Space Exploration Persuasive Essay

Stars, mankind has been staring up at them for thousands of years. Over those many years dreams and mythology have been created to explain those lights in the heavens. Mankind grew sick of just staring, and decided to find ways to discover more about it. Eventually over hundreds of years mankind has, been able to send men to the moon, launch satellites into space, and even send rovers to Mars. These feats of science would have been unimaginable hundreds of years ago, and to others that heard of it was only science fiction. With all these accomplishments, it seems humanity has a bright future of further discovery, but a recent development has surfaced regarding Space Exploration. That debate regards the future of space Exploration, and whether or not It should be continued through NASA or private companies. Various opinions have come from all over the scientific and astronomy concerned world. Others side that NASA should continue its lead into the future, because of its contributions to discovery and the scientific world. Others blame that NASA’s lack of progress in previous projects has lead to a disbelief of Nasa, and a turn to Private industries due to their smaller budgets and recent success. Even some see a balanced future of NASA working with private companies, and even healthy competition that will allow a faster progress into the future. Mankind has always had the desire to reach the unreachable, and it cannot go forward

In the past 50 years, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has sent out many planned space exploration missions which have lead to numerous advantages in society and culture. NASA’s technologies benefit American lives with the innumerable important breakthroughs by creating new markets that have spurred the economy and changed countless lives in many ways. NASA is a federal agency and receives its fundings from the annual federal budget passed by the United States Congress. However, there are conflicting opinions that consider whether or not funding for NASA is a waste of government spending.

How would you like to explore a never-ending frontier filled with endless potential and possible benefits for humankind? When put this way, space exploration sounds like an enticing adventure. However, is it all that it’s chalked up to be? We’re here to answer that question. There’s a specific issue that we need to consider when referring to space exploration; should we continue to fund NASA? We acknowledge that some people may already have strong opinions on this, and we ask you to keep an open mind and try to avoid bias. After all, we’re discussing our future.

While many people support funding NASA and agree with the organization’s goals, there a good number of people who do not. A common reason for this is that they believe that the space program should focus on discovering things that can benefit us immediately, not in the future. This is a valid argument because there

There are also many educational benefits to funding NASA. By funding NASA, one can promote future interests in the field of science and engineering by inspiring students to dream about changing the way space is looked at by the world. Students are pushed to pursue knowledge in STEM subjects so that eventually they can help “push the future forward.” People might say that it is better to fund education though sending money to schools, but the problem is that no matter how good the education is at schools, if students are not motivated then the schools will not succeed at teaching

American citizens have to pay taxes and some of that money is going towards space exploration. With a 12.7 trillion national debt and high unemployment in the United States, Americans simply aren’t willing to invest in human spaceflight right now (Naeye). America is not in a financially stable place and people feel the money should be used to do more useful things such as funding schools and repairing roads. However, American citizens are only having to pay 33 dollars a year to fund these programs (Life’s Little Mysteries Staff). Also, exploring space is very useful because exploring space has helped scientists learn many facts about all the planets, suns, and moons in the solar system plus about the other systems out

Exploration is a key aspect to ensuring the constant and consistent development of the human race, but is it really necessary to branch out into the cosmos rather than focusing on the Earth itself. Expanding is essentially the ability to understand the unknowing and to grasp unworldly ideas, but without the means to reach those goals: justification, funding, and manpower, what is the point of committing funds to an unforeseen mission such as Space Exploration. Space Exploration is an issue that Humanity faces because it targets the what ifs about the future rather than focusing on the dangers of the present. Drought, famine, poverty, and war, will all continue to plague the world, and will remain tackling issues on present day Earth, and by using immense funding and manpower on what is not certain, is detrimental to humanities growth. Although, yes, NASA has created breakthroughs with innovations in relation to technological advancements, it is not certain that exploring space will ensure new innovations, because space itself is still theoretical and far too vast for ideal comprehension. Proper funding is mandatory for growth and expansion, but not important for the funding of Space exploration, rather it is more important to focus on pressing matters ranging from genocides: The Rwandan Genocide, to extreme poverty and famine: humans on Earth who do not have enough to live. If funding is granted to Space exploration by the public, it will remove essential funding to those

The concept of space exploration was first introduced to the American public in 1961 when President John F. Kennedy famously stood before congress and vowed that America would put a man on the moon “within the decade.” With hopes of defeating the Soviet Union in the “Space Race” and gaining a leg-up in the Cold War, NASA funding reached its all-time high in 1965-1966 when about four percent of the federal budget was devoted to exploring space. Since then however, funding dedicated to exploring space has nose-dived to about one-half of a percent of the federal budget (Tyson), with plans to cut that figure by an additional $260 million in 2017 (cite NASA funding cuts). Experts in the space-sciences field argue that increased funding in space exploration would re-ignite the American economy and return America to the scientific prominence it was once known for, while, on the other end of the spectrum, naysayers suggest that exploring space is an economic sink-hole that the United States can no longer afford to deposit to given its own earth-bound troubles.

Added to the economic costs to America, a venture to Mars causes substantial risk to the society. The environment and society are very important to human survival on Earth. Even though some people feel that exploring Mars may help understand the Earth better, and going to Mars will be a great scientific milestone, in my opinion exploring Mars is a bad idea. The atmosphere on Mars is about 100 times thinner than earth and it is not suitable for us to breath. It contains about 95% of carbon dioxide and little or no oxygen. This will make it very difficult for humans to survive there. Unlike Mars, which is not protected and is exposed to everything, the Earth is protected by the ozone layer. Exploring Mars will be dangerous to humans and very expensive to taxpayers. This will take years of planning and the mission will take years instead of days. The astronauts who go there may run out of oxygen and even fall sick. They will be unable to just return at any time. They have to wait until the earth aligns with Mars before they can return. All this could take months or even

And with that comes the conflict of whether or not that quest holds so much importance that a nation’s citizens should fund it without explicit consent. That scenario has occurred for almost all of the frontiers of the United States, especially Westward Expansion and space exploration. Furthermore, an entire frontier can fall apart if the money is taken midway through the mission. If the government had not bought new territory for the United States, it would prove to be difficult settling new land for our nation. And if the government pulled the funding from NASA, or ceased to fund research for new technologies, many companies would rely on donations to push on, which, although it might prove challenging, could help them to progress

Some citizens believe that NASA is a waste of time. Some would venture to say the program has “no practical use to mankind” and the $17 billion of taxpayers money is put towards failed projects and a hope to get to another planet (Government funding). Every time the program goes into space there is no guarantee they will find something new. Spending money on ineffective trips is pointless for the taxpayers; every time the astronauts go into space they go to the same places making no progress. Since the United States is tied with NASA, the program prevents branches of the government placing space work with another agency, which prevents progress with other space agencies (Government funding). Before going into space, NASA should try to solve problems on Earth first. Such as making a car that doesn’t use gas or pollute the air, finding ways to fix the ozone layer, making less pollution by using renewable resources. Instead of going to Mars, solving issues such as global warming is very important to the Earth. Global warming and climate changes are very important to keeping the Earth a safe, healthy place to live. With the debt America is already in, spending more money to send people on the same missions into space over and over again is just spending more money than the States cannot

They think that our nation should make this choice because it can lead to getting more money and it has given humans many technological advances. However, any further exploration of space is dangerous to the people. There is a downfall to researching space though, because going to space can cause brain disease and many other medical problems. Also we can do all of these things with the ocean too, and the ocean is much closer so we would not have to risk lives sending people to space. We must remember that the ocean cures diseases and we have not found a single cure to a disease in space.

Mankind has always been fascinated with exploring the unknown. From sailing to distant lands to someday setting foot on other planets, the spirit of exploration is the same. Bur now with the current economic situation and the high cost of sending people to space, NASA is being looked at as a way to free up some much needed funds. Although, there is many problems here on planet Earth that need addressing, the benefits of space exploration far out weight the disadvantages. Space exploration has given us more advanced technology, advances in the medical field, and a boost to the economy and these facts cannot be disputed.

Humans have always been interested in space and the wonder in which it may hold. In the past, humans worshiped the stars as if they were gods while also studying their position to give them guidance for their lives. Their interested in space has fathered the desire to know more. Today, space has been seen by many as the new frontier or the home beyond earth. Society have even taken a step forward through the creation of stories in books and movies based of the idea of humans living in space and the present of alliances. Yet there is still controversy on the need to continue space exploration when our own planet has so many detrimental problems. There is an ongoing debate on whether not the money used for space travel could be better beneficially use for other causes. It is true that space exploration costs billions of dollars a year alone according to NASA current budget, which is constantly increasing. However, what many refuses to understand is that without space exploration many of the innovations that we have today would not have existed. While there have been, many failed attempts involving space exploration that has caused a tremendous amount of money to go down the drain. However, many people fail to realize the benefits of space exploration and the possible future it may

"Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds; to seek out new life and new civilisations; to boldly go where no man has gone before" (Star Trek). Back in the 60s, space travel was big. A few years after that man made it’s first step on the Moon. It was a massive advancement in science. It all started when President Eisenhower formed a group of highly trained individuals out of other groups, such as the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, or NACA, to try to out-science the Soviet Union in the space race. This group would come to be known as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, or NASA. NASA was not the first group to get a human into space, however they were the first, and only, group to put a man on the Moon. It was a great time for science. Fast Forward to the present day. NASA is still around, but it’s under extreme pressure. NASA hasn’t done much of anything as of recent. Because of that, quite a few people are skeptical over whether we should continue to fund NASA if they are just going to keep taking money and producing no profit from it. Others, however, argue that NASA is indeed still relevant and producing necessary advancements. The question is should the United States continue to find NASA? The answer isn’t overly clear. While NASA makes significant advances in science, they are also wasting significant sums of money that could be going towards better