My boyfriend recently competed with other members of the College of Engineering at Texas A&M in a competition sponsored by the private rocket company SpaceX to revolutionize the modes of travel and transportation.

Known as the WSU Hypershocks, they were competing to design and build a pod that travels inside a transparent tube from one place to another. It reduces harmful emissions and time on the road monumentally. For example, it would only take 30 minutes to travel from Los Angeles to San Francisco, versus an hour-long plane or car ride.

In lieu of this groundbreaking and significant historical event, it got me thinking about government spending, which I can imagine is a topic we all love debating.

As we all know, it takes money to do stuff, and it takes a lot of money to do really important stuff. Investing in green energy, for example, initially takes a lot of money, but the results far outweigh the upfront cost. It ends up being worth it since we still have our lives and this planet in tact.

It should come as no surprise that government spending is out of whack and in desperate need of re-evaluation. The energy and science sectors both make up only 1 percent of spending, according to Politifact.com, a fact-checking website. And education is no better, coming in at only 3 percent.

Now, I am no fiscal expert, and finding reliable sources online is tough due to bias, but these are the numbers I found.

And they’re problematic.

I am not claiming that we take from any other part of the spending sectors such as healthcare and social security because those are equally important in their own ways.

They are necessary and vital. And I am well aware that taking from one to solve another doesn’t solve anything.

But I do know that something needs to change. Education is imperative for change and progression. Without it, we amount to nothing. And being in the state of Kansas under Brownback’s “leadership,” we have suffered immensely under his neglect toward education.

Without education, there is no knowledge of science and the other STEM projects, which leads to my next point.

NASA needs more money than they are currently getting. The state of our planet is in great peril, and it has become paramount that we colonize Mars so we may go on as a species. And besides, who doesn’t want to explore the stars?

Perhaps, for starters, this could be achieved through taxing, and taxing the wealthy more. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t mind being taxed a little extra if that meant science stood a chance again.

We’ll be dead without it.