Space Exploration. Do mankinds really need it?

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Space exploration had been happened since the Cold War. It firstly started between the USA and the USSR (Russia). At that time, both superpowers countries wanted to be the best in the ‘space race’. But after 1970s, USSR stopped all of their programs related with space exploration because they were lack of financial resources, due to the big amount needed for the investment on space exploration. Therefore, USA had no opponent to beat, since then the U.S. government asked NASA to begin to reduce their investment on space exploration. On January 14, 2004, President George W. Bush announced that the fundamental goal of space exploration was to advance U.S. scientific, security and economic interests through a space exploration program. I believe that space exploration do not overweigh the massive cost that involved. Even tough, there are billions of people on Earth who are struggling hard just simply to live.

Space exploration has brought mankind a lot of benefits. For example, the satellite functions in communication. Without the existence of satellites, it would be possible for mankind to communicate inter continent, to predict about the weather in a specific region on a period of time, and also to use the GPS as a navigation system. If there were no space exploration, there would be no satellites. Imagine how difficult it is when mankind has to use land transportation just to send message to another in a different continent and how if there is no prediction of tomorrow’s weather, should we bring an umbrella or not? That’s simply the day-to-day mankind question.

Yet, some people believe that the launching of satellites is different than the space exploration. The launching of satellites, nowadays are mostly commercial. They are launched by private companies and the cost of satellites itself is maintained by the profits which they lead to. While, true space exploration is subsidized by the government and could never be commercial.

However, despite the amount of money that seems to overweigh, (According to NASA’s budget request on 2007, the total amount needed for space exploration is around $16,000 million per year), mankind has been brought a lot of indirect benefit by the space exploration. For example, the indirect benefits are the development of micro-chip and the modern computer, the practical fuel-cells as a power source, and also the effects of zero-gravity in understanding the human body.

In conclusion, even though the amount of money seems to be really massive, there are plenty of benefits that are able to use by mankind, which some of them are priceless. In order to advance mankind’s financial statements, also to advance the technologies and security to keep our Earth clean and peace, space exploration is still needed for a couple years ahead.

The Benefits of Space-age Space Project Super Spending

(by: Erik Sentosa – 10203073)

Space exploration and observation programs, undeniable, have spent a large portion of finances. Those who own space exploration programs are usually highly-developed countries. Even though it’s expensive, it’s still considerably reasonable spending for it for some reasons. Devices and techniques from the space exploration continue to make our lives better. Space objects like telecommunication, weather and remote-sensing satellite have delivered large contribution to mankind even though they come neither easy nor cheap.

Space exploration and observation programs are also considered as investment by some countries that advanced in this technology. United States of America has number of satellites around the world to gain military, security, agricultural, energy and social information from the remote sensing satellites. It gives US another sensor to settle governmental policy in US diplomatic act.

Another prospective benefit in space exploration and observation programs is it delivers new technology from interplanetary observations such as Mars exploration. Although it’s still a long shot, it gives mankind expectation to find another planet to live after earth desolation because of environmental issues. It also helps scientists synthesize new theories, or just helps scientists to conform and confirm scientific theories that found in this world.

However, these costly projects in space exploration become unreasonable when they don’t deliver any development in a certain time. That’s why the government of respective countries demands specific results in a sharp time-frame and cost. Although it’s expensive, if considerably beneficial, it’s a go.