IS SPACE EXPLORATION A WASTE OF MONEY?

 

Based on the premise that most of the things we have nowadays (from TV, smartphones, washing machines to other important things like weather forecasts and tracking systems) has derived from space resources, the answer is no.

Here are four reasons why you should change your mind about space exploration.

 1. The cost isn’t actually very high.

 Contrary to what 90% of people think, the cost of space exploration isn’t so high. Compared to other sectors of the governments, for example military and medicine, the cost isn’t very elevated.

USA spends only 1.6% of its budget on space exploration. If it weren’t spent, a poor person instead of getting a dollar, would get a dollar and 3 cents. Does this really make a huge difference?

Yes, there have been rockets that cost more than a half million dollars, but it’s nothing compared to what USA is now spending in Iraq.

 

2. “That money could be spent to reduce hunger and poverty in the world”.

 Easier said than done. This is not possible.

Let’s take the US government as example since the American space agency is the biggest in the world.

In the years of the Cold War, a nun wrote a letter to the then NASA’s administrator, asking him how could he authorize to spend billions of dollars in space while people on Earth were dying of hunger. His answer in a nutshell: it’s not NASA’s job to reduce the lack of food. NASA was created to beat the Russians during the Cold War, so it was, and still is a government sector. This means that it receives an annual budget from the US government to be spent ONLY in its sector: space. But wasn’t it obvious?

 3. Discoveries as a result of space explorations.

 Let me mention again the nun’s letter. When she asked what space exploration will bring, the administrator answered telling a story. About 400 years ago, there was a count living in a small town in Germany. He was very beloved because he used to give large parts of his money to the poor.  One day, the count met a man. He ground small pieces of lenses from glass. Then he mounted the lenses in tubes and used these tools to look at very small objects.

The count was so fascinated by this that he invited the man to move with his laboratory to his castle, financing his work. The townspeople got very angry. They couldn’t understand why the count was paying that man for his useless hobby while they were suffering from hunger and the plague. The count answered: “I’m giving you as much as I can afford, but I’m also supporting this man and his work because I know that someday something will come out of it.”

And actually, something brilliant came out of that man’s “useless hobby”: the microscope. It’s well known that this instrument is a fixed point in the progress of medicine.

Moral of the story: just because something isn’t giving direct results, it doesn’t mean it’s useless.

 4. Is exploring Mars worth it?

Many people ignore the fact that planets have formed by collision. Studying the planets near to the Earth may help us understand our universe and our planet better and maybe even find a solution for certain problems. Ok, but why Mars? Mars is very similar to Earth and studying its soil might give us interesting information about our planet.

How about global warming and pollution? It’s definitely not space exploration’s fault if the Earth is overheated or glaciers are melting. Same for pollution. It’s human’s fault.

Plus, more than the half of NASA’s sectors work on Earth’s problems and how to solve and prevent catastrophes. So space exploration primarily takes care of our planet and then about the outer space.

Maria, 3scB