Outer Space?

Question

Based on medical advances through research on space, is the funding of the space program justified? Why or why not?

Answer 1

That's an interesting question. Justifying the space program solely on it's bennefits to medical science..... Hmmm, well what has NASA contributed to medical advances? From their website:

Health and Medicine - NASA Spinoffs

DIGITAL IMAGING BREAST BIOPSY SYSTEM
BREAST CANCER DETECTION
LASER ANGIOPLASTY
ULTRASOUND SKIN DAMAGE ASSESSMENT
HUMAN TISSUE STIMULATOR
COOL SUIT
PROGRAMMABLE PACEMAKER
OCULAR SCREENING
AUTOMATED URINALYSIS
MEDICAL GAS ANALYZER
VOICE-CONTROLLED WHEELCHAIR
Arteriosclerosis detection
Ultrasound scanners
Automatic insulin pump
Portable x-ray device
Invisible braces
Dental arch wire
Palate surgery technology
Clean room apparel
Implantable heart aid
MRI
Bone analyzer
Cataract surgery tools

Now does that alone justify the NASA budget? Maybe not. We could have probably developed that for less than NASA's budget, but keep in mind this is only the medical spin offs, there's plenty more in computers, industry, manufacturing, consumer / recreaction (like your digital camera and camcorder), environmental and resource management, transportation, and public safety, not to mention NASA's actual mission of scientific discovery. Knowledge is the big payoff.

Answer 2

'To boldly go where no man has gone before!"

I guess that the end results justify the means.
What I have seen listed above is rather exiting!
Just how did they do that? But THEY did.
I've said before that 'Area 51' has the answer(or had).

Let's look at it from this point of view - be patient with me.

We had Albert Einstein pontificating eventual truths about the space-time thing back when they were driving 'tin lizzies' and had dirt(mud) roads(what there were of them).

We had people working on the "A" bomb, when the rest of the world could barely feed itself.

Jet propulsion was about to appear from Germany, of all places, near the end of WW2.(Von Braun - America's eventual space program progenitor).

The dichotomy of all this astounds me(and no doubt copious amounts of other 'thinkers'). While most of the world
was 'wallowing' in some kind of major problem or another and most countries were basically still primitive(the now-dubbed 'western world' obviously was ahead), and Africa was still the 'dark continent', ALL THESE UNBELIEVABLE THINGS WERE BEING ACCOMPLISHED BY A FEW VIRTUALLY OUT OF THE BLUE!! To this day, it is to wonder where the h*ll did THEY get all the knowledge(especially Einstein) when the concepts they were dealing with were decades ahead of their time. SOMETHING FISHY THERE IN MY OPINION.
In 1948, they finally built a jet that could break the sound barrier(going downward and not too easily done). Prez Kennedy declares(at the embryonic stage of space technology) in the very early '60s the 'moon project' idea - read - space race with the USSR. IN '69 THEY'RE WALKING ON THE MOON FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!! It would have happened, but again where did this technology come from so fast??? OY!! FISHY, FISHY, FISHY.

Back to the funding thing - if you've got knowledge that no one else has no matter how you came by it - you gotta go for it! I personally have always believed there always has been an orignal 'starter' given by 'outsiders' to the powers that be in the USA(the USSR eventually 'stole' most of it).These outsiders came from somewhere else(ya laugh if you want to!). I can't get myself to believe that our more primitive minds at the given times in the '40s, '50s, and '60s could have come up with all this stuff without help( not human )! 'Nuff said.

Answer 3

Of course it's justified. So many people complain about the budget for the space program....most dont even know that the space program is less than 1% of the budget. The Medical applications alone are worth the cost, aside from all the other benefits of space exploration.

Answer 4

I'm still waiting for ANY medical advances from space. Last time I checked we didn't cure Polio with alien DNA or crack the human genome in zero G. About the only thing we figured out from the space programs was how many g-forces a human being could tolerate, and the only reason that's useful is to send more of them into space.

We did, however, invent the microcomputer during the Apollo missions, (well, we worked out a lot of the problems that ALLOWED us to invent the microcomputer later on,) and we've validated nearly everything Einstein has ever predicted from general relativity using space travel, from the clocks paradox to the precession of mercury's orbit to black holes. And none of that was really anticipated at the time.

Point is you don't get to cherry pick what science comes out of exploration and pure research. If you knew what advancements were going to come out of it ahead of time you wouldn't need to go there in the first place. You keep going into space, to the Moon, or Mars, or Europa for the same reason you investigate the genetics of HIV or smash protons together at CERN or develop a 10 GHz Pentium:

It's what's next.

Answer 5

The space programme is far from economical, by any measure, but it is justified for the simple reason that the earth will not always be here. So if you want the human race to survive into the distant future, you have to develop space travel. Doing anything else constitutes giving up on the species.

Answer 6

I dont think it can be properly justified because space travel especially somewhere like Mars takes a lot of fuel from resourses like nuclear power. The more powerful the substance fuel is the more it costs. And your're talking about hundreds of tons like say for nuclear power for space travel. It shall cost tens or hundreds in millions $ to produce and also reserch to take place in a suitable environment because of it's destructive properties.

Answer 7

Yes, the earth is too fragile a basket for us to put all our eggs into it. We need to explore and expand, or we are going to run out of room here very quickly. I personally would like to visit other worlds.

Answer 8

there are a lot of rare elements out there undiscovered that for example on mars that may be abled to be mined for use on earth.If the higher powers on this plantet are going to invest trillions of dollars to get to mar you know there going there for more than to sit on mar and wave a flag

Answer 9

well justified we will need to find a planet where we can live with the earths population increasing

Answer 10

im always comfused as to why we send rockets to space when there are so many unexplained mysteries to explore right here on Earth.