As Congress decides how they will reduce governmental spending to pay for the reconstruction of the Gulf Coast, NASA announced its $104 billion plan to go to the moon by 2020.

The moon. Were we not there just a few decades ago? As I recall, the astronauts discovered that the moon is basically a big rock with barely any potential to ever support human life. The same is basically true for Mars. We’ve got color pictures and rock samples to prove it. The terrain is rough, the atmosphere is non-existent and none of the essentials required to sustain human life are present. We do not learn anything extraordinary from these trips. We are just wasting money that could be used to help people in need.

$104 billion. NASA must have some awesome new technology that will dazzle us all, right? Actually, NASA plans to basically upgrade the Apollo designs that they used when we first made it to the moon. A NASA spokesperson even called it “Apollo on steroids.”

In a budget cut recommended by House Republicans, our leaders have proposed reducing benefits for military health care, Medicaid and grants for graduate students. However, cuts for this frivolous NASA program are nowhere in sight.

NASA is a joke. They have not done anything productive in the last 20 years besides create and continue to use old and faulty space shuttles. Sure, NASA has a large role in building the International Space Station, but what good has come from random astronauts spending a few hundred days out in space? Yet, while we continue to pump billions of dollars into a useless program, we ignore the well being of the people in our own country. Millions of people are living without health insurance, but that is okay because we want to launch a couple of people into space and create a national spectacle.

NASA administrator Michael Griffin even said that they want to expand human presence across the solar system and beyond. That sounds fine to me, but there is one problem: it is implausible with our current technology. NASA is famous for these vague blanket statements. I am sure that Neil Armstrong was reading off of a script when he made his famous “one giant leap for mankind” statement. We hear these sound bites and are encouraged by the thought of making progress. However, rational thought prevails and realization sets in. It takes years to travel to another planet and even when we would get there, people could not survive without tons of supplies.

NASA needs to stop focusing on these little trips to the moon that will captivate the general public for a week before we move onto an obsession with a missing girl or a natural disaster. The only thing they should be spending their money on is finding a more efficient and quicker way to travel.

As it stands, it would take almost 9 months to get to Mars and a reasonable round trip would take 21 months. The amount of food, water, fuel, time and money spent completing such a trip would only further our nation’s debt. Finding a more efficient way to travel is the only viable option. We should not even talk about going to the moon or Mars before such a solution is found.

NASA needs to stop playing the same old trick. They are using old technology to get to a place where we have already been. Before NASA spends any more of my tax dollars on a boring trip to the moon, I want to see new technology that dramatically changes the way they currently travel in space. NASA has not come up with any of such innovations in decades. So here is my ultimatum for NASA: stop wasting our tax dollars to pay for your dog and pony show in space.