What are good points and arguments to support space exploration??

Question

I'm doing a research paper and I need to find some good points and arguments supporting it. Its mainly about the cost of space exploration. Can anyone tell me the space costs compared to the other things that the Us government spends their money on such as war, healthcare, wellfare??

Answer 1

number one reason: recently (i think maybe the last decade) an asteroid came really close to Earth. Getting hit by an asteroid is not cool.
We spend less on space than war, healthcare, and welfare. But we should, because space isn't that important imho, besides its uses for war, and the asteroid thing. and there's little chance of asteroids hitting us. Space's number one use in history, is patriotism (we beat the russians to the moon!), second is espionage. maybe the other way round.
We (U.S.) are spending less on space since the nations started cooperating. Why? because we aren't competing anymore. oh, the irony. Bush granted a wad of cash for going to mars, but it came with a string attached: nasa had to cancel other stuff to scrap together the rest of the money (half or more) for goin to mars.

Answer 2

Commander Swigert of the Apollo programme came to NZ and I asked him this question at a lecture. He replied; suppose the Martians sent an unmanned probe to Earth and it landed in the Nevada desert. It would take some photos, analyse some soil samples but if there were Martians on board, they'd discover that just over the horizon was the city of Las Vegas. OK, automatic probes are more intelligent now than they were back then in 1972 but the same argument still applies. But I agree with Nick S who says soon TV etc will be so good that it will be just like being there. Remember that movie The Incredible Voyage, about some doctors shrinking themselves and taking a submarine ride through a patient's bloodstream? Soon we'll be able to do better than that. With holographic TV, haptics (reproduction of the sense of touch) and a few other innovations, you'll be able to control a microscopic sub, or interstellar probe, or drive around Titan without the danger of actually being there but with all the sensory inputs.

Answer 3

Minimal

Government spends more on war and nuclear weapons than on space.

Space has provided us with many residual benefits, such as VELCRO.

We currently stand at 6 billion people it is estimated we will be anywhere from 12 to 18 billoin by the year 2100.

We eventually are going to run out of space and resources on this planet.

A planet like Mars can easily hold billions underground.

We have to face reality that by 2300 there will be over 50 billion people on the earth.

We start getting too many people and we'll have to do what China is doing on a world wide basis. One child per family.

Answer 4

i have no idea how much the us is spending on other stuff, but i know that we are spending a lot of money on war, which is doing no good for the development of scientific knowledge, thats for sure. rather than using the money to kill people, it should be used to learn more about the things surrounding us, which could help with so many things (so many possiblities out there; maybe find something to help with conservation of energy? be the first to discover something new? learn more about science and make a breakthrew?)

maybe someone will decide to make pluto a planet again.

Answer 5

If, after we had landed on the moon, we had spent as much on a moon colony or exploration of Mars as we did getting to the moon, we would have been either to Mars or a thriving Moon colony by 1985. The problem was the politicizing of the moon landing.

Now we have an old shuttle system that can't even withstand hail!

Answer 6

For me, the primary point is this: We're screwing up our planet to the point where it may not be able to sustain life at some point in the future. Other than this, you might wish to do a web search on NASA Spinoffs. (Here's a link http://www.sti.nasa.gov/tto/ )

Basically, there have been significant positive impacts on almost every aspect of human life, from beds to pens to computing to travel and food. The indirect impacts of space travel have already helped life on Earth, and the direct benefit is in the forseable future in the areas of mining and manufacturing.

Check the NASA site and you'll see lots.

Answer 7

well i personally think they could put that extra money into the military buuttt thats not your question i would say we need to understand where we live if we didnt know what it was like in space einstein would not have come up with E=mc ^2 because that is the theory of relitivity and has alot to do with space thats what he was thinking about when he was doing his reaserch and the theory law of every action has an = or opposite reaction this has lots to do with space if you need some help email me at [e-mail]

Answer 8

Tricky, because the benefits are hard to quantify.

But searching on phrases that include "defense", "health care", or "welfare" and also "budget" or "expenditures" should help you a lot. Not only will you get figures, you'll get citations.

"Transfer payments" is another good phrase.

And you may have to throw "United States" into the overall search phrase too.

Answer 9

Quit spending money on the illegal alliens in our country, give them no support. Spend that money on the space program. Have a man on mars in no time

Answer 10

So the rich have a place to live when overpopulation gets so bad that there's no more room on the Earth.