Bill Clinton: “Well for me, it's not a hard justification, but it's a very good question. The way I justify it is this: I think it's…”

“Well for me, it's not a hard justification, but it's a very good question. The way I justify it is this: I think it's important for us to continue our lead in space because I think it helps our national security to be out there first and to always be in a position to shape developments in space, because space has given us a way to cooperate after the cold war with the Russians, the Japanese, the Europeans, and the Canadians. We're all working on the space station together because it creates new high-tech jobs for scientists and for engineers, and they create a lot of wealth for the rest of us, and because in space technology, a lot of things are found out that may have a lot of benefits for us right here on Earth. I'll just give you just one example. I was down at the headquarters for the American space program in Houston, Texas, the other day, and I saw a motor that was used to pump water in space where it's gravity- free, so the motor obviously has to be very powerful to pump water and make it move where there's no gravity. And they discovered that the exact same technology could be used as a heart pump here on Earth to keep people alive, and it's lighter and better and cheaper to produce than what had been the case here. I also saw cancer cultures growing in space in gravity-free environments where the cells will grow differently, in ways that will enable all kinds of medical research to be done that may keep a lot of us alive when they get cancer here on Earth. So I think a nation like ours has to take some of its money and invest it in the future, even though you know it may not work out, even though you can't justify every penny based on immediate benefit. It's like investing in edu- cation, in a way. If I invest in your education, I think you're going to come out better. It may be 7 or 8 years down the road, and yet every dollar I spend on education is a dollar we don't spend on the homeless or feeding the hungry or some other problem. So, I don't believe we're spending enough on the homeless, by the way. And under my budget we're going to spend more. So I can't defend that. But I think that if you were in my position, every one of you, one of the hardest decisions you would have to make is how much money am I going to spend taking care of problems today, and how much money am I going to spend investing in the future so we'll have fewer problems, more jobs, higher incomes, better opportunities? It's one of the hardest decisions I have to make. And like I said, I--by the way, a lot of people in Congress don't agree with me, a lot of people in Congress every year vote to cut the space program and put more money into problems just like you said. And if you were there, you might make the same decision. But as President, I always have to keep one eye on the future and one eye on the present and try to balance the needs in a proper way. That was a great question. Give him a hand. It was a good question. [Applause]”