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With millions of dollars spent on space exploration, we have learned a lot about our solar system and planets outside our own but where do the extra dollars go? But if we do not spend these valuable dollars we would not know much about our solar system as we do now.

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we would barely know anything about the planets like Mars Jupiter Saturn Mercury and other planets' solar system.

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We would no doubt might find other life in other solar systems.

While we search we can wait improving our technology for GPS or the INTERNET

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Neil deGrasse Tyson Explains Why Space Exploration Is Worth The Cost

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When we use these resources we could find more about the space around us.

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July 20th, 2009 was the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11's historic flight to the moon, where astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first human beings to walk on the moon. 40 years ago, space flight inspired such awe that astronauts were hailed as heroes and celebrities by men, women, and children alike. 40 years later none of us, besides the most avid space fanatic, would likely to be able to name one astronaut in service today.

For recent Space News, check out our Space category.

Despite the tragedies of Space Shuttle Challenger, and later Columbia, where the world is shocked into being reminded of the inherit dangers of sitting on 1 million gallons of rocket fuel, or re-entering the earth's atmosphere at 1,870 miles per hour. We all see space flight as mundane because the vast majority of space flights since Apollo 11, have been mostly conducting seemingly routine scientific experiments. Now don't get me wrong, I believe in the importance of science in space, but these experiments don't exactly inspire awe in the general population like, oh say, a manned mission to Mars would. We also don't have the fever of beating those damned Ruskies because they might go to space and blow us all up, which we had during the height of the cold war when Apollo 11 touched down on the lunar Sea of Tranquility.

Watching some fantastic documentaries (such as Discovery's When We Left Earth) celebrating the 40th anniversary this week, I got to thinking about the importance of continuing space exploration. I hear many people decry the importance of NASA and space flight. Most saying that it is a waste of time, and more importantly money. I disagree with such assessments. I often wonder if people threw out the same criticisms of our European ancestors, who dared to explore on wooden ships to discover "the new world."

In my humble opinion, space exploration is important not only to humanity's curiosity of the great beyond, but it is also important for the future of the earth and all of us living on it. So here I will count down "Houston style," my top 5 reasons why space exploration is important for the world.

5. Promote Science Education - The Apollo missions inspired a whole generation of kids who wanted to grow up to be astronauts, rocket scientists, and engineers. We all know that science education has been slightly lacking in the United States as of late. Don't you think that NASA's return to the moon, or more importantly the much anticipated manned mission to Mars will again inspire a whole new generation to reach for the stars so to speak? I do.

4. NASA's Environmental Research - You would think that the guys who burn a million pounds of rocket fuel wouldn't be the most environmentally minded people in the world, or out of the world as it may be. However, most people don't know that NASA does a lot of good environmental research while they are up there looking down at all of us. NASA has done a lot of work in studying air quality, climate change, alternative energy, and near earth objects; which as we all know from the movies can destroy the earth any day now without warning, unless we have a group of oil drillers, a nuke, and Bruce Willis.

3. Eliminate Earth Over Population - The current earth population is almost 6.8 BILLION people. Arguably beyond the carrying capacity of the earth already. The big dream is space colonization. We need somewhere to put all these people, or we all might end up living in skyscrapers, see all animal's habitats destroyed, and smog up the air beyond what is breathable (see: China).

2. Natural Resources - Related to over population, we are burning through the earth's natural resources pretty quickly. Out in space there is virtually unlimited resources. It is all just a matter of collecting it and bringing it back, which granted will not be an easy task. Still... it is virtually unlimited natural resources! There will be no more excuses for hiking up prices on barrels of oil. (Although hopefully we will have moved far beyond oil by then).

1. Put Ourselves into Perspective - From space earth is really small. From space earth is really fragile. Sometimes I think it would be a good thing to put our place in the universe into perspective. I don't go into your house light up a stogy, start pulling up your carpet, kick down your door, and then kill your cat. Yet, we as the human species have been doing that to our own home the earth for quite a while now. If we start seeing how small and fragile we are out there floating in space, maybe, just maybe we will not be so prone to abusing our one true home.

Blast Off! Here's to the men and women who gave their lives to explore the great unknown. We cannot ignore the importance of space exploration, nor be complacent in it's meaning to all of us. I hope space exploration can continue to inspire, educate, and provide for us in the next 40 years as it has the last 40 years.

Image Credit: TopTechWriter.US on Flickr

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Top 5 Reasons why Space Exploration is Important for the World

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July 20th, 2009 was the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11's historic flight to the moon, where astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first human beings to walk on the moon. 40 years ago, space flight inspired such awe that astronauts were hailed as heroes and celebrities by men, women, and children alike.

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When something happens to earth we could find other planets to live on.

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(Image credit: Nazarii Neshcherenskyi via Getty Images)

Scientists have found over 4,000 exoplanets since the first such world was confirmed orbiting a sunlike star in 1995, according to NASA's Exoplanet Exploration page.

More than half of these discoveries were made by NASA's Kepler space telescope, which launched in 2009 on a mission to determine how common Earth-like planets are throughout the Milky Way galaxy.

Discovering the first true "alien Earth" is a long-held dream of astronomers - and recent exoplanet discoveries have shown that small, rocky worlds like our own are abundant in the galaxy.

To qualify as potentially life-friendly, a planet must be relatively small (and therefore rocky) and orbit in the habitable or "Goldilocks" zone of its star, which is loosely defined as a location where water can exist in liquid form on a world's surface. When telescope technology improves, other factors will be considered as well, such as the planet's atmospheric composition and how active its parent star is.

While Earth 2.0 remains elusive, here are the closest known analogs to our home planet.

1. Gliese 667Cc

Gliese 667Cc lies just 22 light-years from Earth, and is at least 4.5 times as massive as Earth, according to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Gliese 667Cc completes one orbit around its host star in a mere 28 days, but that star is a red dwarf considerably cooler than the sun, so the exoplanet is thought to lie in the habitable zone.

However, Gliese 667Cc - which was discovered with the European Southern Observatory's 3.6-meter telescope in Chile - may orbit close enough in to be baked by flares from the red dwarf.

2. Kepler-22b

Kepler-22b lies 600 light-years away. It was the first Kepler planet found in the habitable zone of its parent star, but the world is considerably larger than Earth - about 2.4 times our planet's size. It's unclear if this "super-Earth" planet is rocky, liquid or gaseous.

Kepler-22b's orbit of 290 days is pretty similar to Earth's 365, Space.com previously reported. The exoplanet orbits a G-class star like our sun, but this star is smaller and colder than Earth's.

3. Kepler-69c

Kepler-69c, which is about 2,700 light-years away, is about 70 percent larger than Earth. So, once again, researchers are unsure about its composition.

The planet completes one orbit every 242 days, making its position within its solar system comparable to that of Venus within ours. However, Kepler-69c's host star is about 80 percent as luminous as the sun, so the planet appears to be in the habitable zone.

4. Kepler-62f

This planet is about 40 percent larger than Earth and orbits a star much cooler than our sun, according to NASA. Its 267-day orbit, however, puts Kepler-62f squarely within the habitable zone. While Kepler-62 orbits closer to its red dwarf star than Earth does to the sun, the star produces much less light.

Kepler-62f lies about 1,200 light-years away and, due to its large size, is within the range of potentially rocky planets that may hold oceans.

5. Kepler-186f

This planet is at most 10 percent larger than Earth, and it also appears to reside in the habitable zone of its star, though on the zone's outer edge; Kepler-186f receives just one-third of the energy from its star that Earth gets from the sun.

Kepler-186f's parent star is a red dwarf, so the alien world is not a true Earth twin. The planet lies about 500 light-years from Earth.

Related: What would it be like to live on alien planet Kepler-186f?

6. Kepler-442b

Kepler-442b is 33 percent larger than Earth and completes an orbit of its star every 112 days, according to a NASA press release. The discovery of Kepler-442, situated 1,194 light-years away from Earth, was announced in 2015.

One study, published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society in 2021, found that this exoplanet may receive enough light to sustain a large biosphere. The researchers analyzed the likelihood of different planets being able to carry out photosynthesis. They found that Kepler-442b receives sufficient radiation from its star.

7. Kepler-452b

(Image credit: NASA/Ames/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle)

This world, whose discovery was announced in 2015, is the first near-Earth-size planet that orbits around a star the size of the sun, according to NASA exoplanets. Kepler-452b is 60 percent larger than Earth and its parent star (Kepler-452) is 10 percent larger than the sun. Kepler-452 is very similar to our sun, and the exoplanet orbits in the habitable zone.

At 1.6 times the size of Earth, Kepler-452b has a "better than even chance" of being rocky, its discoverers have said. Kepler-452b resides 1,400 light-years from Earth. It takes Kepler-452b just 20 days longer to orbit its star than Earth does.

Related: Kepler-452b: What It Would Be Like to Live On Earth's 'Cousin'

8. Kepler-1649c

When the data from NASA's Kepler Space Telescope was reanalyzed, scientists discovered Kepler 1649c. The exoplanet was found to be similar in size to Earth and orbiting in its star's habitable zone.

During the initial data collection from the telescope, a computer algorithm misidentified the astronomical body, according to NASA, but in 2020 it was discovered to be a planet.

Kepler-1649c is located 300 light-years from Earth and is only 1.06 times larger than it. When comparing the light that the two planets receive from their stars, scientists found that this exoplanet receives 75 percent of the light Earth does from the sun.

9. Proxima Centauri b

Proxima Centauri b is located just four light-years away from Earth, making it Earth's closest known exoplanet, according to NASA Exoplanet Exploration. The exoplanet, which was discovered in 2016, has a mass that is 1.27 times that of Earth's.

Although the exoplanet can be found in the habitable zone of its star, Proxima Centauri, it is exposed to extreme ultraviolet radiation. This is because it lies very close to its parent star and has an orbital period of just 11.2 days.

Related: Alpha Centauri - Facts about the stars next door

10. TRAPPIST-1e

Orbiting the star TRAPPIST-1 are the most Earth-sized planets ever discovered in the habitable zone of a single star. This planetary system is made up of seven worlds.

Water on most of these planets is likely to have evaporated early in the system's formation, Space.com previously reported. However, a 2018 study found that some of these planets could hold more water than Earth's oceans. One of the worlds, called TRAPPIST-1e, is thought to be the most likely to support life as we know it.

Additional resources

For the latest research and exoplanet discoveries, head to NASA's Exoplanet Exploration page. If you want a closer look at Proxima Centauri b and other exoplanets, 3D models are available on NASA's website.

Bibliography

"Efficiency of the oxygenic photosynthesis on Earth-like planets in the habitable zone". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 505, Issue 3 (2021). https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/505/3/3329/6278213?searchresult=1

"The nature of the TRAPPIST-1 exoplanets". Astronomy and Astrophysics (2018). https://www.aanda.org/component/article

"Kepler Planet-Detection Mission: Introduction and First Results". Science (2010). https://www.science.org/doi/abs/10.1126/science.1185402

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Scientists have found nearly 5,000 exoplanets since the first such world was confirmed orbiting a sunlike star in 1995. These ones are most similar to Earth.

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In conclusion, we should spend our resources on space exploration because without knowing we would not know what planet to go to if the earth is dying. We would also not know about other planets in our solar system.

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Could NASA be spending too mush money?