Should Money Be Spent On Space Exploration?

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According to a survey done by Phillips & Company in 2013, 71 percent of Americans believe the prospect of putting humans on Mars will happen by the year 2033. What some are unaware of is the disappointing fact that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration does not have close to the funding required to help reach that goal. The question is whether or not Americans want money to be put into space exploration or if they do not believe it is worth it. Space exploration has brought many great discoveries and new technologies, helped us understand the universe and get closer to answering life’s biggest questions, and in the end the survival of humanity depends on it.
The work that NASA does might be about space, but there have been numerous discoveries and technologies invented as a result of the space exploration program that are used in everyday lives of people on Earth. For example, without NASA there would not be scratch resistant lenses. According to the Space Foundation, “NASA's Dr. Ted Wydeven of the Ames Research Center generated the technological seeds for the first scratch-resistant plastic lenses while working on a spacecraft water purification system.” His work was later continued into the development of astronaut space helmet visors as well as other various aerospace equipment that used plastic. This research was later used in collaboration with Foster-Grant to create scratch-resistant plastic lenses. NASA has also helped lead to the development and/or advancement of such technologies as freeze drying, cochlear implants, memory foam, water filters, and solar panels.
Space exploration gets us closer to answering life’s biggest mysteries. Everyone who has ever existed has been curious about where life started and w...

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...e, however, that we cannot act upon blind faith and must do something about our impending doom. Even those that are religious must agree that it cannot hurt to have a plan of action should we predict a large meteor hurdling towards Earth or the looming destruction of the Sun. In the end doing something is better than doing nothing, and giving up is not what the fate of humanity should end with.
Space exploration is not something that should be debatable. It should be something that is required. Many great discoveries have come from it, many of life’s biggest questions answered, and the fate of humanity rests upon it. Now is the time to take action, to stand up for what is right. Letting money stand between our species survival and advancement would be a foolish thing to do. Unless space exploration continues and raises enough funding, we have failed as a species.

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