Is Space Exploration Worth It? Free Essay Example
Approximately at 9:00 am, on February 1, scientists received the devastating news that the seven astronauts aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia, died during re-entry. As the country mourned, President Bush comforted the nation and vowed, "Our journey to space will go on." However, NASA no longer does shuttle operations. All of this leaves us with one question: is space exploration safe? Space exploration is not worth the financial investment because people can die of tragic events and billions of dollars can go to waste.
Space exploration is not worth it because tragic events could occur anytime. Many devastating things can happen when exploring the vast and infinite darkness, especially when the lives of many civilians are put on the gamble. For example, on the morning of February 1, scientists got the catastrophic news that the seven astronauts aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia had died due to the shuttle exploding on re-entry. These types of horrendous events can be common when it comes to the topic of space exploration. Humans have to remember that the lives of innocent people are put in jeopardy because of this. In fact, the life of the first-ever Indian to go to space was taken. The lives of many people can be put in jeopardy when it comes to space travel.
Space exploration is not worth it because it is a waste of millions of billions of dollars. Project Artemis, a space project started by NASA in 2017, intends to send the first female astronaut and first female astronaut of color to the south pole of the moon. This project was planned to be carried out in 2024, but the date has been pushed to 2025. NASA is also planning to spend up to $93 billion dollars, which is an increase of $38 billion dollars from 2017 when NASA had an estimate of $35 billion dollars. NASA gets its funding from the United States government spending, which is .3 percent of all the United States spending. One will think that it’s just a mear .3%, not even a full percent! But, in real perspective: the U.S spent 6.6 trillion dollars in the year 2020, and NASA got a mind-boggling 22.6 billion dollars just in the year 2020. Does one really want to spend their tax money, just for it to get wasted on a project that barely has a chance to happen? Space exploration is not worth spending millions and billions of taxpayer money because the money is spent on projects that don’t have a high chance of happening.
Space exploration is not worth spending millions of billions of dollars because calamities can strike and money is squandered. At this point in time, no one has taken responsibility to fix the mistakes they have made. If humanity wants to have a better future, people must do alternative things: they can invest money in organizations that develop technology to clean the ocean, save the Amazon rainforest, or talk to their local politicians about starting a movement to plant more trees. People want to send humans to Mars one day, but tragic events such as this could happen anytime. As time goes on, scientists will develop better technology for space exploration that they say will be “very safe”, but tragic events could happen anytime. Events such as an asteroid getting in the way of the ship, or even destroying it.
