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Have you ever wanted to see the bottom of the ocean? If you do than we should stop sending people to space because if we use those resources to help find a cure to covid-19 and we could have more money to clean the oceans, and we could help the endangered animal population.

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We can give more money to the sea so they can get clean and be more alive. Also, more money to give to covid-19 lots of people are struggling because covid took everything they had and many people lost their jobs. And keep our animals population

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I think space exploration doesn't matter because, no one really care about space and if NASA go to space and they find something there not supoes to find they could be in lots of danger even the world no one knows whats out there

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Neil deGrasse Tyson, Scientist

Space exploration is a rather controversial topic.

While the majority of people think it is a good idea to explore space, there are also opponents of space travel who claim that space exploration may potentially wipe out humanity in the long run.

In this article, the pros and cons of space exploration are discussed in detail.

1. Space exploration can provide humanity with additional resources

2. Space travel may help us to find extraterrestrial life

3. We may find other planets to colonize

4. Humans are curious creatures and need to explore

5. Space exploration can offer almost endless opportunities

6. Many countries already noticed the importance of space exploration

7. Technological progress will facilitate space travel

8. It has been the dream of many people to explore space

9. Also private corporations can help with space exploration

10. We as humans recognize the relativity of life

11. We can learn humility

12. Colonizing other plants may help to mitigate the overpopulation problem

13. Scientists from all over the world can work together

14. Can help us to install satellites

15. Helpful to create maps and pictures

16. We can collect important research data

17. May help us to detect serious threats to our earth

18. Space travel may become available also to private persons

19. Space exploration may speed up technological progress

20. Space travel industry provides many job opportunities

21. May help humanity not to go extinct in the far future

One important advantage of space exploration is that it gives humanity the opportunity to exploit additional resources in outer space.

As many of us know, our fossil resources will become depleted sooner or later and when we run out of natural resources, chances are that our technological progress will suffer significantly.

Hence, if we want to continue to progress as a species and want to develop our technologies forward, the additional resources that can be extracted from asteroids are crucial in this regard.

Space exploration can also help us to find extraterrestrial life, at least if it really exists.

The idea of extraterrestrial life is fascinating for many people around and in order to improve the chances to get contacted by those life forms, it is crucial that we leave as many traces as possible in space.

Always remember that space is huge and that it will be not easy to find each other.

However, through space travel, we could at least increase the chances to get in touch with other extraterrestrial life forms a little bit.

Another benefit of space travel is that we may also find planets that we could colonize in the near future.

Yes, there are already plans to colonize Mars.

However, colonizing Mars implies many important problems and scientists are not sure yet whether Mars is really a promising option when it comes to populating other planets.

Therefore, we may have to search for other planets that are better suitable for colonization and space exploration is crucial in this regard since only if we explore space, we will find these additional colonization opportunities.

In general, we as humans are curious creatures and want to learn and explore.

In fact, when we take a look back at human history and see where we are now, we realize the enormous technological progress we made over the past centuries.

This indicates how big the human drive to invent new things really is and we as humans can only be happy and satisfied if we are the best versions of ourselves.

Consequently, space exploration can give us the opportunity to really move forward as a species and to satisfy the need to always progress and extent our knowledge.

Space travel also gives us the opportunity to always experience and explore new things.

In fact, space is so big that we as humans will never be able to explore all of it.

In fact, the size of our universe is enormous and gives us almost endless opportunities to always make new findings.

Indeed, scientists believe that we as humanity only scratched the surface of what is still to explore out there and we may know little to nothing up to this point in time about how the universe really works.

Space exploration is not only important for humanity as a whole, it is also crucial on a country level.

In fact, many countries around the world have already noticed how important space travel really is and try their best to conquer space and to claim territories up there.

Many people might not know it yet, but space provides us with pretty high amounts of resources and the country that conquers those resources will likely have quite a lot of power over the next decades and centuries.

While it was quite hard to explore space just a few decades ago, it has become much easier thanks to our technological progress.

We now know much more about the dynamics of rockets and space stations and the risk related to space exploration is much smaller compared to the significant risk that had been present in the past.

Since our technological progress advances at rapid speed, chances are that space travel will become even easier and more cost-efficient in the future.

Many people who have seen science fiction movies are also quite keen on exploring space.

In fact, many people think that it is our human duty to do our best we can in order to explore space and to learn about the dynamics of our whole universe.

Hence, space travel can also make this collective dream of many people come true.

At our current state of the world, not only countries, but also private corporations engage in the space travel market.

In fact, the United States currently rely on private space missions since they abandoned their own space programs in the past.

However, if private space corporations can help us to achieve our space missions, this can be a great way to improve our overall chances for success of space missions in the future.

In fact, the space travel market is huge and many other companies may enter this market sooner or later.

In turn, chances are that the resulting competition will benefit humanity as a whole since space companies will be more eager to invent new technologies and to make processes much more efficient.

Another upside of space exploration is that we as humans can realize our place in the universe.

In fact, we often think that we are the center of everything and that we are the superior species in our universe.

However, through space travel, we soon realize how big the universe really is and that we are indeed just a tiny grain of sand on a big beach.

In turn, many of us will realize how relative life is and that we are not superior in any kind of way.

In turn, we will also be able to learn a great level of humanity.

In fact, it is astonishing how small our earth really is compared to other planets, stars, galaxies or even the whole universe.

By realizing this fact, many people who currently have a rather arrogant attitude will be more likely to change their minds since they will realize that we are actually apes that don't really know what's happening around us.

Space travel can also help us to reduce our overpopulation problem.

In fact, until the end of the 21 st century, the number of people on our planet will likely exceed the 10 billion mark.

However, it is yet rather unclear how we are able to feed all those people.

Hence, it is crucial to look out for proper alternatives.

If our planet will no longer be suitable to provide for us, we may have to colonize other planets.

Sure, this will be a long-term goal and will not be feasible in the near future.

Yet, it can make sense that we look out for suitable alternatives to our earth in order to feed as many people as possible in the long run.

Space exploration also provides a unique opportunity for scientists all over the world to work together for a bigger goal.

In fact, in order to make space travel missions successful, we need the smartest people from all over the world.

Those people have to exchange their ideas to invent new technologies and to make space travel more efficient and also safer.

Space exploration is also quite helpful for rather basic things.

For instance, space exploration can help us to install satellites in space so that we can access different TV channels.

Hence, space exploration can also be helpful to make our daily lives easier and more fun.

Space exploration can also be helpful to provide us with nice pictures of our planet and of the universe.

Moreover, it can also be quite helpful to create 3-D maps that can be accessed via the internet.

By creating those maps, we get a better impression of the structure of our earth and of its location in our universe.

Space exploration is also crucial to provide important research data to leading scientists from all over the world.

In fact, the more data we get, the better we will be able to understand how the universe works and what is still missing for a comprehensive understanding of how the cosmos actually works.

Another important advantage of space travel is that it allows us to detect serious threats that could potentially wipe out humanity.

For instance, through space exploration, we may be able to detect a meteorite that is on collision course with our earth.

In turn, we could take measures to prevent this collision.

However, this will only be possible if we detect the meteorite in time and therefore, space exploration can be crucial to prevent catastrophic disasters in the future.

Space travel is not only accessible for astronauts on official missions, it will also become possible for private persons in the near future.

In fact, there are companies out there who will offer space travel for private people.

This also implies that not only astronauts, but also private people will be able to see the true beauty of space, at least if they have the money to do so.

Space travel is not easy and needs plenty of technology in order to be successful.

In fact, over the past decades, numerous important inventions have been made.

Those inventions have not only been beneficial for space exploration, these technologies had also been important to facilitating our daily lives.

Thus, inventions from space travel can also indirectly benefit the general public.

The space travel industry has become increasingly important over the past decades.

In fact, in our current state of the world, numerous jobs depend on this industry and chances are that many additional jobs will be created in the field of space exploration in the near future.

Space exploration also has the big goal to protect the human species from going extinct in the future.

In fact, our Earth will likely not provide us with a suitable living space forever and due to global warming and other environmental problems, we may have to leave our Earth behind sooner or later.

In turn, this also implies that we have to explore space and to find new planets that we may be able to colonize in order to secure the survival of the human species.

1. Space travel implies significant air pollution

2. Particle pollution can be a problem

3. Space exploration implies high levels of waste

4. Space exploration is quite costly

5. Many missions may not yield any results

6. Space travel can be dangerous

7. Space exploration is time-consuming

8. Mental problems for astronauts

9. Problems with radiation

10. Space exploration may lead to a decisive advantage for few countries

11. May not be in line with religious values

12. Extraterrestrial life forms may wipe out humanity

Apart from the many important advantages of space exploration, there are still some issues with space travel.

For instance, one important problem with space exploration is that it implies significant air pollution.

In fact, in order to launch a rocket, it takes large amounts of fossil fuels.

Moreover, also in the production process of rockets, significant amounts of fossil fuels have to be used.

In turn, space travel implies significant air pollution and especially people who live close to those facilities may suffer quite a lot from fumes in the air.

Particle pollution is closely related to the air pollution problem.

In fact, if large amounts of fossil fuels are burned, also large amounts of fine particles are emitted into our atmosphere.

In turn, people who live in those areas with significant particle pollution may suffer from several pulmonary issues like asthma or lung cancer.

Another downside of space exploration is that it also implies significant levels of waste.

In fact, in the testing process of new rockets, plenty of waste is produced.

Moreover, also on space missions, large amounts of waste are produced.

In fact, plenty of waste is circling around the earth in outer space and we have to be careful not to make space a gigantic garbage dump.

Space missions also imply significant costs.

In fact, it is quite expensive to explore space and depending on the lengths and the goal of the respective mission, many millions or even billions of dollars have to be used.

Opponents of space missions often claim that this money could be far better used for projects that would facilitate the energy transition process from fossil to renewable energy sources on our earth instead of wasting it for space travel.

Another disadvantage of space travel is that those space missions also often do not deliver any results.

In fact, all attempts to find extraterrestrial life have failed up to this point in time and there is little reason to believe that this might change in the near future.

While space travel has become much safer over the past decades, it is still a rather risky project and the chances for accidents are still present.

Hence, astronauts still have to enter a rocket with the knowledge that there will be the risk that they will never come back home from their missions.

Another issue with space exploration is that those missions are often quite time-consuming.

Especially for longer missions, it can take several months or even years to complete those missions and therefore, space travel con be considered as a long-term project that will not deliver too many immediate results.

Due to the overall high level of insecurity of space missions, astronauts also often suffer from mental problems.

This is not only due to the fact that there will be a significant risk for those astronauts to never come back home, it is also due to the fact that astronauts often feel quite lonely in space.

Yes, there are other astronauts on space stations.

Yet, this is not the same as being together with your family.

There is also still plenty of controversy when it comes to the true long-term health effects of space travel for astronauts.

While some scientists claim that space travel does not lead to too many severe long-term health issues, other scientists claim that radiation is a serious problem in space travel and that the chances to suffer from cancer will be much higher for astronauts compared to the average person in our society.

Hence, there might also be a significant health risk for astronauts from those space missions.

While space exploration can be extremely helpful for a few big countries, other countries may be greatly harmed by it.

For instance, if a few big countries control space and extract resources, other countries will likely lose their competitiveness in the global market.

In turn, this can also lead to higher wealth and income inequality across the planet.

Space missions may also conflict with religious values.

In fact, many people who believe in god do not advocate space exploration at all since they feel that humans should stay on earth and should not explore outer space.

Consequently, space missions may also be problematic from a religious point of view.

There is also no guarantee that extraterrestrial life forms will be peaceful.

In fact, those life forms may have the potential power to wipe out humanity and therefore, exploring space may also not be a good idea in this regard.

Space Exploration Pros

Space Exploration Cons

Space exploration can provide us with resources

Space exploration is expensive

Space travel can teach us about space

Space exploration is time-consuming

Humans are curious creatures

Space travel can be dangerous

Space travel provides endless opportunities

Implies significant air pollution

Humans can learn humility from space travel

Space travel implies waste production

May speed up technological progress

Radiation may be a problem

Space travel provides job opportunities

Mental pressure on astronauts can be high

We may find other planets to colonize

Extraterrestrial life can become a danger

Can foster global cooperation

May hurt religious values

May preserve humanity from extinction

Many space missions do not deliver results

We can conclude from the previous discussion that space travel has many important advantages and disadvantages.

In my opinion, it can make sense to explore space in order to secure the survival of the human species.

However, we should also make sure that we reduce the pollution levels related to space missions as best as possible in order to protect our environment in the long run.
Sources https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_exploration https://www.britannica.com/science/space-exploration https://www.nasa.gov/topics/technology/space-travel/index.html About the author
My name is Andreas and my mission is to educate people of all ages about our environmental problems and how everyone can make a contribution to mitigate these issues.

As I went to university and got my Master's degree in Economics, I did plenty of research in the field of Development Economics.

After finishing university, I traveled around the world. From this time on, I wanted to make a contribution to ensure a livable future for the next generations in every part of our beautiful planet.

Wanna make a contribution to save our environment? Share it!

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33 Main Pros & Cons Of Space Exploration - E&C

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Space travel has become quite popular over the past decades. In this article, the pros and cons of space exploration are discussed.

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Fifty years ago, humans left their footprints on the moon. Fifty years in the future, will there be footprints on Mars-or just more robots?

Mars is the only planet in the solar system solely inhabited by robots. In fact, for all of our forays beyond our own atmosphere, there are more machines in space than humans. There is a deliberately made crater on the comet 9P/Tempel. There are landers on the Moon, Venus, Mars, Titan, the asteroid Eros, and the comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Then you have the increasing number of probes both across and outside our solar system, as well as the huge network of satellites that span our visible horizon.

Yet we keep launching humans into space in the name of "exploration." Why? What if robots could do a better job? What if space isn't meant for us, but for the machines of our creation?

Why do we put humans in space?

Space isn't a suitable place for a squishy species like us. Humans are adapted to a narrow range of conditions. A bit too much or too little pressure, oxygen, water, temperature, radiation, or acceleration, and we die. In fact, most of the Earth's surface is largely uninhabitable unless we surround ourselves with protective clothing and technology.

Still, space beckons. And we heed its call. After all, we are not going to survive as a species if we are not distributed across different biospheres; we'll have to leave this one at least when the sun turns into a red giant.

But what if we sent robots to do the exploring instead?

Many are unenthusiastic about robotic exploration. We merely send tools when we want to send heroes.

Whenever we take ourselves to space, we need to do so in a controlled environment, hermit-crab style. To have longevity off Earth, we need to learn how function in conditions that we have not evolved for at all. All our ancestors lived with gravity. All our ancestors had reflexes and intuitions that were adequate for Earth's environment. But this means that in space our reflexes and intuitions are likely to be wrong without extensive retraining, and likely in deadly ways.

What doesn't need pressurized suits or pesky oxygen supplies? Robots.

Robots avoid the whole mortality thing. They can be designed to not require life support and have reactions suited to the space environment. Machine learning allows robots to learn from their experiences, and if a body breaks down or is lost, another copy of the latest robot software can be downloaded. Not so with humans.

Our relations to robots and artificial intelligence are complicated. We worry about them misbehaving both because they are too much like us and too alien. We're sentimental about our favorite space probes and rovers, and are emotional about their fate; I did not weep for the end of Opportunity, but I did shed a tear for Cassini. For time immemorial, we have imagined making artificial servants or artificial minds, subservient to our human needs. But if the needs of humans are too great to survive in space, what if AI is what is meant to live on Mars, not us?

Current robotic explorers are rare and hence extremely expensive, motivating endless pre-mission modeling and careful actions. But robotics is becoming cheaper and more adaptable, as are the ways to hurl them beyond our atmosphere. As space access becomes cheaper, we should therefore expect a more ruthless use of robots.

So should we leave space to tele-operated or autonomous robots that report back their findings for our thrills and education, all the while patiently building useful installations back on Earth for our benefit?

My thesis is this: We want to explore space. Space is unsuitable for humans. Therefore, we should explore space using robots and telepresence.

AI has all the fun

But why does that feel deflating? It's because we don't want exploration in the thin sense of knowing stuff-we want exploration in the thick sense of being there.

That's the reason MarsOne, the company aiming to establish a human settlement on Mars, got volunteers despite planning a one-way trip. That's the reason we'll keep sending astronauts (at fabulous expense) to the International Space Station to do experiments, despite the fact that robots will increasingly suffice.

Basically, we're getting space FOMO. After all, scientific research and global communication networks are not the only reasons we go to space. If practical pursuits were they the only reasons to explore the solar system, it would be about as glorious as marine exploration.

There's just something about space. It's inconceivably harsher than any terrestrial environment, but it is also fundamentally different. It is vast beyond imagination. It contains things that have no counterpart on Earth. In many ways it has replaced our supernatural realms and gods with a futuristic realm of exotic planets and-maybe-extra-terrestrial life and intelligence. It is fundamentally The Future.

Were we only interested in the utilitarian and scientific use of space, we would be happy to automate it. But astronauts are not worried about their job security. The value gained from having people present in space goes deeper: It is aspirational, not just in the sense that maybe one day our grandchildren could go there but in the sense that at least some humans are present in the higher spheres. Getting glimpses of our planet from above and touching the fringe of the Overview Effect is healthy for our culture.

A sceptic may wonder if space exploration is worth it. But humanity seldom performs grand projects based on a practical utility calculation.

And maybe it should. But the benefits of building giant telescopes, particle accelerators, and the early internet were never objective and clear. A saner species might not perform these projects, instead reserving their energy for fulfilling the lower rungs of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Yet this species would likely never have discovered astronomy or physics, the peculiarities of masonry, or managing internet networks.

This is why so many are unenthusiastic about robotic exploration. We merely send tools when we want to send heroes.

Maybe future telepresence will be so excellent that we can feel and smell the Martian environment through our robots; feasibly, it could one day be indistinguishable from actually being there. But as evidenced by the hordes of museum-goers cramped in front of the Mona Lisa or lined up toward the top of Mount Everest, we put a premium on authenticity. Not just because it is rare and expensive, but because we often think it is worthwhile, maybe even sublime.

As AI advances, those tools may become more like us: They could look like us, act like us, and even one day think like us. But it will always be a hard sell to argue that they represent us in the same way a human would.

I can imagine future AI having just as vivid or even better awareness of its environment than we could, and, in a sense, being a better explorer. But to many people, this would not be a human exploring space, just another (human-made) species exploring space; it is not us.

So while robots would likely do a better job at exploring the outer edges of our universe, we'll also keep sending humans out there. Though Mars should be destined for more and more track marks, moonboots will eventually step foot there, too. Vacuum, radiation, and extreme temperatures will prevent us from ever experiencing space first-hand, but the sheer challenge of this affront will make us keep striving to be more like the robots we send to its depths.

The main motivation that will keep us exploring is that it is hard: It is a very human thing to want to do the nearly impossible-and to be there when it happens. It might benefit the AIs to learn that absurd, beautiful mind-set.

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Don't send people to the moon-send robots instead

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Fifty years ago, humans left their footprints on the moon. Fifty years in the future, will there be footprints on Mars-or just more robots? Mars is the only planet in the solar system solely inhabited by robots. In fact, for all of our forays beyond our own atmosphere, there are more machines in space than humans.

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The lack of gravitational force is deadly to humans. The list of bodily systems that don't work properly grows with every examination of astronauts who spend prolonged time in space.
1. Gravity

The lack of gravitational force is deadly to humans. The list of bodily systems that don't work properly grows with every examination of astronauts who spend prolonged time in space. Starting at the top, the cerebrospinal fluid does not circulate properly in low gravity states, causing brain swelling and cerebral motor dysfunction. While loss of balance may be obvious, all types of proprioception are affected-some perhaps permanently. Changes in the brains of astronauts noted by MRI suggest premature aging-and the trips so far have been relatively short.

Normally our body's fluids are pulled down by gravity and our systems adjust. In low gravity, the fluids redistribute. Faces, eyes, and brains all swell, overloading the cardiovascular system. Cardiac atrophy, with weakening heart muscle activity, will eventually disable all humans in space.

Bone formation depends on resistance exercises. The loss of bone mineral essentially ages astronauts by decades and makes fragility fractures a huge risk. Bone loss accelerates from 3% cortical loss per year to 1% per month. Most astronauts take up to three years to recover from a simple 4-month visit in space. It simply is not possible to exercise enough while in space. The osteoclasts cells that break bone down are ramped up more than the bone-forming cells, leading to an overload of calcium in the system.

Long-haul astronauts experience a decreased production of red blood cells.

The proprioception system that relies on the senses. The inner ear and blood pressure are so disturbed that all astronauts develop nausea for varying periods of time. A single episode of vomiting in a space suit can be fatal.

2. Radiation

Radiation exposure is 10 times higher in low orbit than it is on land. As insulating lead is too heavy for spacecraft, astronauts receive toxic doses of radiation every second. The damage to the retina, the thyroid, and the brain, along with the body's most sensitive tissues, is permanent. Any residence in space would require massive shielding of housing and mobile units, along with clothing-making Mars or lunar colonists relatively stationary. Unanticipated solar flares produce fatal radiation doses in minutes, even through the walls of spacecraft. In one measured solar storm, the surface level of radiation on the planet Mars doubled.

No fetus could ever be conceived in this low gravity and high radiation environment. Most likely they would be stillborn, due to the 9-month exposure to radiation in the womb, and/or deformed upon delivery.

The eyes are particularly sensitive, and a higher incidence of radiation-induced cataracts in astronauts has been noted.

Alzheimer's and other degenerative brain diseases are accelerated in the astronauts who have traveled into space so far.

Weakening of the immune system. Chromosomal changes in lymphocytes have been noted, and T-Cell function required for the immune system is reduced.

3. Depression

Fresh air is not only key to physical health, it's also critical for mental health. People who are confined indoors with no exposure to fresh air (e.g., prisoners) display depression and multiple other health issues. While indoor gardens may provide the simulated scent and humidity of outdoor nature, they are a poor substitute for the real thing. The sense of taste is reduced, and foods do not taste the same. Smells freed from gravity permeate the shared living space, diminishing the quality of life. Combined with claustrophobia, lack of biodiversity, lack of privacy, no family, and reduced opportunities for social, romantic or sexual engagement, extended time in space is a prescription for mental disease.

The spacefarers' complete reliance on a complex maze of critical engineering and life-support equipment, all supplied by the lowest bidder (if from public sources) or by private contractors with varying experience and little accountability. There is a no-return policy once in space, even for Amazon Prime.

Aside from personal depression, there are other mental health dangers-such as the lack of a police force with the ability to resist one man gone mad. Even if you could imprison someone for a crime in space, how could the colony spare the resources for even one unproductive member? There will be no provisions to support the mentally ill, the sick, or the incarcerated.

4. Infection

Microbes and viruses become more virulent in space, possibly leading to food poisoning, antibiotic resistance, and hard-to-treat infections. A likely confluence of microbiomes-interacting without medical services, a hospital environment or advanced testing facilities to control and treat infectious agents-risks complete colony wipeout from a single antibiotic-resistant organism.
5. Healthcare

The high likelihood of cancer formation from radiation, blood pressure elevations from lack of gravity, and the stress of living in confined quarters will all lead to complex health challenges in an environment where only basic emergency care is available. Astronaut crews will not have the range of medical experts, CT, MRI, or other tools necessary for accurate diagnoses. Nor will they have the surgical facilities for critical health care. The expected lifespan of extraterrestrial inhabitants will be shockingly short.

Even if a small colony could survive, they could not innovate, manufacture or farm at scale. We can do that here on Earth because we spend relatively little energy surviving in our atmosphere, though clearly due to the climate damage our living efficiency produced we should have spent more.

My wish for all for 2019 is: look around, invest in the Earth, and save this planet while we can.

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The lack of gravitational force is deadly to humans. The list of bodily systems that don't work properly grows with every examination of astronauts who spend prolonged time in space. 1. Gravity The lack of gravitational force is deadly to humans.

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At the time of the moon landing in 1969, many people envisioned that by the beginning of the 21st century, space travel would become routine, and we would be visiting other planets in our solar system and perhaps even daring to venture into interstellar space.

That future didn't arrive as planned. In fact, humans haven't made it any deeper into space than when we landed the moon in the late 1960s and early 1970s, though we have operated a manned orbital outpost, the International Space Station, which has been continuously occupied for more than two decades [source: Howell]. NASA currently is planning to resume human missions to the moon in the mid-to-late 2020s, as a prelude to astronauts eventually traveling to Mars [source: Dvorsky].

We've also seen the rise of private space entrepreneurs such as Elon Musk, who has described his dream of building a rocket capable of reaching Mars and supporting a permanent human settlement there [source: Torchinsky]. And other countries are looking to reach Mars as well. China, for example, aims to send its astronauts to the Red Planet by 2033 [source: Kharpal].

But those who've long dreamed of humans becoming a truly spacefaring race argue that exploring space provides down-to-earth benefits in areas such as health, mining and security. And more inspirational benefits, too. Here are some of the most compelling arguments for continuing the exploration of space.

If we don't want to go the way of the dinosaurs someday, we need to protect ourselves against the threat of being hit by a big asteroid. According to NASA, typically about once every 10,000 years, a rocky or iron asteroid the size of a football field could smash into our planet's surface and possibly cause tidal waves big enough to inundate coastal areas.

But it's the real monsters - asteroids about 328 feet (100 meters) across or bigger - that we really have to fear. Such a collision would unleash a firestorm of heated debris and fill the atmosphere with sun-blocking dust, which would wipe out forests and farm fields and starve the human and animal life that it didn't immediately kill [sources: NASA, NSS].

That's why it's vital to develop a way to neutralize such a threat to Earth. NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test, set for launch in late September 2022, will be the first mission to demonstrate a technology called asteroid deflection by kinetic impactor. A robotic spacecraft will be crashed into the binary asteroid system Didymos, in an effort to show that it's possible to slightly alter the path of an asteroid. That would enable NASA to redirect potential threats to miss Earth [sources: DART, Mann].

A very long list of gadgets, materials and processes originally were developed for the U.S. space program but found other applications back on Earth - so many that NASA has an office that looks for ways to repurpose space technology as products. We all know about freeze-dried food, but there are plenty of others. In the 1960s, for example, NASA scientists developed a plastic coated with a metallic reflecting agent. When used in a blanket, it reflects about 80 percent of a user's body heat back to him or her - an ability that helps accident victims and post-marathon runners to stay warm.

Another more obscure but valuable innovation is nitinol, a flexible but resilient alloy that was developed to enable satellites to spring open after being folded into a rocket. Today, orthodontists equip patients with braces made from the material [source: Independent].

According to NASA, other inventions spawned by the space program include CAT scans, LED lights, memory foam, freeze-dried food, shock absorbing materials used in artificial limbs, the computer mouse and portable computers, and a key nutritional ingredient in baby formula [source: JPL].

Earlier, we mentioned the ominous notion of international conflict in space. But it doesn't have to be that way, as evidenced by the cooperation of multiple nations on the International Space Station. And a U.S. space program could allow other countries, large and small, to join in their exploration efforts.

A 2018 paper from NASA points out the benefits of international cooperation. For one, the hefty costs could be spread around. For another, it could forge stronger diplomatic ties between nations such as the U.S. and India, and help create new jobs in both countries, for example.

In 2020, NASA awarded the first contracts to four companies to collect small amounts of lunar regolith, the loose rock and dust that sits atop the surface, when missions to the moon eventually resume in the 2020s. It could be the first step toward mining of raw materials from the moon. "Space resources are the fuel that will propel America and all of humanity to the stars," Mike Gold, NASA's then-acting administrator for international and interagency relations, explained at the time [source: NASA].

Our primitive ancestors spread from east Africa to all over the planet, and since then, we've never stopped moving. We're running out of fresh territory on Earth, so the only way to meet this ancient urge is to find somewhere new to go - whether it's making brief jaunts to the moon as a tourist, or signing up for an interstellar voyage that will take multiple generations.

In a speech, to the Bay Area Houston Economic Partnership, former NASA administrator Michael Griffin differentiated between "acceptable reasons" and "real reasons" for space exploration. Acceptable reasons would be issues like economic benefit and national security. But real reasons include concepts like curiosity, competitiveness and monument-building.

"Who among us does not know the wonder and mystery and awe and magic of seeing something, even on television, never seen before, an experience brought back to us by a robotic space mission?" Griffin added that "when we do things for real reasons as opposed to acceptable reasons, we produce our highest achievements."

Why Space Exploration Matters FAQs

Why is space exploration important?

Humans have always been curious to find hidden mysteries of the universe that lie far beyond our Earth. How was Earth formed? Is there life outside planet Earth? How big is the universe? All these and many more questions are still unanswered and we will only find their answers by exploring space. Addressing these challenges helps humans develop new technologies, make new innovations and reconstruct scientific expedition to a whole new level.

What are the cons of space exploration?

One of the major cons of space exploration is exposure to harmful radiation. While in space, astronauts are prone to experience galactic cosmic radiations that are 10 times more dangerous than radiation on Earth. Cost is another significant negative to exploring space. NASA's 2021 fiscal year budget is $23.3 billion. Space exploration also creates a ton of space junk.

How has space exploration benefited health and medicine?

Space exploration and NASA specifically has can claim credit for a several medical innovations, including ear thermometers, automatic insulin pumps, implantable heart defibrillators and improvements in digital mammography technology. Other innovations include laser angioplasty, voice-controlled wheelchairs and programmable pacemakers.

How is space exploration important for national security?

Even if the U.S. privatizes much of space exploration, it still wants to ensure that companies can mine the moon or asteroids without worrying that interlopers will usurp their claims or steal their production. That's why it's crucial to back up diplomacy with a NASA spacefaring capacity that could be converted to military use, if needed.

What resources can we get from space?

Space is believed to hide valuable substances such as gold, platinum and silver. It's only with space exploration that humans can amass these valuable raw materials. For example, the moon contains lucrative sources of a rare gas helium-3, which costs around $5,000 per liter.

Author's Note: 10 Reasons Why Space Exploration Matters to You

I was a child in the 1960s, a time when many of us believed that someday we would be flying off into the cosmos in search of adventure. I can't say precisely when that dream ended for me, but I remember that back in the mid-1990s, the British folk singer Billy Bragg recorded a song that seemed to capture some of what I felt. In "The Space Race is Over," Bragg sang of staring at the moon as a child, and dreaming that night of walking on the Sea of Tranquility.

But decades later, he stood staring at the same sky with his young son, who asked him, "Why did they ever go?" As Bragg lamented, "The space race is over, and I can't help but feel that we're all just going nowhere." Despite the beauty of his lyrics, I must differ with him respectfully on that last point. I continue to believe that humanity still has a chance to become a truly spacefaring race, and that we must find a way to do so.

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10 Reasons Why Space Exploration Matters to You

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Yes, we have some amazing inventions thanks to space exploration, and we're curious about life on other planets. But the cosmos also touches a deeper part of our psyches. Here are 10 reasons space exploration matters to you.

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In conclusion, without NASA spending money on resources on space,we could be able to to give money to all the people that lost there jobs due to coivd-19,also give money to wildlife helpers to keep our animals population stable. Instead of giveing money to NASA