Some people refer to funding of space organisations as a meaningless venture and propose investing those resources into the welfare of populace instead. I completely disagree with both statements because they are intrinsically wrong.
The notion that space research is pointless is absurd and in my opinion, a sign of ignorance, for the reason it brought us a myriad of innovations that are now the integral part of our life. For instance, the GPS technology that helps assists common people as well as planes and ships to navigate is a direct fruit of astronomy. It facilitated the globalization by reducing the shipment time of goods. Without GPS the world progress would be a cut below than it is now. Additionally, the space observation allows us to effectively tackle space threats such as magnetic storms and potentially dangerous asteroids. Thanks to it, those who are prone to magnetic fluctuations can take necessary medications at the right time and asteroids coud be intercepted and neutralised. Therefore, a state subsidisation of space programmes is well-justified.
I also oppose the perspective of diverting money from space exploration into other needs of society. Firstly, finances allocated for space programmes are too insignificant to make tangible changes. For example NASA recieves less than one percent of the USA budget in contrary to the military budget which gets more than ten percent annually, so it is more reasonable to cut the defense spending to support other aspects of society. Another compelling argument of why governments should not use the money for space research on solving other problems is that we may exploit asteroids for mining, effectively tackling environmental issues.
In conclusion, I view the idea that the space exploration is an irresponsible expenditure and that it is better to spend money on more ‘real’ problems on Earth as short-sighted and strongly disagree with it.