The United States had already spent more than 900 billion dollars on space exploration in the last 56 years since the creation of NASA in 1958. But despite this, space exploration is still worth the cost. But why?
Human Technology
Space exploration is the key to the numerous advancements in human technology. It has opened up a remarkable amount of new principles of the cures to crucial diseases in medical research. For example, according to NASA, LED technology was invented to accomplish plant growth experiments in space. This LED technology contributed greatly to the development of WARP 75, which is a medical device that relieves minor injuries and pain by promoting muscle relaxation and increasing blood circulation. The technology of the WARP 75 brings advantages to humans by curing diseases such as arthritis, bone atrophy, multiple sclerosis, diabetic complications, and Parkinson’s disease. Yet, this cure would have never existed in the modern world if there is no space exploration.
On the other hand, space exploration has also contributed immensely to the public safety of the world by bringing high tech apparatus into human’s daily life. For example, when NASA was still operating with the Apollo experiments, the Avco Cooperation built and designed a heat shield for the spacecraft, which functions by forming a protective coating to block the strong heat penetration and prevent burn-off. The future innovation of steel coatings, which were devised to make high buildings and provide them with a tough insulating layer that has 4 hours of fire protection, were based on these protective coatings. The invention of steel coatings benefits humans by slowing the collapse of buildings so that humans would have more time to escape during emergencies. All of these feats in technology that space exploration brought to the world has not only benefited humans as an individual, but also have profited countries as a whole.
From the bar graph “Which Countries Spend the Most on Space Exploration”, it is depicted that the money gained from space exploration takes up a percentage of 0.25 percent and 0.23 percent on the GDP of two countries who had invested the most in space exploration, Russia and the United States of America. Taking up a percentage of 0.23 in the United States' GDP is equal to 42,826 billion dollars in the 18.62 trillion dollars that the United States earn per year, which is a significant amount. This shows that the innovations that space exploration brought to the world can benefit countries by helping them earn money and greatly affecting their GDP.
National Security
The world's national security has also benefited greatly from space exploration. For example, one important factor of space exploration is international cooperation because a consortium of nations will conduct better programs than just a single nation. The international cooperation carried out between nations during space exploration benefits the world’s national security because when nations combine resources and competencies, they will be tied in a web of trust and create dependencies on each other. These nations will then share many of their own data such as Earth observations, climate change, and environmental phenomena to each other. This causes nations to occupy more accurate data and inform them of upcoming danger. At the same time, this will also enhance a good relationship between the nations so that they will come to the help of each other during mutual dangers.
Meanwhile, space exploration helps energize the aerospace industrial base that supports national security. This base's function is to explore technological, budgetary, and policy issues of the air and space domains. The national security of a country can be divided into 3 main groups: space security, air dominance, and long-range strike, and commercial and civil space. These 3 kinds of security can all only be detected through the aerospace industrial base, therefore, this makes the development of these bases significantly important to the nation because without these eyes in the air, the nation will be blind from all that is happening that threatens their national security.
Deniers of Space Exploration
Even though a majority of the people believe that it is imperative for NASA to be involved in space exploration, but there is still 38 percent of the Americans who oppose space exploration. Deniers toward space exploration debates that space exploration is not worth the cost because of the high risk of sending humans rather than just robots into space. They support their claim by using the fact that 19 astronauts had died from the years 1964 to 2003 during space flights. This claim is faulty because statistics have shown that all the people who had died during space flights died because of either technical problems or in an incident.
For example, the death of the seven people of the Space Shuttle Challenger on January 28, 1986, was purely due to a technical problem where cold launch temperatures cause the failure of the O-rings on one of the solid rocket motors which consequence a major structural failure of the launch vehicle 73 seconds after liftoff. This example supports how the death of many astronauts are due to rare coincidences that do not directly relate to the process of space exploration itself.
Moving on, in order to lower the risk of space exploration, most of the individuals that go into space are astronauts and cosmonauts that undergo rigorous training and preparation for the mission assigned. This high leveled selection of people for space makes sure that the whole exploration process will be carried out safely.
Conclusion
In conclusion, space exploration brought unimaginable advancements to the world’s technology in both medical research and public safety. Moreover, it also brings national security to the world through international cooperation and the aerospace industrial base. This is why the investigation in space should be continued and considered worthy. John F Kennedy once said, “This country was conquered by those who move forward, and so will space.” People’s investment in space exploration will only improve people’s lives by creating a better world for the future.
Bibliography
AirSafe.com, LLC. (2019, January 4). Deaths Associated with US Space Programs. Retrieved September 26, 2020 from www.airsafe.com/events/space/astrofat.htm.
CSIS Reporter. (2019, April 23). Aerospace Security Project. Retrieved September 26, 2020 from www.csis.org/programs/international-security-program/aerospace-security-project.
Fowler, Wallace. (2014, July 12). Exploring Space Is Still Worth the Cost, Says UT Expert. Retrieved September 26, 2020 from www.alcalde.texasexes.org/2014/07/exploring-space-is-still-worth-the-cost-says-ut-expert/.
Kruse, Richard. (2009). Space Exploration Quotes. Retrieved September 26, 2020 from www.historicspacecraft.com/quotes.html.
Lockney, Dan. (2009). NASA Technologies Benefit Our Lives. Retrieved September 26, 2020 from www.spinoff.nasa.gov/Spinoff2008/tech_benefits.html.
Logsdon, John. (2019, April 17). Space Exploration. Retrieved September 26, 2020 from www.britannica.com/science/space-exploration.
Oleson, Gary. (2012, December 31). NASA Is Essential for National Security. Retrieved September 26, 2020 from www.thespacereview.com/article/2210/1.
Written by Never Is Forever
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