Opinions tend to vary regarding what governments should prioritize investing on, with one group suggesting to incentivize space exploration and the other suggesting to allocate subsidies to enhance living standards on Earth. While both views hold merit, the vast majority of people lean towards the latter idea and I am in favor of this viewpoint as well.
One argument in favor of investing on projects aiming to improve the quality of life on our planet is the fact that our life depends on Earth. If something bad were to happen to Earth, our lives would be at risk. Therefore, individuals’ first and foremost focus should be on how they could possibly cope with hazards lurking on Earth, which could deal life-threatening blows in the worst case scenario. For example, governments could invest on projects attempting to mitigate or even eradicate the effects of global warming which poses the greatest threat on humanity by melting glaciers and raising water levels which could drown the world one day. Furthermore, combatting global warming would prevent scorching hot weather, making people feel less unease.
Equally important is the idea that we could gain nothing much important by exploring the life beyond Earth. Even if scientists manage to learn something significant about the space, for example, energy-emitting quasars or possibly inhabitable planets like Earth, we don’t yet possess the right equipment or leveraged methodology to put those ideas into use. To exemplify this, we can’t utilize the power of quasars or travel to those extraterrestrial planets. The lack of access to such equipment or methods, therefore, renders space exploration rather obsolete.
To conclude, despite the contention surrounding the view, I firmly maintain that governments should outlay money on ameliorating the quality of life on Earth rather than expending it on research beyond the Earth because of our lives’ contingency upon Earth and the fact that much can’t be gained by studying space in our current state.