“This is a deep, deep concern. All the budgets are being cut. We gotcha, budgets are being cut, budgets are being pulled back, yes, yes, all good,” says Nye.

“But investment in space stimulates society, it stimulates it economically, it stimulates it intellectually, and it gives us all passion. Everyone, red state, blue state, everyone supports space exploration. So I understand the budget has got to be cut, but something has gone a little bit wrong.”

With the planetary exploration budget set to be cut by 21%, Nye says that there is much that could be lost should the government choose to cut spending that drastically, even asserting that the preparation wouldn’t be there to avoid certain natural disasters.

“If the Earth gets hit by an asteroid, it’s game over. It’s control-alt-delete for civilization.” Nye says acknowledging that the possibility is always there.

“Sea jellies, squid, cockroaches will be fine but an asteroid could wipe out humankind.”

“So what we want to do is to develop the capability to redirect, to deflect an asteroid, ever so slightly. If you’re going to do that, you’ve got to have space exploration. And sooner or later, you’re going to want to send people out there to look around. It’s just our nature, and one day it would be exciting to send people to Mars,” adding,

“If we found life on Mars, or evidence of life on Mars, it would change the way everybody thinks about everything. It would change the way you think about your place in space.”

Nye hopes to raise awareness about the effects on our country should planetary exploration should but cut, emphasizing that it could take years to rebuild and regain its edge.

“To try to really land a spacecraft really on another world is really difficult, and if we lose that ability, it’s going to be heartbreaking.”

Do you agree with Bill Nye that the United States could lose its space edge if we cut spending by that much?