One school of thought holds that there are no convincing reasons why a huge amount of money has been allocated for the development of the technology to explore the space rather than other fields. From my personal perspective, I wholeheartedly advocate this viewpoint.
Granted, there is some truth in the view that scientists tend to focus on space exploration programs with a view to avoiding global challenges. Because of severe effects on the environment along with increasing population density, the Earth has been gradually destroyed and severely congested. As a result, this will stimulate the demand for new places for humans to live, which explains the recent search for life on the Moon in different nations. However, I argue that advancements in the technology for space exploration not only cost a great deal of money but also cause many problems. For example, NASA’s Artemis program, aiming to return humans to the Moon, is estimated to cost over $93 billion by 2025. Such enormous costs are likely to be afforded by billionaires including Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos who invest in space tourism through companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin. In addition, this can also give rise to inequality among citizens in society, thus widening the gap between the poor and the rich, when there is not enough public money supporting the impoverished.
Due to these drawbacks above, I believe that there are better ways to expend the money on other essential fields before investing in exploring space. Chief among these is that governing bodies should meet the basic needs of their inhabitants first. In many countries, especially developing and underdeveloped ones, millions of people lack access to clean drinking water, basic healthcare, and education, which lead them to suffering from fatal disease, even death, malnutrition, and illiteracy. Therefore, the governments should pay more attention to enhancing the standard of humans’ lives because this can facilitate both greater economic productivity and greater life satisfaction and happiness. Moreover, instead of finding another better place to live, scientists should make an effort to overcome the environmental impacts. For instance, they can use money to invent renewable resources by building more turbines, solar panels, and water mills, thus reducing reliance on non-renewable ones and the greenhouse effect. The state also ought to invest in high-density, affordable housing projects to prevent overcrowded slums, which helps eliminate the problem of population density.
In conclusion, I am of opinion that people should improve their quality of life and protect the Earth first before allocating money for outer space investigation as it can cost a fortune and have a bad influence on society.