Have you ever been curious about space? Do you want to quench that curiosity with the knowledge that our ancestors would never have been able to understand? The National Aeronautics and Space Agency or NASA is a federal agency that answers your curiosity. NASA's purpose is to “discover and expand knowledge for the benefit of humanity.” NASA can do amazing things with a small amount of money. NASA has invented amazing technology that is not tied to space. There are some positives that can come from cutting your budget. NASA and its future inventions are threatened by people who want to cut their budgets. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original EssayNASA was created in 1958 by Congress, in response to the launch of the first satellite, Sputnik. Sputnik was launched by the United Socialist Republics or the USSR. The Sputnik event launched what is called the space race in which the United States and the USSR tried to reach the moon before the other country. This space race led to the creation of the Apollo mission series that landed humans on the moon in 1969. NASA is also responsible for the International Space Station (or ISS) and many other Earth services. NASA is a non-profit organization that receives most of its money from the United States government, through the government budget. NASA provides all its results free of charge to all nations and people. Some of their missions directly impact other nations, not just the United States. One of their missions, like Apollo-Soyuz, included the docking of the Apollo 18 and Soyuz 19 spacecraft. This improved the diplomatic relations of the United States and the USSR. This mission saw the US and USSR jointly invent technologies to make their rockets compatible with each other. Some may think that NASA was able to do these amazing things with a huge budget, this notion is not factual. Currently NASA's budget is 21.5 billion dollars and this figure seems very large. This figure is very small considering it only represents about 0.49% of the entire US budget, if the US budget was $1.00 NASA would receive about half of a cent. With this small amount of money given, they have made great strides in the fields of science and technology. NASA spends most of its money on human spaceflight, but it also employs about 17,000 people who work specifically for NASA and contracts with about 5,000 other organizations that help produce technology with them for use in space. According to The Planetary Society, “NASA's prime contractors – Boeing, Lockheed-Martin, SpaceX, and Orbital Sciences – are the largest recipients of NASA funding.” A counterargument is to privatize NASA. NASA was not created to have a return on investment. NASA is a humanitarian organization where it studies space and earth to improve all life on earth, not to make a profit. Privatizing NASA would cause numerous problems, including shutting down Active Passive Soil Moisture, or SMAP. SMAP is an orbiting satellite that measures the moisture level in the soil of the entire plant every 2-3 days. This data is free for all countries in the world. The United States has almost no use for this mission, but in Africa's less prosperous countries it can tell farmers which crops to plant for a higher yield. Farmers' plants are not given to them for free, thus stimulating their economies. Former NASA engineer Mark.