Mony should be spent oin other things besides space exploration?

Question

What other things could it be spent on? Why are they better?

I've already come up with a small list but would love to see what you huys come up with.

sorry about the typos, spelling lesons isn;t what I'm looking for

this is for school, so don't blame me about it being a dud question

I'm down under (in Oz) so more global answers would be appreciated, sven if Nasa might as well be the world space assotiotion

no need to all jump at me, itt's a question every one in my class needs to do for HW

Answer 1

Yes you are right GPS is totally useless, as is corning ware, titanium, aluminum engine blocks, the portable video camera, the transistor and so much more technology is pointless and a waste of time we should all go back to using steam powered locomotives and the horse and buggy.

We also don't need plastics, advanced cooling systems, computers, satellite TV, satellite phones, satellite news coverage, and computers are also useless. We don’t need improved batteries, lithium batteries, and the entire space tourist trade is a waste of money. Spaceship one should never have flown and we should ground all our airplanes tomorrow and force people to start walking.

I am tired of people looking at the space program and seeing it as a waste. They don’t realize that it was the biggest spur to technological growth and development since WW2, and the cost in human lives was a lot less.

Until the Apollo program the standard TV camera looked like the ones that TV stations still use and is as tall as a man. But, an astronaut couldn’t carry that much weight so the portable camera was invented.

GPS technology has done everything from change how a farmer plants his crops to making land navigation and survey so much easier. It has made pin point weapons possible and even allows us to locate each other with our cell phones.

I like my satellite TV and without the space program I wouldn’t have access to hundreds of channels, like I do now. I also wouldn’t be able to see live new casts from overseas or see reports from other nations.

The computer was designed first to assist in calculations needed to predict the path of cannon shells, the improvement in them which lead to the PC you are currently using was a result of a direct need by the space program to get a smaller computer to help navigate the Apollo spacecraft and to let the LEM land on the moon. Currently the digital watch with an alarm has as much memory as the LEM’s computer had.

Corning ware which allows us to have glass pots to cook in is a result of the need for improved heat shields for our capsules. Both titanium and aluminum were first used in space craft to lighten the load, very critical in space travel. Now they are used in aircraft and cars to make them lighter and so improve performance.

What people like you don’t understand is that necessity is the mother of invention. The simple invention of radar was a minor curiosity before WW2, it wasn’t trusted and when the troops manning a set detected the incoming Japanese Raid on Pearl Harbor they were told to ignore it and turn it off. Buy the end of the war we were using it to land our plans in the dark or fog, predict where our artillery shells would land and determine if an invading force is approaching. Today you can find radar on automatically opening doors, catching speeders (or avoiding speed traps), alerting bus drivers to some one in their blind spot and allowing most commercial jets to fly safely. It also used to aim our weapons, detect incoming missiles and to navigate. It was the NEED of the war that caused the advance in technology.

The space program may have been started because of political needs, but it resulted in the greatest surge in technology since WW2 and like I said it cost less lives. We made so many advancements because of the space program that is impossible to list all of them here. What blinds you to this is that you don’t care about the new discoveries made on Mars, that Quasars are actually black holes emitting gamma ray bursts or that the new Web Space Telescope can see further than ever not only in space, but back in time toward the big bang. I am interested in these things and I know a lot about them. So far they are abstract, but when we use up this planet and start looking for another home that knowledge won’t seem so abstract.

In 1962 Arthur C. Clarke first envisioned the communication satellite, now days I use one every single day. You use one when you make long distance phone calls, look at Google maps or listen to a news report from another nation.

NASA has made an impact on the car you drive, the squeezable juice pack you drink, the cookware you use (including Teflon), and the very carpet you walk on. You just don’t realize that. What we need are more technological challenges that we can all get behind, like making greener power sources, redesigning the car so it doesn’t pollute and finding a way to get our power without dumping greenhouse gases into the air. We have the need, but blind people who insist on still driving their gas guzzling SUVs are too stupid to realize it. Is the space program expensive, yes, but you get a whole lot of bang for the buck. The solution isn’t to go backwards but to go forward. I think that it is too early to start planning a mission to Mars, we need to do more work to make sure we have a significant mission and that the astronauts can survive. We need to reach the moon again though, and we need to work on exploiting it. We also need to work on technology to avoid asteroid impacts with the earth. The chances of another asteroid, like the one that killed the dinosaurs, hitting us are 100%. It will happen; it is only a matter of time. Currently, if we found one on the way we wouldn’t be able to do anything to stop it. All our nuclear missiles would just blow it around a little and spread the resulting destruction over a wider area. Those missiles don’t fly anywhere high enough or carry a bomb large enough to do the job.

But, not to worry people are working on the problem; Sky Watch is going strong, although it is only run by amateurs and people are working on technology to shift dangerous asteroids from a fatal impact. Keep your eyes peeled for Apothis which is a huge asteroid due to approach the Earth in the year 2029. It will come so close that it will fly under our weather satellites. There is a less than 1 in 35,000 chance that it might circle around and hit us in the year 2039. The danger is real and well known, but most intelligent people. Which category; intelligent, not intelligent, seeing the future, or blind you belong to is one I will leave to you to answer. I don’t want to insult you and my essay may have made you realize that the space program isn’t so worthless after all.

Even at the height of the Apollo program the spending by NASA was less than $1.00 per year, I think we can afford that. There are other things I would like to do such as not pay farmers to not grow crops, but that is for another essay. Or how about NOT funding the corn into ethanol program, which can be replaced by grasses and algae that produce 4 times as much ethanol and lets the valuable corn be used to feed us and our cattle (which is the reason why you are paying more for beef and milk this winter). You are right there are better ways to spend our money, but NOT by cutting the funding to NASA. Unless of course you don't think that something as valuable as weather prediction and hurricane tracking is important.

Okay, forget NASA, think about the International Space Station and think that without satellites you would have only local programming to watch on TV, you would also have no idea when a major storm is approaching, and people lost in the Outback would be dead with no hope to get back. You can also forget making long distance phone calls and that is just from satellites.

Answer 2

Space exploration is an important thing to do, for national security. I don't think we are spending too much on it.

The thing that we are spending too much on is the Pentagon. We spend 5 times more than any other country on war. That is way too much; we could have universal health care and still spend more than any other country on war. However, we should not be spending money on war at all. I believe in the words of Teddy Roosevelt: "Walk softly and carry a big stick". We should have universal conscription where every able person between the ages of 18 and 25 are required to spend 6 months in the military learning how to protect America if we are attacked.

Answer 3

There will always be starving, sick, and dying people. Throwing money at the problem might be a short term fix but it isn't the answer. You will soon be out of money and have more starving, sick, and dying people than you began with.

Now consider this. The money invested in the space program, goes largely to observe our own Earth. Because of the space program we can much better predict the weather, see which areas are prone to certain natural disasters, etc.

Maybe you need to investigate the benefits of the space program more closely.

Answer 4

NASA's budget is less than 1% of the total federal budget. If anything, funding should be increased. You want to cut federal spending? Start with the military, they're getting the lion's share. And for what? $800 toilet seats. $600 hammers. Billion dollar bombers to go stir up trouble that nobody wants. Space exploration is vital to the future of humanity; there is no better way to spend our money.

Answer 5

Throwing money at a problem like substandard educational system is not the answer or for any other way society falls short.
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The budget for NASA is 6/10th of 1 per cent of the U.S. budget. We spend far more on education, foreign aid, and other social programs. Space research has saved millions of lives through early detection of severe weather and communications in time of disaster.
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Answer 6

You are extremely short sighted. Many medicines have come from space research not to mention the microwave oven and most of the new safety features found on airplanes. The space program allows us to orbit satellites for national defense,weather planning, cable tv and cell phones. So which of these items do you propose to give up in order to spend the money elsewhere?

Answer 7

DO YOUR OWN HOMEWORK.

But considering that essentially nothing gets spent on space exploration there's probably not much you could do with the money (NASA's yearly budget wouldn't even run the Iraq mess for a day).

Answer 8

The U.S. military spends about as much in a week and a half as NASA spends in an entire year. Maybe the question should be about spending money on things other than warfare.

Answer 9

More money is spent on gas for SUVs, look:

"Add to that an increase in renewable fuels use and oil demand for cars and trucks could drop more than 20 percent by 2020, saving consumers almost $40 billion per year - as well as cutting billions of tons of global warming pollution."
from http://beyondoil.nrdc.org/cars

"For comparison, NASA's FY 2008 budget of $17.3 billion represents about 0.6% of the $2.9 trillion United States federal budget."
from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_budget

Answer 10

Spelling lessons for people who post on Yahoo Answers.

Answer 11

I cannot stand the amount of money spent on the space program (US) when there are so many other better places to spend it such as education, proverty, crime within the US. I also would like to see this money spent to help others in need such as those in Darfur.