Is Islam holding back man's conquest of space?

Answer 1

I'm going to assume your question implies that the time and resources spent combating the forces of radical Islam could have been spent on space exploration, and therefore Islam is to blame for a perceived lull in human space exploration. While it is true the Global War on Terror has eaten up resources, I do not think it is fair to blame an entire religion for the reaction chosen to respond to the actions of a few terrorists. Ignorant criminals, whether they be Islamic jihadists on a plane or rabid fundamentalist Christians bombing abortion clinics, are definitely a setback for mankind that sadly must be dealt with.

I really do not think our having to deal with them has impeded our ability to explore space. We have made tremendous advancements in robotic exploration and we know far more about our planet, our solar system, our galaxy and our universe than we ever seriously thought we would even in the glory-days of the Apollo program. What is limiting our ability to do more sexy manned exploration missions to bodies farther than the moon is physics and technology. Sure more money would help advancements proceed more quickly, but we are so far away from a 'conquest' of space it is laughable to think that anything that has occurred in our lifetime has prevented it. Probably one of the most notable setbacks for humanity was Europe's stumble during the dark ages, during which Islam actually carried the torch of culture and science until The Renaissance.

Answer 2

How? No one is stopping you from jumping into space, except gravity. The only thing holding us back is that we are not working hard enough at getting to space. Instead we are busy building weapons to fight each other instead of building rockets to fly to space.

Answer 3

How? No one is stopping you from jumping into space, except gravity. The only thing holding us back is that we are not working hard enough at getting to space. Instead we are busy building weapons to fight each other instead of building rockets to fly to space.

Answer 4

Interesting question!!! I don't love long answers, but this question is important, so let's take a few minutes think carefully. First of all, I assume that you are really asking about the aberrant actions of a few "radical Islam terrorists" as opposed to the normal peaceful practice of the mainstream religion. Given that, your question addresses the interplay between space exploration & fighting terrorism. These are two large scale activities which are mainly conducted by governments. The best way (maybe the only way) to understand the priorities of governments is in terms of funding. In other words 'follow the money'.

So, for clarity, let's reframe the question this way: "Does fighting terrorism impede man's conquest of space?” Or put in terms of funding, we should ask this: “Does the fight on terrorism absorb funding which could otherwise be used to advance man’s conquest of space?”

Of course, the answer is yes. When you put known facts together, the answer to your question becomes sort of self explanatory. All you have to do is look at the funding impact that terrorism has produced. If that amount of funding could have made a significant difference in our efforts to explore space; the answer has to be “Yes, terrorism has interfered with our exploration of space.”


Here are some reasons. Let’s start with this: Mankind’s conquest of space is a "discretionary" effort. In other words, we do it because we want to, not because we have to. It is not required for our near-term survival. It is not essential to help us maintain a safe orderly society. Still, our human drive to explore motivates us to do it anyway. It's like climbing Mt Everest, or Olympic sports. Such efforts separate us from the animals, and we do them just because we can. But in the end, space exploration is discretionary, and non-discretionary spending trumps discretionary spending in terms of priority every time. Also, keep in mind that non-discretionary budgets are higher than discretionary budgets – usually a lot higher

On the other hand, combating global terrorism is "non-discretionary." We have to do it to maintain a safe, orderly society. ((Of course there will always be a few lunatics running around with their brains unbuttoned who can’t understand this concept. Some will want to seriously debate whether or not we can tolerate coordinated airplane attacks on buildings, organized car bombings and random homicide bombers. Meanwhile, those of us who have not yet gone completely out of our minds will treat this as a given and move on.))

Politics aside, the US congress knows that protecting the country is a non-discretionary effort. That’s why the Department of Defense is well funded. Terrorism impacts this so directly that the DoD has listed ''fighting the war on terrorism' as their number one objective since 2001. Also, terrorism is the sole reason the Department of Homeland Security was established. .


By now it should seem like just a formality, but let’s have a look at a few funding numbers that help us the size up just a part of the impact of terrorism. According to the Office of Management and Budget, the current budget for the Department of Defense is a little over $400B. Again, the DoD calls fighting terrorism their top priority. But some one will say, ‘you can’t count the entire DoD budget. So how much of that was in response to terrorism?"

Again, according to the OMB, the DoD budget increase 35% since 2001. That mean this year’s budget is ~$130B more than the 2001 budget. But the DoD does other things too, so let's be generous and say only half the increase (~$65B) can be directly attributed to the response to terrorism. The DHS, on the other hand, was set up 100% as a response to terrorism. The current DHS budget is over $40B annually. Adding DHS with only half the DoD increase adds up to over $100B per year. Of course DoD and DHS spending account for only a fraction of the true impact of terrorism, but let’s use that $100B figure as a basis for comparison.

So, what we spend on man’s conquest of space? Last year, the entire NASA budged was less than $17B. That means the number we estimated as a small fraction of the impact of terrorism is well over 5 times as much as the whole NASA budget. If we wanted to more reasonably claim the entire difference in the DoD budget as an impact our factor of 5 doubles and becomes a factor of 10. In other words, with no DHS budget, and without the increased DoD spending, we could afford to fund 10 more NASAs – or one NASA with 11 times the budges.

Again, the numbers I am using are intentionally smaller than they should be. So the answer is clearly yes. Terrorism has a real and true impact on space exploration. And I, for one, think it’s a real shame.

Answer 5

Islam is presently trying to take us back to the Crusades. They cant even behave like adults,they want to judge every one.

Answer 6

no way at all.................
infact quran the holy book of muslims ......has discussed the space stars which are being proved by science too...
i dont have the exacxt verse but it invites man kind to explore space and .......
for a detailled study into it ..try ..www.mta.org.....
and if u study history ..many good mathematicians and scientists have been muslim and europe has specially benefitted from their knowledge ....

Answer 7

no no body say so واصعدوا ولاتصعدوا الا بسلطان.

Answer 8

No.