After realizing the $10.41 in his piggy bank wouldn't be enough to support NASA, a 6-year-old boy with dreams of becoming an astronaut decided to petition President Barack Obama's administration to increase funding for the space program.
Under the advisement of his parents, Connor Johnson of Denver, Colo., filed his plea on the government website We the People. In less than two weeks, the petition has garnered more than 10,000 digital signatures.
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"NASA's mostly the only space company I've known for a very long time," Connor said in a video on local news station KUSA.
The timing of Connor's petition is poignant, as NASA's planetary science branch recently announced it would restructure its research funding process.
That announcement has ruffled the feathers of many in the planetary science community who now won't be able to apply for new grants until 2015. Science celebrity Bill Nye implored Obama to increase NASA's funding in an impassioned open letter he read in a YouTube video posted last week.
Connor seems to share Nye's sentiment that space exploration shouldn't fall victim to budget cuts.
"The whole reason I want to be an astronaut is so I can discover new worlds," Connor said in the KUSA video, "to discover astroids or stuff that I could build stuff out of."
The White House responds to petitions on We the People that reach 100,000 signatures in one month. Connor's needs about 90,000 more signatures by Dec. 29 to achieve that goal.
Watch the video below for more on Connor's story:

Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments. Image: NASA Topics: NASA, space, U.S., US & World, we the people
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Image: NASA