The Value of Space Exploration

by Fraser Cain on April 11, 2008


Read any debate about space exploration, and this question will invariably come up. “Why should we be spending money exploring space when there are so many problems here on Earth that we need to solve first?” It’s a tricky one. I’ve got a simple answer; space exploration is awesome. Come on, think of space ships traveling to other worlds – that’s really cool.

Okay, perhaps I’ve got too simplistic an argument, so I turned to the astrosphere and posed the question to other space bloggers. Here’s what they had to say…

Alun Salt – Archeoastronomy

Historical materials suggest that there wasn’t such sharp division between earth and sky in the ancient world. Instead there was one cosmos. Space exploration reveals that while there isn’t a divine link between the heavens and the earth, it is true that what happens up there can affect what happens down here. It would be useful to know about the cosmos, rather than just be a victim of it.

Mark Whittington – Curmudgeons Corner

What is the value of space exploration? Inherent in exploration of all types is the opportunities that it opens up to the people doing the exploring. For some it is the opportunity to gain new knowledge. For others it is the opportunity to create wealth and expand commerce. For still others the opportunity lies is trancendence, to grow spirtually and to gain a greater appreciation of the universe.

Alan Boyle – MSNBC Cosmic Log

I’ve been getting a healthy dose of the American revolution lately, between watching HBO’s “John Adams” miniseries and reading David McCullough’s “1776,” and that may be the reason I’m thinking of this in terms of pledging “our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor” rather than just thinking in terms of paying taxes. I like to think of the reasons for making that pledge, in terms of the push to outer space, as the five E’s (plus examples): exploration (to the moon and Mars), entertainment (cool Hubble pictures), energy (space solar power and asteroid mines), empire building (defending the high frontier) and extinction avoidance (fending off space rocks, and getting off this rock). Check out the log item for more.

Steinn Sigurdsson – Dynamics of Cats

Because: we look out, and wonder, and explore;

and we do what little we can on the margin of our busy lives to explore the bigger universe, today;

and that is one of the things that makes life worth living,

and gives us hope that the future can be better, for us and for future generations.

Ethan Siegel – Starts With a Bang

This is like asking why we should spend money on making our city better when there are so many problems here in our own homes. Or why we should spend money on understanding our whole world when there are so many problems here in our own country. Space is something that we are not only a part of, but that encompasses and affects all of us. Learning about the grandest scales of our lives — about the things that are larger than us and will go on relatively unaffected by whatever we do — that has value! And it might not have a value that I can put a price tag on, but in terms of unifying everyone, from people in my city to people in a foreign country to people or intelligences on other planets or in other galaxies, space exploration is something that is the great equalizer. And the knowledge, beauty, and understanding that we get from it is something that one person, group, or nation doesn’t get to keep to itself; what we learn about the Universe can be, should be, and if we do our jobs right, will be equally available to everyone, everywhere. This is where our entire world came from, and this is the abyss our entire world will eventually return to. And learning about that, exploring that, and gaining even a small understanding of that, has the ability to give us a perspective that we can never gain just by looking insularly around our little blue rock.

Bill Dunford – Riding with Robots on the High Frontier

Why should we worry about what’s going on outside the cave? We have so many problems here inside in the cave.

Why should we waste time trying to figure out agriculture? We have so much work to do hunting and gathering.

Why should we spend so much effort messing about in boats? We have so many issues here on the land.

Why should we fiddle with those computers? There is so much calculating that still needs to be done with these pencils.

Why should we explore space? We have so many problems here on Earth.

The answer to all these questions is the same: reaching for new heights often creates new solutions, new opportunity and elevated hope back on the ground.

We should NOT spend indiscriminately in space. But moderately-funded space exploration — as one small part of an overall program of basic scientific research — has blessed lives in many ways over the years, from satellites measuring drought conditions to new imaging techniques in hospitals to global communication.

Brian Wang – Next Big Future

Lack of a space program will not solve anything else faster and a well planned program [not what we have been doing] can deliver massive benefits. History shows the logical flaw.

There has been no historical example of any group “solving all of their problems before embarking on exploration/expansion/major project”. The solve all problems locally before advancing has not been shown to be a successful strategy. There has been major examples where the imperfect/highly flawed expander had major advantages over the non-expander (who was also flawed). The biggest one is China had the largest ocean going fleet in 1400′s. Then the emperor destroyed that fleet. The Western nations came a few hundred years later and forced China to give up Hong Kong and Macau for 99 years. The Europeans colonized North America and expanded economies because of those policies. The world has about a 60 trillion/year economy. There is not a shortage of resources in money or people to target problems. Well funded, well planned and well executed efforts can be directed at all of the problems simultaneously. Just putting ten times, a hundred times or a million times more money does not convert a failing plan, project against hunger, poverty, corruption into a successful plan. We better plans and better thinking.

Space exploration and development has had a lot of waste and a lack of purpose and a good plan. A strong case can be made that the overall purpose of the space programs have been one aspect of political pork with minimal space efforts and the name space program. Clearly the space shuttle and the space station have vastly under delivered for the money spent on them.

Strategies for successful space development: Focus on lowering the cost and the purpose of colonization and industrialization and
commerce (tourism etc…)

- If lowering the cost is best down with more robots then use robots first or mainly. do not force the manned program until costs go down.

- fuel depots in space (bring the costs down closer to the cost of LEO $2000/kg)

- More nuclear propulsion and non-chemical systems (mirrored laser arrays for launches).

Ian O’Neill – Astroengine

Being an astrophysicist and space colonization advocate, my natural, basic and very quick answer is: to explore the undiscovered. It is a very basic human trait to want to explore, why limit our horizons to the surface of the Earth when there are infinite possibilities for development of the human race amongst the stars? We could be on the verge of realising that this step into the cosmos is a very natural progression for us. To borrow a quote from Stephen Hawking:

“We once thought we were at the centre of the Universe. Then we thought the sun was. Eventually, we realised we were just on the edge of one of billions of galaxies. Soon we may have to humbly accept that our 3D universe is just one of many multi-dimensional worlds.” (ref)

Looking back on the 21st century, when we have established a presence throughout the solar system, future generations will view our “proto-space” selves much like how we look upon the pioneers and explorers of the 16th century who colonized the strange but fruitful lands of the Americas. Back then, the Earth was flat. Like then, the going will be tough and the rewards of “leaving the nest” will not be fully realised until we make that bold push into a new era of discovery. Space exploration is as natural as colonizing the continents; it may look costly from the outset, but in the end we’ll all benefit and evolve.

John Benac – Action For Space

Mankind’s expansion to the Moon and Mars will serve as a shocking and unifying symbol that lifts the even the poorest soul’s belief in what they, as a human, can accomplish. 7 billion people each raise their belief in what man, individually and in groups, can accomplish, and the collective change in positive self-confidence provides a new ability and impetus to solve all other problems on Earth.

Phil Plait – Bad Astronomy

First, the question of why spend money there when we have problems here is a false dichotomy. We have enough money to work on problems here and in space! We just don’t seem to choose to, which is maddening. $12 million an hour is spent in Iraq; the US government chose to do that instead of fix many problems that could have been solved with that money. NASA is less than 1% of the US budget, so it’s best to pick your fights wisely here.

Second, space exploration is necessary. We learn so much from it! Early attempts discovered the van Allen radiation belts (with America’s first satellite!). Later satellites found the ozone hole, letting us know we were damaging our ecosystem. Weather prediction via satellites is another obvious example, as well as global communication, TV, GPS, and much more.

If you want to narrow it down to exploring other planets and the Universe around us, again we can give the practical answer that the more we learn about our space environment, the more we learn about the Earth itself. Examining the Sun led us to understand that its magnetic field connects with ours, sometimes with disastrous results… yet we can fortify ourselves against the danger, should we so choose. Space exploration may yet save us from an asteroid impact, too. Spreading our seed to other worlds may eventually save the human race.

But I’m with Fraser. These are all good reasons, and there are many, many more. But it is the very nature of humans to explore! We could do nothing in our daily lives but look no farther than the ends of our noses. We could labor away in a gray, listless, dull world.

Or we can look up, look out to the skies, see what wonders are there, marvel at exploding stars, majestic galaxies, ringed worlds, and perhaps planets like our own. That gives us beauty and joy in our world, and adds a depth and dimension that we might otherwise miss.

Space exploration is cheap. Not exploring is always very, very expensive.

Astroprof – Astroprof’s Page

Space exploration is important BECAUSE we have problems here on Earth. We need to expand and grow as a species. Our planet has limited resources, and we need the resources availible in the Solar System as a whole if we are to use them to solve our problems here. The technological advances developed for space exploration also go to solving other problems on Earth. And, on top of all that, Earth is a planet. Understanding planets helps us understand our own planet. And, Earth is affected and influenced by external forces. Understanding those things also helps us to understand our planet, and allows us to adapt to changes that occur naturally or that we create.

Robert Pearlman – collectSPACE

Many of the problems we have on Earth are rooted in a our need for new ideas. From medical advancements to political diplomacy, it often takes a new perspective to find the answer. Space exploration offers the rare opportunity to look inwards while pushing out. The photographs sent back of the Earth as a “fragile blue marble”, a whole sphere for the first time, gave birth to the environmental movement. Astronauts, regardless of their home nation, have returned to Earth with a new world view, without borders. But the perspective isn’t limited to those who leave the planet. When Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the Moon, “mankind” took on a new appreciation for all of humanity. It was “we” who went, even if “we” were not living in the United States. That sense of unity was recognized by the Apollo 11 crew upon their return to the planet: Buzz turned to Neil and commented, “We missed the whole thing…”

Robert Simpson – Orbiting Frog

The value of knowing about things is not quantifiable. We can qualitatively say that as we have become more knowledgeable, we have become better prepared for the things that come our way. We are more able to grow and to make progress by knowing more about the world we live in. Our planet is just one of many in a solar system that is also just one of many.

The cost of human exploration, and the risks involved, are often discussed. However everyone would seem to agree that until a human being had set foot on the Moon, we had not really been there. Likewise, it will not be until humans stand on Mars, that we have really visited the planet. Science can be done by robots and probes, but experience can still only be obtained by human beings.

Ryan Anderson – The Martian Chronicles

The List:
1. Perspective
2. Protecting and Understanding our World
3. Inspiration
4. The Economy
5. Exploration
6. New Technology
7. Answering the Big Questions
8. International Collaboration
9. Long-Term Survival
Click here to read the full version.

Of course, that’s just our opinion. What’s yours? Feel free to comment below and continue the discussion.

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  • Harvey

    Robotic missions are great for science, but robotic missions alone will not get mankind to the stars. And if the species is to survive in the long term, we can’t stay here.

    Sooner or later the expansion of the sun or another disaster will render the Earth uninhabitable to humans. If humans aren’t elsewhere by then, that will be it for the species.

    We’ll never have more resources with which to start working on the problem than we have now. Delay just makes extinction more likely.

    And as many others have pointed out above, cancelling space exploration will not solve hunger, neither will it achieve world peace nor provide every child with loving home and a fluffy kitten. There’s no reason the species can’t strive for more than one dream at a time.

  • JonClarke

    Dave S

    Your compassion and passion are commendable.

    Please remember that orders of magntiude more is spent on the needy through overseas aid programs, health and education budgets, and social security than is spent on space exploration. And this is as it should be.

    Spce exploration commands only a fraction of 1% of national GDP, even in those countries that invest in it. But that small investent has repaid itself to the poor and needy in many ways. Better early warning of cyclones in the Indian ocean and prediction of conditions promoting locust plagues in Africa alone have saved millions from natural disaster and famine.

    Jon

  • Frank Glover

    “”MrBill” further claimed that:

    “The entire 2003 Mars Exploration Rover Mission was a paltry 820 millions dollars!”

    Correct, but over three quarter of a billion is hardly “paltry”. it is a mid class mission.

    This is something else to be remembered: It can be argued that for a very specific purpose, a manned mission may be more expensive than an unmanned one…but there’s a large number of people out there who aren’t interested in *any* of this, and to whom a ‘just’ a few hundred million for a robotic mission will *still* cause the classic response: “We should be spending that money on (fill in the blank).”

    Our major goal should be lower-cost, more reliable space access for ALL existing and potential users…and science probes alone simply will not provide enough of a market to encourage development of those systems.

    Encouraging private space development makes seats and payload space more available for all, so that, like research (and a modest degree of tourism) in Antarctica, it becomes an under-the-radar issue that takes an even smaller slice from the taxpayers, and allows for more non-government entities to risk their own money.

    The alternative would seem to be not only an absence of manned space flight, but only ‘politically correct’ Earth-monitoring space probes (as desirable as those nevertheless are) and *maybe* some solar physics related launches (and nothing looking at the rest of the Universe) on the same tired expendable launcher technology for the rest of the century…

  • Dave S

    That’s that problem. We strive for every dream at the same time and accomplish little toward any of them. We need to seriously prioritize the issues we want to apply our limited resources (money and people) toward. We should be getting the most important things done first.

    We dilute our efforts in a fruitless attempt to make everyone feel like we are doing something about their issue. This nonsense about getting ready for the sun to explode is just nuts. How many millions or billions of years away is that? These arguments mean less than nothing to people with no home, no medical care, no food, no water and less.

    Nobody is talking about cancelling the space program. Let’s take a look at how we are spending our money and make sure we really are doing the right thing with the limited resources we have. Just like the budget that every family problably has set up. They prioritize what is most important and they allocate based on that. Why can’t the government do the same?

    If we can’t find a way to take care of the people and problems on Earth what is taking our attitudes and values to a new planet going to do? Let’s work to develop a system of values and priorities and are worth exporting off the planet. Let’s find a way so that no humans get left behind.

    Is it impossible to provide the basics for life to all humans or are we just willing to sacrifice a few million a year to further mans exploration of space?

  • JonClarke

    Dave S wrote:

    “That’s that problem. We strive for every dream at the same time and accomplish little toward any of them. We need to seriously prioritize the issues we want to apply our limited resources (money and people) toward. We should be getting the most important things done first.”

    Agreed, and that is what human societies are doing. Space exploration is a trivial expediture compared to othe programs devoted to improving human good.

    Plus space exploration is something that improves the lot of humanity. Communcations, weather, navigation, ars conrol, search and rescue, geodetic, space physics and remote sensing satellites are all the result of space exploration and powerful tools for the common good. Our awareness of problems such as global green house and ozone depletion have come about because of space exploration.

    If we want targets for claims of extravagant expediture, lets look to military budgets, or sport and entertainent.

    Jon

  • http://yannone.blogspot.com Mark Yannone

    “Why should we be spending money exploring space when there are so many problems here on Earth that we need to solve first?”

    The question is fatally sloppy because it omits a crucial element. The money that is being spent is taken from the rightful owners by coercion–that’s by force or threat of force, deadly force if necessary.

    If you are asking about spending your own money on space, then my answer to you is simply this: It’s your money. Spend it as you see fit, wisely or foolishly. I have nothing to say about it.

  • Ian Randal Strock

    I usually start answering that question by asking if the questioner thinks we’re putting a big pile of dollar bills in a rocket and shooting it into space. The money spent on space is spent right here on the ground, paying employees who in turn buy things, and buying things from other companies which in turn pay employees and suppliers.

    If we move beyond that, I ask the questioner how much of his tax dollar he thinks is being spent on space, and if he might compare it to the amount being spent on the Department of Agriculture, or Labor, or (the big one) how much of his tax dollar is taken in by the government solely for the purpose of giving it to another citizen. With NASA’s budget well under 1% of the federal budget, “are we spending too much on space” always strikes me as an attempt to divert attention from the big ticket items.

  • Emission Nebula

    For the people crying about our problems here on Earth, and why do we spend so much money on space; first and formost, why are you even looking at Universe Today? Shouldnt you be elsewhere crying about something that has nothing to do with the other?
    And second, well I just said it, one thing has nothing to do with the other.

  • Bob

    Exploring the stars has nurtured all the sciences on earth. All the sciences are intertwined.

    Astronomy brought spectroscopes to humankind and without spectroscopes biology and chemistry would not function at all.

    X-ray detection came from X-ray telescopes and from lab experimentalists like Runtgen on the ground. Along with the aid of spectroscoopes we have been able to analyze the difference between the ways in which X-rays can be created and detected.

    Crystallography comes from X-ray science and enables us to see the the physical structure of molecules and allows us to view the behavior of diesel fuels in fuel injectors and to watch how viruses enter cells and interact with the cell once inside. It has enabled us to see how fruit fly muscles behave just like human heart muscle. The number of discoveries at places like Argonne Labs are creating new drugs with less side effects, bullet-proof vests, artificial limbs and heart muscles that are incredibly efficient. Research in diseases like diabetes, cancer, ecoli and others are all finding advances toward cures from the use of crystallography.

    The studies of the sun, dying stars, white dwarfs, neutron stars and black holes has brought about discoveries in quantum physics. Meanwhile, back here on the ground, our particle accelerators have confirmed what astronomers discovered and, with the aid of NASA, have realized and brought those astronomers newer dicoveries about the microcosmos. And those particle accelerators have provided us with the source for the X-rays used in crystallography.

    The study of spacetime structure on board Columbia has shown how molecules shape themselves differently in microgravity. Moss on the earth’s surface reacts to the gravitational field by growing away from it inside of caves. In space it developes a Fibonacci spiral pattern like sunflowers have on earth. But those sunflowers lose their spiral patterns in microgravity. This means that spacetime structure affects molecular shapes and makes us realize that evolution on another earthlike planet with a different mass will take an entirely different journey.

    It also means that topology dictates how shapes change and molecular science is very sensitive to shape changes. This means that future topologists will likely recognize a signature shape change pattern that vaccines and cells experience when they interface that may be repeating in other vaccinations. This will allow the biochemist, with the aid of a software program written by topologists, to greatly reduce the number of experiments necessary to find cures..

    Our satellites are presently exploring the ozone layer, pollutants that are not visible, weather patterns, and tsunami threats.

    I could drag this out further but don’t need to. Exploring the stars has made us explore ourselves.

  • ijuin

    For those who say that the $17 billion that we spend on NASA per year is too much, what about the THIRTY TIMES AS MUCH that we spend on maintaining our ability to kill people? The military will receive over $630 billion this year.

  • Ed

    Don’t even thing about outer space! We know zilch about inner space (our planet). Anything else just betrays some badly skewed priotities.

  • http://www.SubspaceResearch.co.uk M. Ahsan

    Space exploration is the journey of our planet’s own past and the future. BUT plz get rid of International Space Station. This is not helping reach us anywhere.

  • Chuck Lam

    Forget the back-breaking national treasury expense of a deep-space trip for a moment. Mankind will mostly likely travel no further than Mars or to possibly one of Jupiter’s moons. However, all this could change if man uncovers some phenomenon that will actually allow space travel several times faster than the speed of light. Without the ability to travel beyond light speed, there simply will be very little government incentive to approve financing for a multigeneration trip with an unknown outcome to the nearest star system. I suspect the good in thinking and talking about deep-space travel is healthy mental exorcise.

  • An Earth Defender

    I believe humans are one of the most fragile races of life in the universe. We are babys playing with dynamite. Our technology is so far behind compared to other life forms. Just think, it took us about 2000 years just to invent a silly, useless, ipod. The other life forms in the universe are already traveling through space and time faster than the speed of light. And we have not even walked or sent humans beyond our moon. And with all that ‘technology’ we are sending out into space, other life forms will find it and Earth and kill us. We are attracting too much attention in space. Bad, evil life forms will see us as dumb, useless life forms living on a VERY usefull planet. Someday, those lifeforms will take over earth, and exterminate humans. But we are already killing our selves and our planet. We have so much potential but we are not using our brains to create usefull technology that will save us when ‘doomsday’ will come. Think of all those cars emitting carbon dioxide every single day. People have created electric cars that would save our planet, but Bush and the oil industry won’t allow them to be sold to the public because they’re afraid they’ll lose money on oil. Money is just paper. Useless paper that will not save you when its the end of the world. We need technology, inventors, and most of all, we need to save our planet. Face it, our planet, Earth is dying. And it’s all because of us.

  • Hailey

    We need The Doctor.

  • Jenny Lee

    I think we should go on

  • ZergFood

    Space Colonization = evil conquest
    Space Exploration = good

    Colonization and getting into space? Colonization of America anyone? Was it “good”? Good for WHO? For Europeans? What about the natives? Who are we to decide that we are more important? We have no prospered, but who are WE to decide that, on their homes? Maybe they had different views of prosperity.

    Think of it like this: What if a thief comes into YOUR home and claims that “taking” this home is “important in the long end, for him and his pals”. After all, he is the one important, right? Won’t you feel annoyed? What if he says that killing you is good for his family? Won’t you feel annoyed? Good cause that’s exactly what we are going to do once we colonize.

    I know you’re going to say that “no one actually says that we’ll colonize inhabited planets” — but I’M LOOKING AT REALITY. Our mentality is the same, fucked up, greedy and all that. We are selfish bastards. I am looking at reality, while people who claim the above are naive and think that we as a species are “good”. What makes you think humans will overlook an inhabited planet for profit and colonization and “how awesome” it is? Awesome? Good to know that it’s awesome for us to wipe out someone else. After all, LOOK AT EARTH. Look how many species we destroyed and continue to do so. Look how we practically RAPED the planet. Does THIS FREAKING species called homo sapiens need to expand FURTHER? Without a shift in mentality? Gimme a break. I’m objective.

    And no, I’m not naive enough to think that Space exploration will solve humanity’s mentality — greed, political power and whatever else that plagues us. What happens in Aliens (the movie)? We colonize a planet. Some aliens start eating us. We then say “Nuke the bastards!”. WHO THE HELL IS THE BASTARD HERE? Who is the one who invaded their homes? We should go and nuke ourselves, put us to jail.

    As someone said in a nice review of Starship Troopers (good movie that portrays humans as “colonists” even though in the movie, everyone cheers when humans kill 100 aliens):

    Here I quote part of the review:
    —————
    The Earth is at war with these creatures. They’re inhuman, vicious. This is graphically demonstrated through out the film but most notably via a propaganda website that the movie presents to us as a futuristic version of `Why We Fight’. At one point, a cow is lead into a pen holding one of these giant insects, which quickly cleaves the cow in two. We are horrified! These insects truly are barbaric, evil! Look what it did to that cow! They must be destroyed! (Yet how many of us had steak before seeing this movie?) Then the website narrator proudly states that people on Earth are doing their part in the war effort as we watch a woman and her children dump Earth bugs on the ground and stomp on them. These bugs are native to our planet. Like the American-Japanese in WWII, why are they getting picked on? How are the bug-stomping mother and her children any more humane and caring than the repulsive alien insects?

    The film is insanely violent. People are literally cut to pieces by the smaller creatures and slowly, painfully melted by a plasma the larger insects spray. However, the alien bugs fair no better. The people and cows getting hacked up relentlessly in this film horrify us but we cheer as machine rifles and grenades blow the giant insects apart. The body count is high on both sides. It is all literally and purposely utter, senseless violence. But then at one point a psychic uses his powers to read one of the alien’s emotions. He triumphantly yells, `It’s afraid!’ and a legion of human warriors jubilantly cheer at this pronouncement. Who’s barbaric here? What is humanity? These bugs are clearly not `human’ yet they are intelligent, advanced, and most importantly they have feelings. If they can be afraid, can they not also be sad, happy, in love? These are questions the writer has left to us to ask with out leading us by the hand through what could have been a much more preachy film.

    Considering the fact that, in his book _Stranger in a Strange Land_, Robert A. Heinlein–who wrote the novel upon which Starship Troopers was based–pointed out that there were millions of people already in America before the Europeans came and ruthlessly slaughtered these `subhumans’ on their new property, it is safe to say that there is a lot more going on in this film than a simple slug-fest. The dazzling special effects and heart pounding action are all just a distraction–like all the noise in real life–from the more important things said here. Even the trailer and commercials for this movie were purposely misleading with Blur’s delightfully mindless `Song #3′ blaring and the singer yelling `Whoo-hoo!’ as a stream of soldiers pour out of ships to go to battle. Every aspect of the film was one gigantic, satirical slap in the face of humanity and no one noticed.
    —————

    So with our RATIONAL thoughts of TODAY, let’s think. Are we evil species? Is colonization evil? You bet it is.

    Why is it good? Just because we are we? Are we so primitive to escape objective thought regarding the matter? Wake up people. Humans will always abuse. Colonization is a new opportunity for us to RAPE more planets, and EVENTUALLY, even invade inhabited homes.

    So we’re the SERIAL rapist set loose in the universe. Bad thing is, there’s no police that I’m aware of (of course aliens could be watching us at this time).

    If that’s the case I would surely expect and HOPE aliens to counter-attack our selfish species and wipe us out before we do more harm to the innocent.

  • Simon Smith

    While in college, one of my social work professors, Dr. William Furness, taught me that it isn’t always either/or it is often both/and.

    The heavens declare the Glory or God.

  • Michael Tomczyk

    We have always operated on the assumption that the Earth will “die” when the sun dies, which is so far into the distant future that the fossils of our bones probably won’t even exist by then. So why worry about going into space when we’ve got billions of years to worry about it? The answer is, we don’t have billions of years. We may only have 100 or 200 years. The combination of choking CO2 levels, global warming/greenhouse gases, population wars stemming from flooding and lack of water and food…all of these catastrophic events will make the Earth a lot more hostile than we expect. This will force us to colonize space and to do that we better get started NOW. There is another reason for exploring space. If we can survive in space, we can use the same technologies to survive on Earth. What we learn from going into space…or attempting to go there…will help us survive here on our home planet. So why explore space? My answer is…survival of the human race.

  • timmy

    you are just wasting your lives, u will never ever go into space. If u think u are going then u a big fag stop trying u will never succeed. stupid juggling thunder cunts

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