Over the last 30 to 40 years, space expenditure has increased in many countries. Due to this tendency, many people, especially people from poor countries, are concerned that it is excessive spending of the government’s budget, whereas others think that it is a necessary expense that will be beneficial in the future. In my opinion, space exploration is an essential program for us, which has a huge effect on our convenient lives.
To begin with, space programs aren’t as expensive as we think, but their usefulness cannot be overestimated. For instance, only 0.5 percent of the USA’s budget constitutes NASA; despite this, a lot of things that seem ordinary in our lives have been discovered and invented, made possible by NASA’s researches. As a result, we have such common utilities as GPS, weather forecasting, and satellite communication. In addition, space exploration yields us more global opportunities; for example, in Japan, scientists use satellites to identify tsunami and hurricane threats. In summary, astronomic research demonstrates a low-cost but high-impact outcome.
On the other hand, some countries engage in cosmic discovery for world prestige. To illustrate this, India has its own cosmic program and cooperates with other space powers such as Russia and the USA. Therefore, the question arises, for what purpose is the astronomic exploration when more than 70 percent of the population suffers from famine, poverty, and homelessness. Moreover, it’s not a unique situation; a lot of poor countries in Africa and South America have economic problems and still fund cosmic programs. To summarize, governments could engage in meaningless exploration programs even though they have other issues.
In conclusion, space discovery is useful but quite an expensive occupation; hence, only wealthy countries such as Germany, China, or the United Kingdom have to invest there.