Watch this: Neil deGrasse Tyson on why we need NASA to dream for the future

When the Atlantis shuttle launched on July 8th, 2011 as part of STS-135, the final mission of the space shuttle program, it left a considerable void in the American psyche. But the country’s interest in space travel had been waning long before that, argues Neil deGrasse Tyson — as he puts it: “after we went to the moon, it all ended. We stopped dreaming.” Tyson has been outspoken about the decline of the space agency, and a new video project takes some of his most eloquent arguments and combines them with NASA footage and some stirring music courtesy of The Cinematic Orchestra, to create something that’s sure to get your heart pumping about the potential of manned space missions.

While NASA still has plenty of cool projects in the works, nothing gets us quite as excited for the future as actual space travel. And as Tyson argues, in its current underfunded state, NASA just isn’t in the dream making business anymore. The video has even spawned a hashtag on Twitter — #Penny4NASA — aimed at raising awareness, and hopefully the budget, for the space agency. As Tyson says, “how much would you pay for the universe?”