Is the space dream necessary? - 2

   Discovering new habitable planets is always a dream of scientists, and many scholars support this ambitious program. But now, a heated debate has arisen among the public whether planetary exploration is worth it. I stand on the opposition side of this debate. Below are my reasons and examples.

   Firstly, space and planetary exploration is not currently the most important thing for humanity. There are many problems in the world that are more urgent. I don’t mean to say that we should not invest in finding new planets, but the amounts should be very limited. There’s a priority of doing things, and that also applies to where governments should spend tax money. For example, there are many places in the world where children can not receive a good education – isn’t that more important than space exploration? There are many places in the world where there is barely enough fresh water. Shouldn’t that receive more attention? The environment and the ecosystem of our planet are on the brink of complete collapse. Shouldn’t that be taken into consideration? Extra-planetary exploration is important, but it is currently not vital to the survival of humankind. Only when we largely solve all the major issues of today’s world, can we devote more money into discovering new planets.

   Secondly, it is too risky to spend large sums of money in space or planetary exploration. Nobody can guarantee that any space programs will succeed, at least for now. Therefore, any catastrophes can happen at any time. If a government invests a billion USD into sending probes to nearby planets, or trying to send rockets to Mars, those plans can easily fail. That’s a billion dollars wasted; worse still, it’s a billion dollars of possible irreplaceable resources wasted. We should wait until technology improves and economies become more mature and stable.

   Admittedly, I am not saying that investing in sending spacecraft into the universe is a bad idea with no advantages. Indeed, a country can benefit a lot once we have the ability to discover and reach hospitable new planets. But today, that is still far out of reach.

   To sum up, spending large amounts of money on sending spacecraft to explore new planets is a risky and ambitious idea. It might harm a country’s economic power, and there are famous examples in the past that prove the relatively small return on these investments. Thus, a country should consider carefully before making such decisions, so as to minimize the damage of unwise decisions.