As government funding is limited, people are concerned about whether the money is spent effectively. Nowadays, the authorities consider a massive budget for space exploration; however, some citizens believe that it is more crucial to keep focusing on current problems on Earth. Personally speaking, I think the benefits of solving current Earth’s issues far outweigh spending lavishly on space projects.
Due to a lack of consideration, the environmental situation has become dramatically worse over the past few decades. I think at some point, humans should move to another planet eventually; thus, space studies are critical. However, it cannot be taken for granted how far from now those researches will be accomplished successfully. Hence, the most sensible approach is for the government to invest a significant portion of the budget to maintain the status quo of the environment, if not enhance it; and along with this, with smaller amounts of money, pursue space explorations. The budget could strengthen the control on the quality of obeying environmental laws in industries, such as making sure that industrial waste would not be released into rivers without refining, which leads to huge water contamination. For instance, in China in 2000, due to the illegal activities of a few industries related to their waste, many fish died and they were on the edge of extinction. However, thanks to the government consideration, the dumping of the industrial waste of those industries was ceased and those particular fish have been rescued.
On top of that, many people in the world are passing away because of the absence of medical facilities. Moreover, new diseases are discovered that can be dangerous for the human race. Paying attention to the quality of human health is more important than any space program. Hence the space budget should be limited so that, consequently, hospitals and pharmaceutical industries could thrive quickly. As a firsthand experience, I can say that in Iran most of the governmental budget is allocated to the satellite projects; however, in some cities people are dying because of the shortage of medicines. Human health and life should be a priority in any civilized country.
To sum up, although space explorations are important, the government should dedicate most of the budget to enhancing the environmental status and human health by boosting hospital services and funding the medicine industry more.