In the argument of whether or not to continue to have space exploration, both sides of the issue have compelling points that need to be examined further. The most important aspect that comes up most often in this debate is in the economical aspect. With the annual budget of NASA being $20.7 billion, critics argue that is simply too much money to spend on space. Other aspects of space that cost money are international cooperation efforts like the international space station that ended up costing multiple countries like USA, China and Russia a total of $150 billion dollars to build and averages about $3 billion to maintain each year and with it being up and running for about 21 years, the total cost has been around $213 billion dollars.
These examples of space travel show how expensive space travel has been in the past and in the future, with plans in place that will send humans to Mars, the expenses for space travel are expected to increase in the coming decades. There’s no clear cut budget out there yet but with using the Apollo program of the 1960-70’s, we can somewhat estimate how much the Mars mission will cost. The Apollo Program was estimated to cost a total of $24.5 billion total, so using this example one might estimate that a mission to Mars will cost at least this much if not much more due to how difficult it is to travel to Mars as the distance from Mars to Earth is about 200 times greater than the distance from Earth to the moon.
This vast amount of money could be used to help better life on Earth. For example the money that the U.S government spends on NASA each year can be used to help pay off debt, fund the military and can be used on social program like medicare and medicaid. From an economic standpoint it doesn’t make sense to fund space travel if it doesn’t really seem to get us anymore from since humans went to the moon in 1969 but haven’t been back since December 1972 when the Apollo 17 landed on the moon.
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However from a social standpoint it does make sense to want to continue space exploration. Humans have always had a desire to want to explore. To humans space is the “final frontier”. Some say humans must explore the ocean more, but the ocean has always been there and humans today have the technology to explore the entire surface, but there is no desire. Space travel has a certain allure to it that other forms of exploration do not have. Among the people around the world however, there is more cultural interest in space which can be examined through pop culture in the world with famous films like “Star Wars” and “Star Trek” being popular worldwide while the only really famous thing from pop culture is “Spongebob Squarepants”
Funding and researching has benefited society as a whole. When humans were first trying to get to the moon, they had to be pushed to their intellectual limits in order to get the task done. Researching lead to many advancements for society as an overall such as CAT scanners, memory foam, freeze dried foods and many advancements. Overall with continued space exploration, the technology created for it ends up trickling down into society and makes it better as a whole and raises the standard of living. Also cultural icons have been created from space travel that overall better society as a whole.
Overall, space travel should be continued despite some economic downside. It should be continued for the impacts on society as a whole. The natural desire to explore is going to compel humans to make it happen. Humans are going to try and colonize other parts of the solar system, beginning with the planet Mars. I believe human society must try and expand however beyond that planet Earth if it is to survive for many generations to come. And it can serve as a medium to try and reach world wide cooperation in trying to better the planet as a whole by exploring other parts of the galaxy and gathering new materials and researching and developing new technologies. Space travel must continue.
