Arguments against

Space Exploration

(or "Why there's no point?")



This page is divided in two sets of arguments:

What for?
Why we don't need Space Exploration
Too costly!
How much more? How many more

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You are the to read these arguments



























What's Space Exploration for?!

Space exploration is usually declared to be the "Final Frontier", the next step in human scientific evolution. Those that defend it state that Earth is no longer a mystery, that all that is to know is already known; since Man needs constant challenges, Space becomes the next obvious step.

This is not true

There is still much to discover about out planet. A good deal of the Earth's Ocean's are still a mystery, Antarctica is an almost unknown continent, the rain forests are still full of secrets... there are still many secrets to unveil on this planet, no need to go look somewhere else. Even in basic lab research there is still a lot to do: diseases to cure, crops to improve, pollution to control...

Many people turn to the glory and fame of Space Exploration not for the purpose of science but simply because they don't want to have to handle the daily problems that have to be solved down here, problems that are often dirty, ugly, expensive and not very glamorous, the problems that evoke the phrase "It's a dirty job but someone has got to do it"; the kind of jobs that we usually avoid doing until (sometimes) it's too late...

Artificial Satellites are useful, productive and lucrative tools, but no visit-to-Mars is necessary for this! No expensive, dangerous and difficult to use Space Shuttle is necessary to orbit a satellite. The space station is another example of a lot of money wasted on something that will, almost certainly, be of limited value, if any.


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How much more and how many more?!

The costs of the various space exploration programs are staggering. The Apollo program, a useless political stunt whose sole purpose was to upstage the USSR and had no practical results even to the space program, cost 20 Billion $US (of the time!), with the development of the Saturn V alone taking 9.3 Billion. The Hubble telescope is a good example of the wastage and mismanagement of the space program. This flying telescope, that does nothing but gaze at stars, was sent up defective! How, with all the hi-tech involved, could something like this happen? Millions had to be spend to repair it. Now, it's eating up almost 2.5 Billion (Space Telescope Science Institute):

Development cost $1.5 Billion
Building and testing of replacement instruments, ground operations + first servicing mission $251 Million
Budget from FY96: mission operations, data analysis, planning, developing new instruments and future servicing missions $226.2 Million
Mission operations, data analysis for 25 continuing space science missions for FY99 $526.6 Million

The new International Space Station is another good example. The budget for it has increased drramatically since first design and it's allready at 60 Billion (International Space Station). It's purpose? To provide a base for future long duration missions. Expensive dreams to feed other dreams.

The Voyager probe, a lump of science instruments, fired off into deep space, cost a total of $895 Million. What was the purpose of this craft? Maybe offer a music album to any passing ETs...

What about the SETI? What is the purpose of this? To listen to little green men?! The budget for this is about $5 Million per year (ET phone home...). Hundreds of millions of dollars, wasted on chimeras invented by a few rich countries, while in others, millions starve and die of disease, war and other causes. Would it not be better to use this money to fund organizations like the World Wildlife Organization, or the UNICEF, or the United Nations, all of which are constantly short of funds?

And what about the cost in human lifes? Ever since Gagarin strapped himself to the top of his rocket, men (and women) have been dying for the sake of space exploration. There are plenty of examples:



Mission
Casualties
Date
R-16 (on pad)
100+
 24 October 1960
Soyuz 1
1
 23 April 1967
Apollo 1
3
 27 January 1967
Soyuz 11
3
 6 June 1971
Challenger
7
 28 January 1986


All these people killed, and what for? How many more have died? How many more will die? How many, along the years, have come close to joining the martyr roll call (remember the Apollo 13...)?

Our motto must be: "Earth First". There is still a lot of work to do here. If we don't stop spending money on dreams and start taking care of the planet, pretty soon we won't have anywhere to live in...


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