Personal & Professional Opinion Posts
This is an archive of short personal and professional opinion pieces that aims to share interesting thoughts, insights, and takeaways on niche topics. Posts are intended for informational purposes.
The Politics of Space: A Retrospective from a Former NASA Intern
My internship at NASA was a memorable experience that I will remember probably my entire life. The feeling of walking into the historic Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston, TX was exciting and overwhelming. JSC is the heart of the manned spaced program that helped manage and control space programs such as Gemini, Apollo, Skylab and the Apollo-Soyuz. It is home to the Saturn V rocket, the largest and most powerful rocket ever flown till this day!
Despite these incredible feats, I did not expect the buildings and facilities within the JSC campus to be poorly maintained. The buildings were old and lacked renovations that were desperately needed. Elevators and air handlers had issues that caused accessibility issues for some buildings. There was clearly a lack of funding for infrastructure improvements.
So why does such a culturally significant organization lack such funding?
Congress.
In the middle of my internship, my manager warned me that our work could possibly be halted due to a government freeze. This usually happens when congress cannot decide on budgetary agreements for its agencies and the rest of the government. With these issues prevalent in NASA's history, it is no wonder why it has taken the agency so long to go back to the moon. This was not the case in the 1960s.
After the Cold War, the Space Race between the U.S. and the Soviet Union was ignited. This caused funding to flood into NASA and its space programs. With John F. Kennedy's bold claim that the U.S. was going to land a man on the moon by the end of the decade. This politically-driven space race helped to bolster NASA's budgets and employment. Based off History.com, "From 1961 to 1964, NASA’s budget was increased almost 500 percent, and the lunar landing program eventually involved some 34,000 NASA employees and 375,000 employees of industrial and university contractors."
Nowadays, NASA's budget has decreased from its highs in the 1960s and is more so considered a customer of space services from private companies like SpaceX instead of developing those services in-house. It is clear that NASA is taking a backseat while the private sector is spearheading space commercialism. With inflation and foreign conflicts stirring up the political climate, NASA's budgets appear to be a lower priority to government. Politics and space go hand in hand. There may need to be significant foreign competition or a threat to the U.S. space industry in order for funding to flood into NASA once more. And even so, who is telling how long that funding lasts until the political climate shifts again.
The Impact of Technology on the Healthcare Industry
Healthcare technology has revolutionized the healthcare industry by expanding patient accessibility, securing private patient information, enabling live disease tracking, providing warning systems for sudden emergencies, and many other benefits. Technology is now the backbone of the healthcare industry. Without machines such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRIs), defibrillators, pacemakers, and electrocardiograms, the quality of healthcare would drastically decrease. These technological marvels allow for life-saving procedures and preventative measures that healthcare professionals depend on.
Reflecting on the quadruple aim goals to decrease costs, improve access/equity, improve quality, and enhance consumer and provider satisfaction, I believe that technology can achieve each of these pillars. Technologies such as biotech drugs, telemedicine, and electronic health records (EHRs) become less costly over time due to their scalability and economies of scale. The doubling of transistors on microchips every two years (based on Moore’s Law) also helps lower costs since the cost of producing chips remains minimal, and many of these technologies depend on microchips. Telemedicine and online patient portals help expand accessibility by providing methods for immobile or disabled patients to easily connect with healthcare providers. The decreasing IT costs and online services also reduce inequity by reducing barriers to healthcare across historically underserved communities.
Wearable technology and robotics have improved the overall quality of healthcare. For consumers, they can purchase health tracking smartwatches that alert the user when they detect irregular heartbeats or symptoms of sleep apnea. Continuous glucose monitors (CGMs) are devices that track glucose levels in real time, which can help diabetic patients control their sugar intake. For providers, robotic surgery systems, such as a robotic arm, can be used for precise movements and procedures that a human may struggle with. This reduces risks during critical procedures such as appendectomy and spine surgery. These types of technologies also improve the satisfaction of consumers and providers by allowing them more control to prevent health complications and solve those crises when they do occur. Wearable technology, certified online healthcare information, and telemedicine bring healthcare services closer to the patient, which increases the patient’s control over their health and relieves providers of congestion on simpler healthcare services.
When considering these four pillars, my research suggests that inequality in healthcare is the most difficult goal to achieve. Based on a 2025 study on healthcare coverage by race between 2010 and 2023, Hispanic people and American Indian and Alaska Natives under age 65 had the highest uninsured rates at 17.9% and 18.7%, respectively. (Hill) Compared to White people with an uninsured rate of 6.5%, this disparity still exists despite healthcare technology improvements, such as decreasing overall costs. Additionally, based on the 2023 National Healthcare Quality and Disparities Report, Black people receive worse care than White people for 52% of quality measures and better care for only 11% of quality measures. (Agency) This statistic means that Black Americans still disproportionately experience a lower quality of care across a large majority of tracked measures, such as patient safety, healthcare effectiveness, and healthcare coordination. These findings suggest that healthcare technology advances still struggle with solving healthcare inequity, even with all the aforementioned benefits and advancements over the years.
The World Deserves Pad Thai
(In progress)