Here is the current caucus of people in Congress who have post graduate scientific educations, it isn't very big. Mark Kelly isn't shown, but adding him to the list makes 23 total, out of 537 elected officials, only 4% are scientists. This is a tiny minority, but its even worst than that. Of the elected scientists, nearly 80% are Republicans. Republican votes are virtually worthless because the Democrats hold power in both elected branches of government, so what we've really got is a 5 votes out of about 300 Democrats, less than 2% representation.
In 2016, the Republicans won the election even though they had fewer voters, they managed this because they had more scientists in the party. In 2020 the Republicans almost won again, it was close in the electoral college, even though the Democrats had about 10 million more votes than Republicans. Republicans distribute their votes more scientifically so they win elections even though they are the minority party. Meanwhile, over 90% of all university professors are Democrats, over 70% of all PhDs are Democrats & over 80% of all masters degrees are Democrats. College professors in particular are nearly perfect political candidates, their work involves giving speeches to large audiences & answering complex questions without sounding stupid, they are already trained to do the job of a political candidate.
The Democrats are the ruling party, scientists support them & yet scientists don't have decent representation within the party and that why NASA's budget and medical research budgets for the government will stay minuscule. How do we convince more of the scientific supporters of the Democrats to step up and represent the Democrats' voting constituency in Congress instead of just being voters?