Starting in the 20th century, various countries have created their own space programmes and have spent great amounts of money on satellites, space craft and extraterrestrial exploration. Some argue that the money spent should have been invested differently to more directly benefit the human population on Earth. The following discussion seeks to shed some light on the two sides that there are to this argument.
It is certainly true that enormous amounts of money and labor have been exhausted on space programmes. The United States alone have invested several billion dollars into their lunar landing program as part of the “Race to Space” against the UDSSR during the Cold War. Had they instead invested this sum into health care or social welfare, the effects certainly would have been much more palpable for a majority of their population. This is also true for the various other space nations, such as China, Russia or India.
It is however simply inaccurate to consider space exploration a waste of financial resources. The aerospace industry has created millions of jobs world-wide and has greatly furthered the progress of scientific discoveries directly relevant to people on Earth. These include advancements in the field of material science, rocket propulsion, aircrafts, solar panels and GPS, to cite only a few. What is more, the immaterial effects on the understanding of ourselves as mankind cannot be measured in monetary value. Before the first satellites, humans had never seen the globe from afar and the immensely popular picture of the Earth viewed from a Lunar perspective helped jumpstart the incredibly important environmental and anti-war movements after 1969.
Personally, I would therefore conclude that although the money spent on the various space programmes could have been invested more directly, it certainly did not go to waste. Quite the contrary, we should keep investing in extraterrestrial exploration, thanks to the scientific, political and philosophical advances to which it might lead us.