Appearing Monday night on Current TV, “science guy” Bill Nye warned that cuts to science and research funding could harm job growth in the United States.

“What makes the U.S. economy what it is is innovation — this tradition of doing new things or of ingenuity,” he told host Jennifer Granholm. “The reason people still come to the U.S. to get educated or they send their children to the U.S. to get educated is because of our tradition of innovation and doing things new. Smartphones, we wouldn’t have those without a space program. So if you cut this NASA budget it is very reasonable that somebody else, another agency, another organization will be the next mission to Mars.”

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“If that is allowed to happen, it will take the wind out of our sails both economically and spiritually,” Nye continued. “What space exploration really does for society is raise our expectations of what is possible. of what we can do.”

If the United States goes over the so-called fiscal cliff, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is estimated to face a $2.3 billion budget cut while NASA could face a $700 million budget cut. The National Science Foundation would also face a $400 million budget cut.

The looming budget cuts are expected to result in tens of thousands of researchers becoming unemployed.

Watch video, courtesy of Current TV, below: