Space

Is space exploration worth the money?

By Aaron Zhao

In 2012, NASA’s budget was a whopping 16.8 billion USD. The following year, it rose to 18 billion, accounting for 45% of the total US funding. This year, it has grown to 21.5 billion, roughly 0.5% of the federal budget. Take note: that’s only ONE company. We can’t forget about the existence of SpaceX, Virgin Galactic, Boeing, Blue Origins, Axiom Space, Orbital Sciences and Sierra Nevada Corporation. According to the trend we see today, funding for space companies will continue to rise, meaning taxpayers’ money will flow even quicker from their wallets to Elon Musk’s.

Because space exploration is generally tied to billions of dollars, we have to ask: is it an auspicious path to take? Or is it simply a waste of money?

Will expensive fails stop us?

Some look back in time, targeting the occasions where space missions failed. The Soviet Union lost 3.61 billion dollars in 1973 when their rocket failed and plummeted into the Pacific Ocean. On January 28th, 1986, the Challenger exploded during lift-off. 11.5 billion dollars went down the drain. How about the death of the prestigious Columbia space shuttle in 2003? 16.3 billion dollars gone. From these accidents, people who oppose space exploration have adopted a mindset that looks something like this: Look at all those expensive failures! Space exploration is manifested with failure! This is a waste of money, resources, and time!

If that’s what you think, you’re wrong. You’re terribly wrong. Every industry has its frightening failures, but NASA’s failed missions are perceived to be so much more wasteful compared to a fallen bridge. Why? The significantly greater budget. The opponents of space exploration who base their points off of the expensive failures seem to have missed a key idea: you can’t build a rocket with 3 thousand dollars. The expensiveness is inevitable. Rocket fuel alone costs millions each year, and the manufacturing part… I’m not even going to explain it. But every time when we succeeded, we understood more about the breath-taking universe that swallowed us:

  • Apollo Missions (11,12,14,15,16,17) – rocks from the moon gave us a new idea of how the moon formed (systenia), provided more knowledge on how and where to install lunar workspaces in the near future
  • Luna Missions– snapped countless, priceless images of the moon’s bleak environment
  • Voyager Missions– discovered planetary bodies covered with nitrogen, potentially inhabited by unprecedented life forms
  • Curiosity- helped scientists form a game-changing concept: Life thrived on Ancient Mars. It’s in one way or another a post-apocalyptic Earth.

Failing is not going to stop the space exploration industry. Like the most cliched sentence ever, “Never give up”. These companies know that space exploration is a dangerous industry and that the smallest problem can lead to the biggest disasters. It’s very true that just under half of all the space missions have failed but with technology advancing forward every year, failures will soon be rendered extinct and we might never hear another “Houston, we’ve got a problem”.

(In addition, the price of each rocket launch is becoming cheaper with private sectors. SpaceX can launch a rocket for only 60 million dollars.)

Fight or flee the warmth?

Earth is already slowly approaching the brinks of collapse. Global warming has struck its sword into Mother Nature’s body, and will continue to push deeper if we don’t do anything to defeat it. We can choose to fight the monster, or run away before it eats every single one of us. I was having a debate with my friend some time ago about space agencies and global warming, and he asked me, “So, you’re going to sit back and watch Earth get destroyed then run off to another planet?”

I responded calmly, “First of all, [space agencies] aren’t doing nothing for our planet.”

Space exploration has already provided many inventions that combat climate change. The OSIRIS instrument measures the amount of ozone in the ozone layer, while MOPITT tests for carbon monoxide in different regions to evaluate air quality. Furthermore, since 2000, The International Charter “Space and Major Disasters” has been in play. The Charter is a congregation of space agencies putting an effort together to mitigate the damage and reduce the number of deaths in the case of a disaster. The satellites sent into space monitor the world and immediately report back about any sort of disaster.

And then I said, “But what if I told you that global warming cannot be stopped?”

“Even if we stopped emitting greenhouse gases today, global warming would continue to happen for at least several more decades, if not centuries. That’s because it takes a while for the planet (for example, the oceans) to respond, and because carbon dioxide – the predominant heat-trapping gas – lingers in the atmosphere for hundreds of years.”

NASA

I know that scientists are considering technology that could remove carbon-dioxide from the atmosphere, but that dream is seen from a far distance. Before you emphasize afforestation, let’s take a look at this.

“We’ve lost 1.3 million square kilometers of forests since 1990 – an area larger than South Africa.” 

World Bank 

And it’s not stopping. When people finally realize that the trees they’ve cut down every year has pushed the cart closer to the cliff, it will be too late. Spreading awareness about the detrimental impact of deforestation is definitely a method to reverse global warming. So many organizations are doing this, but loggers rarely pay any attention. This is why we need to consider an exodus to a new planet. Not soon, but in the future.

Better use of money – think again!

The same group of people say that the money could be put into better use in other areas, like better infrastructure or resolving societal problems like homelessness and poverty. However, we cannot guarantee that the diverted money will actually be used in these earthly issues. In addition, the money cut from space exploration funding may not be enough to satisfy the monetary demands of others without arousing a storm from the industries that the money was taken from. Let’s take Trump’s infrastructure plan as an example. It’s a plan that needs approximately 1 trillion dollars to be implemented in reality. Trump promises better infrastructure, but there is one problem. He can’t accumulate enough money. Raising taxes isn’t going to be too much help, and cutting the funding to multiple industries might still not do it. Elizabeth Warren’s free college plan requires around 2.75 trillion dollars to be completed. 2,750,000,000! Her idealistic plan is hard to achieve, and she knows it. Taxing the wealthiest families is a good plan, but a slow plan. Why not boost it with some extra cash? The billions of dollars spent on space exploration – why not on deforestation, education, water security, urbanisation, safe nuclear energy, pollution…?

The only feasible reason they think the above is because space exploration doesn’t directly impact their lives. I understand why many think this – how does a trip to the moon affect my life? After digging deeper into the industry, I learnt the truth.

Space exploration has revolutionized the technology implemented in many industries. 

Candarm2 was a robotic arm built by Canada to capture and safely pull in unpiloted spacecrafts (usually carrying cargo) and space shuttles to the ISS. Medical technology saw this, and using Candarm2 as a model, the neuroArm was made. neuroArm is the first robotic arm that is capable of executing microsurgery and stereotaxy, and was designed specifically to perform brain surgery. With the help of this tremor-free arm, brain surgeries became more precise and fail-proof. In 2008, the arm successfully removed a tumor from Paige Nickason’s brain!

Similar to the neuroArm, the Modus V arose. In my opinion the Modus V is even more powerful than the neuroArm. Designed and built by Synaptive, the robotic arm is completely automated and has a wonderfully diverse field of view. You can check out the arm performing surgeries on Youtube. Click here if you don’t mind seeing organs.

But space exploration’s benefits are not only limited to technological advances.

Canada is a leader in space technology, thus we can infer that there are many jobs to be fulfilled. Alongside with creating job opportunities, the intricately designed pieces of technology and accomplishments in space inspire young students to pursue paths in space, mathematics, engineering, and science. International cooperation also materializes out of space exploration which is most evident in the ISS, where the USA, Japan, Russia, Canada and eleven Member States of ESA (European Space Agency) work together. In the coming 20-ish years lunar workspaces will undoubtedly be built, which is another opportunity for countries to cooperate with each other. And like I said earlier, space exploration has churned out satellites that monitor the quality of our atmosphere, soil, and water quality – all of which are essential to fight climate change with and endow in our planet longevity.

In the end, I believe that space exploration is a prospective road to take. It is the only industry that allows us to see beyond our world. We cannot live on a planet and pay no heed to the universe that surrounds us. In the coming years, space exploration will become a Silk Road that many countries will take. After everything you have read, it all comes down to this; space exploration is worth it.