What's Next for NASA?

NASA's shuttle program has come to successful end. You may have seen it in the news, online, or seen some of the amazing pictures like the one I have shown to the right, but the final destinations for both the Enterprise shuttle (to the right) and Discovery have been set.


Discovery was transported via a modified 747 to the Smithsonian Air and Space museum, taking the place on the Enterprise. Discovery took the place because it had actually been in space, whereas Enterprise had not. Enterprise ended up at the Intrepid museum in New York, marking the complete end to NASA's shuttle program. So, what's next for NASA?


In a news release posted by NASA 2 weeks ago, "The agency is moving forward with an ambitious plan to develop cutting-edge space technologies to advance human and robotic exploration, reach new destinations, and launch revolutionary science missions". In fact, the New Horizons spacecraft that was launched in 2006 will get us the first flyby of the planet-that-was, Pluto (in only 1169 days). This scientific mission should be an indicator of what NASA is capable of. I fully believe that we should put the time, money, and effort into exploring the final frontier. 


There are many things out there in the unknown that we are capable to making become known, including possible habitable planets. In fact, the number of these habitable planets have increased by the billions. These kind of discoveries and explorations should be enough to continue funding NASA, and hopefully something can become just as important as the shuttle program was 50 years ago.

Wrapping up Junior Theme

As my last post related to my Junior Theme topic (why are NCAA student-athletes not paid?), I decided to put my opinion to answer this question here on my blog. In my paper I had to focus on the reasons why they haven't been paid, but now I want to express my own beliefs I picked up throughout the entire process.


First and foremost, I think that Division I college-athletes should get paid. The NCAA is making a ridiculous amount of money based upon these athletes performance, and using it as entertainment to sell to the people of the US. With all the sponsorship deals schools make along with ticket sales, college sports has become a billion dollar business. The athletes that put more time into their sports than most people put in their jobs should not be treated as they are now. With all the time that they do end up putting in, it is nearly impossible to get another job to feed themselves throughout the school year.


Now, I realize that it would be highly difficult to pay every single college athlete in Division I, but it can definitely happen. The student-athletes don't need to sign million dollar contracts or anything remotely close to that, but if they get roughly $200 a month to feed themselves, that would definitely be enough. The Division I universities are making enough money to pay each student-athlete this much without losing money, and it would encourage more students to participate in sports during college. Division II and Division III sports do not make enough money from college sports to pay their players, so I feel that they should be exempt from doing so.


A $200 stipend per month could solve many problems that schools have with breaking NCAA infractions, but another problem still remains. I think that players have a right to speak to agents during their college career, and even accept money from them. Schools should not have a right to limit who a student-athlete can or can't talk to, as long as it doesn't affect his performance on the field and in the classroom. Speaking of classrooms, a new rule could also be implemented that (along with suspensions), stops any money a player can receive if he is not performing well in the classroom. This would make there be much more incentive to actually learn in college rather than just play sports.


To summarize, a $200 stipend can solve many different problems the NCAA has, but unfortunately with the current system in place, it may be very hard make any changes. If there is a large enough group to go with this idea, change could be possible within the next 10 years, before the NCAA grows even larger to a larger multi-billion dollar industry that it is today.

Paying high school athletes? C'mon now

I was talking to one of my friends about my Junior Theme topic, why NCAA student-athletes aren't getting paid, and he brought up a good point. He asked me if collegiate athletes started to get paid for their participation, why shouldn't high school athletes also get paid? It's an interesting idea that I have never really considered, and it definitely isn't an important enough issue to include in my paper, so I thought I would write about it here.

Even if college student-athletes begin to get paid, I see no reason why high school students should. The amount of time that HS athletes put into their sports is not even close to the amount of time college players do. For HS sports, once the season is over, practices and workouts basically come to an end. For some sports there may be once a week workouts a month or two before the season starts, just so players can get in shape, but it isn't nearly as demanding as college athletes.

Another main point is the fact that high schools make nearly nothing off of sports, as most of the events are free of charge to attend. There aren't many sponsors to these events, and if there is, it is mostly a local pizzeria or sports shop that pays a marginal amount of money just to put up a poster by the entrance. The level of revenue for college sports is at least 100 times the amount of high school sports (college sports is a multi billion dollar industry, and I am assuming that high school sports is nowhere near that). The schools are barely financially benefiting from these sports, so why should the players?

Lastly and most importantly, high school athletes have parents that can pay for food and housing. Collegiate athletes are mostly on their own, and need the money more. As a high school student who has participated on a couple of the teams at New Trier, I can say that I have never ever thought that I should be paid for my work. For me I had to spend maximum 20 hours a week to devote to my sport, and college athletes are almost 3 times that number. They spend more time and need the money more, so I hope that if college athletes start getting paid, the problem doesn't continue on to high school sports.

NCAA Revenue is Ridiculous

Some of the highest revenue schools in the NCAA earn between 40 million and 80 million dollars in profits each year from athletic. With this money, they pay their coaches million dollar salaries to bring home the championship for their respective sport, and with championships comes money.The combined salaries of the highest-paid college football coaches in 2011 was $53.4 million. An example of these huge salaries is Ohio State University agreeing to pay head coach Urban Meyer $24 million over six years, or $4 million a year. The estimated average compensation for head football coaches at public universities is more than $2 million per year, a 750 percent increase. 

This increase is more than 20 times the percentage increase for college professors. In Division I basketball, average coach salaries now exceed $4 million a year. College football and men’s basketball are huge business enterprises, generating more than $6 billion a year in annual revenue—even more than the NBA, and the NBA is a professional program.

Some people who want things to go back to the way it use to be, when education comes first at a college, fit right in to a quote in Don DeLillo's White Noise. "Nostalgia is a product of dissatisfaction and rage. It´s a settling of grievances between the present and the past. The more powerful the nostalgia, the closer you come to violence." In this case, violence can also mean changing things back to the way it used to be. Unfortunately for these people, more and more money is going toward the NCAA and its athletic programs. 

Big brands like Nike, adidas, Reebok and Under Armour are writing huge checks to schools, but the marketing of sports shoes, equipment, and clothing through college sports  is just the tip of the iceberg. Food, alcohol, credit card and auto companies (to name a few) are also spending money on college sports. According to Sonny Vaccaro, the former sports marketing executive who signed Michael Jordan with Nike, 90 percent of the NCAA’s revenue is produced by one percent of the athletes. These athletes mostly come from the football and basketball programs, which generate the biggest fan bases and highest revenue. So with all of this money, why don't these programs pay their student-athletes?