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The Space Administration ( Nasa ) And Kennedy Space Center

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My main interest in writing a research paper about space sparked from the retirement of the Space Shuttle, in which thousands of workers lost their jobs and other individuals where forced to move away to different locations across the United States to find work. I will be focusing on the obstacles that National Aeronautic Space Administration (NASA) and Kennedy Space Center are presented with from the view points of many different angles. I have discovered many interesting facts and sources regarding my topic and realize that there is still so much to be learned. My search begins with an article concerning the budget situation out at Kennedy Space Center. The first article of the budget confliction can be seen in the News of the Week: …show more content…

The authors Pielke R. Jr and Byerly R. of the article “Shuttle Programme Lifetime Cost”, discuss in detail the amount of money it takes for NASA to launch a Space Shuttle. I found in this document, how much the Space Administration spent for each separate Space Shuttle launch. “During the operational years from 1982 to 2010, the average cost per launch was about $1.2 billion. Over the life of the programme, this increases to about $1.5 billion per launch”(p. 38). This source brought a new perspective into my thought process about how costly the space programs can be. The authors of the article presented the information though graphs as well, which I intend to include in my final research paper. This source also had me eager to look up how much the National Government has funded NASA over the past years. Researching the topic of NASA’s budget presented alarming evidence about the shrinking government funding that the agency receives. According to “NASA Budget”, published in 2012, the following monetary amounts show the decrease in the amount of funding the National Government is providing NASA “$553.8 million in fiscal 1995, $155.5 million in fiscal 1996, $131.7 million in fiscal 1997, $61 million in fiscal 1998, $51.3 million in fiscal 2000, $10.8 million in fiscal 2004”. The article shows how the funding drastically decreased over a series of nine years. The source gives a different perspective, not from an individual that works out at

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