A Case Against Space Travel

$10,000. Is this a lot of money or not a lot of money? Well, that depends on the scenario. $10,000 can cover about a semester at CU Boulder (depending on where you originate), almost a down payment on a small apartment, or several thousand bottles of water. We are amidst an unprecedented global pandemic; a donation of $10,000 to select charities can provide meals to 10,000 children who primarily relied on school lunches for sustenance. 

What if I told you that it costs $10,000 to send two iPhones (or their equivalent weight) to the international space station.  According to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), an entire rocket launch can cost upwards of $60 million. This begs the question, why are we spending this money? What do we gain from the additional $60 million investment in addition to the millions of dollars spent on research and development?  

Many proponents of space exploration argue that the benefits of space travel far outweigh the cost. The advancements in medical technology, for example, pay dividends to help people on earth, ergo, we need to continue space exploration to better humanity. Entrepreneurs and governments alike justify the lofty cost of their space programs with arguments similar to this. This thought process is evident in their visions statements; NASA believes in reaching “for new heights and reveal the unknown for the benefit of humankind”, while the private company SpaceX believes their primary objective is to “advance the future”. While these entities truly believe in what they are doing, I argue that all space agencies and companies are missing the point entirely. 

We have enough problems here on Earth that deserve our focus before we spend millions of dollars leaving it. Earthlings are polluting the planet, destroying the atmosphere, and rarely get along with their fellow humans. There have been no convincing solutions to these problems; we continue to make these issues worse day by day as we accelerate towards a future in which  Earth is no longer inhabitable. 

It is true that the research and development required to put people in space is of a level so advanced that it simply would not exist without the space industry to drive it. While this may be true, what about the millions of dollars required, lost lives, and utter waste of raw material just to get to space? We should continue space funding, but in an entirely theoretical domain. NASA research and development has contributed to hundreds of advancements and inventions that have bettered thousands of lives, but to my knowledge, few if any resulted from the process of launching multi-million dollar rockets into space. We ought to continue such advanced research and development, but never implement it.

Imagine a world in which the $60 million needed to launch a rocket is instead donated to medical research or charity. In this world, the $150 billion space station remained on paper; its cost was used to provide aid to war-torn countries,  to combat emerging pandemics, or even to research clean energy alternatives. For a minute, forget the humanitarian aspect and imagine a world in which the potential of leaving our warming planet wasn't so promising. Perhaps this would better focus our efforts and research on saving mother Earth before we leave it. It is important that we keep our eyes to the sky and dream about a world wherein we travel amongst the stars,  but not until our problems here are taken care of.