Regarding the April 6 editorial “Veterans spending has surged. Are veterans better off?”:
At a time when billions of dollars are spent every day to fight President Donald Trump’s war of choice in Iran, the Editorial Board asked: Are veterans better off because of the historic investments made in their care and benefits? The answer is a resounding yes.
Taking care of our veterans has always been a cost of war. It is a cost that has increased with time, but it is one we must always pay.
The editorial did not meaningfully acknowledge that our country was at war for almost 20 years in Iraq and Afghanistan. Today, the Department of Veterans Affairs is providing more care and more benefits to more veterans than ever before.
VA is the largest integrated health care system in the country, and its budget is dramatically impacted by the increased cost of health care for all Americans. That is particularly the case for the veteran population, which is aging and dealing with conditions that are dramatically more complex than the civilian population. Often, their conditions related to mental health or toxic exposure do not manifest for years, making those conditions more challenging, intensive and expensive to treat.
We should not nickel-and-dime our nation’s heroes. They deserve better.
Richard Blumenthal, Washington
The writer, a U.S. senator from Connecticut, is the ranking Democrat on the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs.
Was Artemis II’s launch worth the cost?
The exploration and development of space is a team effort among governments, the private sector and other nongovernment organizations. So I was disappointed to see Julia R. Cartwright’s April 10 Friday Opinion essay, “Shooting $100 billion in taxpayer funds to the moon is not a win,” which negatively portrayed NASA’s contributions and made the argument that the private sector, on its own, can do everything faster, better and cheaper.
From its beginning, part of NASA’s charter has been to plant the seeds of its future competition: develop new capabilities and transfer the technologies to the wider community. In its early history, research and development of communications and remote sensing satellites fed the needs of other agencies and businesses. And NASA’s investment in SpaceX through a multibillion-dollar contract in 2008 was critical in saving the company from bankruptcy.
The discussion we should be having is how NASA should continue to evolve. As the private sector builds capabilities — which it is doing at an impressive rate — NASA can back away and focus on other things, like space science, public-private technology partnerships and lunar development. The launch vehicle for the Artemis missions should be the last rocket NASA builds in the traditional way. Also, we’re in a transition period in which NASA will be able to pass to others the building of large orbiting platforms and the launching of humans into space.
It was unfair for Cartwright to say that “NASA has become, and perhaps always was, welfare for the highly educated.” This is an insult to generations of people on NASA’s technical team. Nowhere will you find a group of people more dedicated to their mission, inside or outside the federal government.
James Vedda, Alexandria
Artemis II launched April 1, to great fanfare and excitement. But, as a scientist, I see this rocket as an enormous bonfire for money that could be better spent on science.
As Julia R. Cartwright’s op-ed noted, the launch of Artemis IIcost about $4.1 billion. For that price, I would wager we will learn nothing surprising, and little of scientific worth on this mission; it is merely a test of technology.
In contrast, for fiscal 2026, President Donald Trump’s budget request includes $3.9 billion for the National Science Foundation. This figure was reduced by $4.9 billion from the fiscal 2025 allocation.
A common rationale for cutting the money spent on basic science is that most of that money is wasted on research of little practical benefit. But this attitude is misguided, because it is impossible to tell beforehand which research will later have important consequences. Progress from basic science experimentation to useful technology is long and arduous, and can be filled with distractions and false turns.
Some people might believe we’ve learned all we need to know. But most would probably agree that an effective treatments for currently untreatable diseases are desperately needed. Progress in treating these afflictions will be determined by how much money we are willing to spend on biomedical research. The 2025 budget for new biomedical research from the National Institutes of Health was $35.3 billion. The Artemis II launch cost nearly 12 percent of the entire budget for health-related research. Those who watched the launch with glee should be aware that it is likely burning up future progress in curing disease.
R. Grant Steen, Chapel Hill
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