Some of the most expensive things that the U.S.A invested on were tools
and structures for space exploration. Many people wonder why they invest so
much money on just space exploration, when they can invest so much more on
trying to end world hunger, or not to invest money to help cure cancer. Those
two problems, we can’t live with much longer unless we find a solution, but we
can live without investing to much money on space exploration. I mean, we can
throw up a couple of space probes or satellites to see what’s
going on, but not so consistently. Some of our space “tools” that we invested
in, were made in several different country’s. In all, imagine having to give
the money to just transport the huge space device piece by piece back to the US
to get it put together! Even thought we have the
amount of money needed for Space explorations, some of it might be wasted
money, because of all the things that could go wrong while creating a satellite
in Space, instead we could divide the money so that it helps people who
actually need the help instead of spending it all on space.
I
agree with the fact that space exploration can help us decrease the amount of
pollution and population of the Earth if we find a way for humans to survive in
space. I like the fact that scientists are trying to find out new information
about space because it is convenient. If there is anyone to blame for all the
destruction, it's us, not mother nature, so instead of trying to blame other
things for our mistakes, we should try to solve them. Even thought space
exploration can be expansive, I think it is necessary because if we don’t have
it, we wont be able to explore the rest of our solar system, and people
wouldn’t be able to live up in space.
My opinion on sending other humans on to
other planets is that they should go but only if they are doing test to see if
we can do anything on those planets, meaning earth based research. The only
thing I disagree on is sending so many of us, up there, and then if one thing
goes wrong, there all gone, and then what? We will send up a couple other lab
rats to risk their lives for science? These kind of scientists don’t just come
and go, they either come and stay, or never come. Sending us up into
space is only worth the money and time if we actually collect some data about a
planet/moon/ etc. Since science is a designed for humans to explore, having
humans on more planets equals more science.
Even though it is currently cost A LOT to research about
other planets. Why are we then sending humans into space? To learn about how
people survive long term up in space? Or are we just sending them up there so
they can experiment on other things? There are some advantages. Machines can only relay data, where as humans
can do more, like feelings and opinion. For example from the ISS astronauts
take photos, many of them do because they consider the scene to be beautiful,
but a machine could not do this. Also humans can react and adapt to situations.
If something goes wrong on a mission where only humans are on aboard, they can
do a lot more than machines to fix the problem or situation they are in. For
example on mars the spirit rover got stuck and cannot be contacted any more and
NASA have officially given up. If the rover was not there alone, the humans
could help the rover, even if that required using equipment for a purpose it
wasn't designed for.
Unlike robots, we can make intellectual
decisions, and not decisions that we were made to do. Now, you might be
thinking, why not just send a couple of robots or machines to help them up in
space, well, the reason for this is, the speed of light. It takes about 16
hours to receive a message from voyager and about 1 day and 16 hours to send a
message back. I found this which is very interesting “communications to mars
take 10-20 minutes,” this is more than enough time for a rover to fall down a
crater or cliff, so real time control is impossible. Although robots are cool,
they still need some working on. They have a long way to go to get to our
stage.
If I was to make a decision, was to make a list of my top priorities as a
member of congress, this is a little what my list would look like,
1.
Health care/hospitals/medical
research + facilities
2.
Providing a
healthy learning environments/learning facilities for all students
3.
Providing food,
water, shelter(housing) for every citizen.
4.
Having equal
right
5.
Military
6.
Space
exploration
The reason I would put health care/hospitals/medical research +
facilities at 1st is because I wouldn’t just set it aside for
anything else. I mean, if anything we need more than just finding out new
solutions to our new problems, we need to figure out solutions to our old
problems first and then build up to the present problems. Like for an example,
we haven’t found a cure for cancer yet, if we do, billions of people will be
able to live a happy, stable, and secure life. Many people in the past have
tried to find the solution t cure cancer and other harmful diseases, its not that
they just didn’t want to find out the answer, they can, but they don’t have the
right resources, facilities, and other tools to help them figure out the answer.
This is why I want to put health care, medical research, and medical facilities
at my number one priority.
Now, the reason that I put space exploration at my 6th choice,
is because all of the choices in the 1st, 2nd, 3rd,
4th, and 5th places are much more important than space
exploration. Even thou I think space exploration is pretty cool and I think
that it would be worth while spending a little money on it, I don’t think that
it should be on the top 5 list of priorities for a government to decide on. It
could definitely be in the top ten categories, because if you think about it,
if there is any leftover money that the government wants to do something worthwhile
with, I would spend it on space exploration. For an example, if I were a part
of a government, I would have a budget that NASA could spend in 5 years total,
then after 5 years they get a fresh budget! If they still have money in the
budget then the 5th yearly money will add on to it, so they can
either save up for a big project, or take it slow. That would be my proposal to
any government who has trouble with this.
In conclusion, I think that space exploration should be allowed, but to
only give NASA a limited budget for so many years, that way, they have to be a
little bit more careful with how they spend their money. Sometimes I wonder if
we are actually making a good choice on weather we should cut NASA’s budget or
not, weather we are making a good choice of taking peoples lives and putting
them at risk for the sake of science. Although we might be making a good or bad
choice, we will soon find out if we made a mistake or if we could change the
future.
