To whom it may concern,

Today I was informed of the President’s plans to rob humankind of a year of exploration, answers, spirituality, hope, and unity. I speak, of course, of the planned 20% Planetary Science budget cuts proposed for 2013. In short, unless we act, 2013 will see the cancelation of missions to Mars. We will watch our opportunity to swim in the methane oceans of Europa slip away. We will let down the likes of Asimov, Clarke, and Sagan.

Expansion: it’s the hallmark of our culture, our species, our planet, and our universe. 13.75 billion years ago the universe exploded from a singularity, turning nothingness into space. Our planet was born in a cosmic womb and is just now reaching adulthood, bravely striking out on its own. Our distant ancestors braved tumultuous land-bridges to find new hunting ground. Our sea-faring relatives approached the edges of the earth in vessels plagued by scurvy, smallpox, and mutinous intentions. Expansion and exploration is our birthright. We cannot let politicians, whose pretension is only outweighed by their lack of creativity, rob us of the instincts ingrained within our very atoms.

It’s true; on the surface there are no immediate benefits of missions to Mars or Europa. Perhaps the discovery and observation of quasars hasn’t cured cancer. Yes, learning that Venus may have Northern Lights (triggered without a magnetosphere!) isn’t saving lives. But I hope you don’t mind if I indulge in a short account of who I am and how discoveries such as these have shaped me.

I was born in rural Minnesota, where I lived until I was 23 years old. The night sky was a constant companion. We had nightly bonfires where we stared up at the stars away from all city lights. During meteor showers we’d bring sleeping bags to the trampoline and spend the night looking up. One of my earliest memories was laying in my small bed, entranced by the constellations my mom had glued onto my ceiling.

I never had an obsession with astronomy. I went through various other childish fixations: dinosaurs, tornados, volcanoes, etc. Having an infatuation for astronomy would have been silly; it would have been like being obsessed with breathing. Astronomy was in my bones, and I didn’t need to develop an neurosis over it because it was so natural.

My mother saw through my ever-changing passions. When I was 11, a box arrived from the deep jungle… a mysterious package from somewhere called “Amazon.com”. My mom gave it to me and suggested I open it. Out came two books: Contact and Cosmos, both by someone named Carl Sagan. I was a goner.

These books, and later the rented VHS copies of Cosmos, impacted me more deeply than anything in my short life had, and as a result, I am what I am today. Let me explain.

When I read Contact, I learned the story of Dr. Ellie Arroway, a woman physicist whose work was based off that of real-life Jill Tarter. Ellie was confident and successful. She was well-liked and attractive. She was highly intelligent. She was a woman. And she liked mathematics. Since I can remember, I have had a predisposition toward math. I don’t like arithmetic, I like the abstract proofs. However, in middle school and high school, arithmetic is considered mathematics. Carl Sagan gave me an understanding of abstraction in “Cosmos” when he described visualizing the fourth dimension. I finally understood that I could love mathematics and not arithmetic because they are two completely different fields. Perhaps more importantly, because of Dr. Ellie Arroway I realized that I could excel at math, even though it was a predominately male field.

The rest of my education centered on the love of the unknown. I majored in Abstract Mathematics. However, because of Carl Sagan, I knew that just understanding math wasn’t enough; I had to be able to communicate it with the rest of the world. Therefore, I attained a second major in the field of Communication Studies.

The analytical skills that I honed in my pursuits of mathematics propelled me into the field of computers, which I quickly grew to love. Not long after graduating from college, I moved to Silicon Valley to pursue my dream job of being an Engineer at one of the major tech companies.

Today, I work on products that are driving forces in human accomplishment and innovation. I have lofty dreams and goals of becoming a leader in this environment and moving our understanding of technology further. Right now, I am content to know that I am helping to create products that people love and that are assisting millions.

I am a product of Planetary Science.

My achievements are tactile, discernible, and measurable.

I have helped break barriers.

And it’s all thanks to missions in the name of pure exploration.

Perhaps drilling into the icy crust of the moon Europa won’t yield anything tangible. Perhaps going to Mars will only serve to expand our lists of known deserts. Perhaps going to the moon again is like trying to relive Woodstock.

But just perhaps…. Maybe these missions will influence the next Carl Sagan to write a book. And maybe a young girl will get her hands on it and read about how the tidal forces of Jupiter cause Europa to contract and expand, generating enough heat maintain a liquid ocean. The young girl might start wondering about these huge gravitational forces. Maybe this study of vastness will lead her into the world of nanotechnology, for the hugely large and the infinitely small are not so very different. And just maybe that girl will create the smallest, fastest microprocessor, revolutionizing every aspect of our technological existence.

I have one tattoo; it’s a tribute to Carl Sagan. Carl gave me the first glimpse into a universe so extraordinary that we will never fully understand it. But just because we know we can’t ever find out all the answers to all the riddles isn’t an excuse to stop looking. Indeed, it should be an invitation to continue. It should be a challenge! “You hear that, universe? You think you can hide it all from us? You haven’t heard the last of us, a measly species called humans!”

Please join me in encouraging our elected leaders to represent the spirit of our humanness, rather than the spirit of our checkbooks. “In God We Trust,” they say. The universe is my God. I must insist that my elected representatives trust in it.

Let’s not deprive a generation of young talent the opportunity to glimpse that which may end up driving them. The Universe managed to create something out of nothingness. We have a responsibility to continue this trend that started over 13 billion years ago.

We are so eager to create a legacy. Reducing the deficit, creating harmony across the world, saving the environment…. Let’s create a REAL legacy. “If we long for our planet to be important, there is something we can do about it. We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers.”- Carl Sagan.