Universe Today
noadsense
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
Mark Whittington - Curmudgeons Corner
Alan Boyle - MSNBC Cosmic Log
Steinn Sigurdsson - Dynamics of Cats
Ethan Siegel - Starts With a Bang
Bill Dunford - Riding with Robots on the High Frontier
Brian Wang - Next Big Future
Ian O'Neill - Astroengine
John Benac - Action For Space
Phil Plait - Bad Astronomy
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.
exploring is always very, very expensive.
Astroprof - Astroprof's Page
Robert Pearlman - collectSPACE
Robert Simpson - Orbiting Frog
Ryan Anderson
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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
Of course, that's just our opinion. What's yours? Feel free to comment below and continue the discussion.
