Can you explain how people justify spending millions of dollars on space exploration when the earth has so many problems?

It’s the future. Space is fascinating. The Earth, whilst wonderful, is just a blip in time that will eventually just burn itself out – then where we gonna live?!?

I agree with you. I think the fact that space exploration costs so much is a reflection of how, clearly, we don’t have the technology to do it yet.

I don’t think we should stop it entirely but certainly cut back.

If this is in reference to the recent OCO mishap, I just want to offer my opinion for the apparent “waste” of millions. The satellite was supposed to monitor carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide is the major greenhouse gas in our atmosphere. While there are a number of ground based monitoring stations on earth, they don’t provide us with nearly enough information about the sources of carbon dioxide, and the “sinks” of this gas (where the gas is consumed, or lost). This satellite would have provided us in the atmospheric science community with valuable information regarding this important gas, and its implications for climate change, and life on earth. The failure of this mission is a very sad thing for us atmospheric scientists.
I don’t think there is any science that is not worthy of being invested in, and carried out. The only way to advance our technology and experience with these things is to actually do them. That’s what science is all about.

Sorry, but I will NEVER agree with sacrificing the present to the future. The future never does arrive.

Here’s another way to phrase your question that hits a bit closer to home. How can you justify spending money on anything for yourself (clothes, restaurants, gasoline) when there are children dying in Africa every day?

The simple fact is that we are not responsible for everyone’s suffering. Sometimes people who are suffering are the ones who need to break out of it themselves (compare Africa which received a lot of $ in aid to China who did not receive anything – Africa is even more of a corrupt place and no real progress has been made, but China is developing quickly and has a quickly growing middle class).

Furthermore, space exploration creates a lot of technology that has other uses in our day to day lives. I elaborated on this in a previous thread. To make a vast simplification, it was because the Soviets put Sputnik in space that the Internet exists today.

@tinyfaery: I don’t understand your last point. I don’t believe in sacrificing the present for the future, either. Why does one have to have precedence over the other? Money is set aside for scientific endeavor and research, just as money is set aside for world aide and serving the community.

I refer to my previous answer – I meant that eventually the sun will burn itself out and without it’s light, all life on Earth will die. This is unless something happens prior to that ofcourse.

At work. I’ll post during my break.

Well like dynamicduo pointed out the development that goes into space exploration has generated tons of things that we use today. Live television, meteorology, navigation, fuel cells, space platforms continuously monitor our environment, some medical technological advances, robotics, materials (mainly lightweight composite stuff), laptops, weapons, etc. If you just look at it as space exploration I would agree with you that the billions of dollars we give NASA is a waste, but when you look at the technological advances that NASA does make it all becomes relevant to how we live our every day lives.

We have to get off this rock…and soon. So anyone who attempts anything that could further this goal, my hats off to ya!

On a side note, if we cured all the forms of Cancer TODAY, we would improve the life span of the average human by ONLY 2–4 years…there’s some munchies for thought.

@cyrusbond: Uh, I’m not sure exactly why “we have to get off this rock”. We have problems here, but it is nothing that can’t be fixed. I think it’s time we all stopped this mentality of “if it’s broke, there’s no way we can fix it”, and actually try to change what we screwed up.

And one last thing: “space exploration” as some of you have hinted at is not all about looking for places where we can live. Others have said it above, but I suggest doing some research of your own and looking into NASA’s projects to see what it is they do most of the time.

To take our minds off of everything else going on in the United States. I heard thts why NASA and all that was made, to bring up morale.

^^Is this really the way some of you think about science? Ugh. I give up.

@Les…are you serious?! I have one thing you need to look up- SpaceX. Elon Musk achieved a personal spacecraft launch AND orbit after 4 tries. For a 1/8 of the budget of NASA. NASA are nincomputs.

I’m looking at this a long term longevity issue…not of “patching a leaky bucket”.

You’re way off by a facter of 100’s. The NASA budget for this year is $4–5 billion. But that is just a sliver of the budget. The DOD’s part of the discretionary budget is 100 times that and that doesn’t even include most of the war costs that are not even included in this years budget.

Our budget deficit for 2008–2009 is going to be $400 billion not counting the war which could easily be $100 billion. Dropping NASA would save us about 1% of our deficit

We could save as much money as the entire NASA budget by cutting back on Pentagon secretaries for 1 day a month and let the officers get their own coffee. getting out of Iraq would save 25 times as much as getting out of space. Destruction or Exploration——do the math.

http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy09/pdf/budget/tables.pdf

Tinyfarey
The expense of the space program is often justified because of the advances the technology brings to our everyday life. Some examples of NASA inspired innovations include the mouse, lifeshears, grooved runways/highways, and a special chip for beast screenings.
I think space exploration is appropriate when times are good and we have the moneybut in the current economic climate, it is hard to justify the money spent.

The old ways of dealing with our problems are just not working. We need new insights, new technologies, new frontiers, new challenges.

Ok, but why do we need to know what the atmosphere is like on Mars, or if there is/was water? If we spent that money on protecting and salvaging our world, why would we need to know about Mars or anything in space for that matter.

I agree with cutting war spending, but why not NASA spending as well? If money was actually earmarked for exploration that actually makes sense, the money spent on frivolous exploration could be better spent.

As far as sacrificing the present to the future…well, the earth and all living things are suffering, studying whether or not Mars had/has water because it MIGHT tell us someting about our own planet means absolutely nothing.

Earth’s problems are engineered to be that way so that the few can feed off the backs of the many. @dynamicduo, not to pick on your response, but for example foreign aid delivered to African nations helps ensure their subjugation and is a convenient way to transfer “taxpayer dollars” to global corps such as Monsanto. Plus, it’s one of the levers that allows the western world to strip their natural resources for pennies on the dollar.

Just today, I’m reading that the U.S. is pledging 900 million to help rebuild Palestine. So “we” send aid and technology to defend and arm Israel, and now we’re going to spend a billion more to clean up their mess? In what universe does that make a lick of sense other than to guess that someone is making money (or garnering control) off both sides of the equation?

Or consider that we’re meant to wring our hands over global warming and greenhouse gases and our carbon footprint and taxing carbon, when clearly free energy or energy efficient technologies have been suppressed and withheld from the public. As soon as reasonable fuel efficiency is introduced, you hear mumblings from our new Transportation Secretary about taxing miles instead of gallons. Not to mention the fact that the largest consumer of fossil fuels on the planet is our military.

IMO, we’re just told a fraction of what happens with NASA and DOD money. I mean is it really reasonable to believe that we went to the moon multiple times 40 years ago and that ever since we’ve spent more and regressed in our capability? Or is it reasonable to suppose that, for example, there are assets “out there” that NASA or whomever doesn’t want to disclose to the public, so instead we get this soap opera of smaller successes and spectacular failures.

Did we really “lose” $2.3 trillion from the Pentagon budget just before 9/11 or is it more likely that money diverted toward a black budget or simply handed out to beltway bandits?

Is this really an accidental economic crisis that our leaders can’t seem to get a handle on or is it an orchestrated transfer of wealth (or consolidation of power) and a controlled demolition of the economy?

Are these problems organic and solvable if only we as a country could apply common sense or are we still complicit in building pyramids for the pharoah?

More directly to your question (and I wish I could find the documentary that talks about it), but occupation of space is the next arms race and gold rush. Military control of space is the next h-bomb, since so much technology is based on satellites and because weapons deployed from space offer obvious advantages. Plus, it opens up the possibility to control who enters and exits the earth’s atmosphere and orbit.

Further, profitmaking operations in space are geared up to be the next e-commerce. For example, “off world” mining operations would be subject to no regulation or tax under current law. Wouldn’t it be great for corps if they could get the government to do all the R & D and then turn things over for corps to make a profit?

AH! Here’s the video. This is a more direct answer to your question.

similar question, my answer is there.