Throughout the history of the world, Space Exploration has been known to be a form of success for various nations. The United States in particular has been always been a part of this worldwide “space race,” competing with other countries for simply knowing more about the possible worlds beyond our own. This raises some concerns about the ethical purposes behind this competition, and the financial necessity to keep it up and running. Although exploring the universe beyond Earth definitely has its perks, the toll it has on the citizens at home is too great a cost.
Space exploration has always been at great expense to the United States. The only practical way to fund it is through government spending, which ultimately comes from taxpayers. Expanding this program to eventually put Americans in space as a means of living seems a bit out of reach, but large programs like NASA are convinced that with an increase in their budget they will able to fulfill these wishes. Russell Roberts from Morning Edition notes that while he enjoys space, and the things we have been able to learn as a society from it, he gets “no thrill from the Bush plan to put Americans on Mars.” Is it really necessary to put Americans on other planets? Especially when all the revenue for this project would be generated from citizens of the U.S. These financial concerns extend beyond the simple increase in taxes. When it comes to dividing up the federal budget, the United States looks as though it has it’s priorities in check. Looking at the graph in Source C, it looks as though there is less than 6 cents per every tax dollar earned that is spent on programs such that provide space exploration. This is merely a small piece of the complete budget. The majority of the money generated goes to things such as Social Security, National defense, Medicare and other various forms of health aide. The money is being well spent, as results directly show from research by the National Institutes of Health (Source D). Since the 1970s, the overall standard of living and the health of Americans has improved a great deal. Death from heart disease has decreased by over 50%, survival rate for childhood cancer patients has risen 20%, more and more vaccines are preventing infectious disease outbreaks -- the list goes on. None of this would have been possible without funding by the government. To spend more money on Space Exploration would take away from what these essential health programs do for our nation as a whole, and should be taken into account when deciding what should be done with our nation’s money.
Making sure America’s money is spent on the right programs might be one of the toughest set of decisions made by the government. Everyone has a multitude of opinions contributing to where they think the money would be most needed. That being said, McLean discusses the ethics of giving more money to space exploration, noting that the United States “does not have a very good track record in protecting our planet at home.” Expanding our influence further than any nation has ever done before is something that is only natural to be desired. But is it really necessary? Focusing on what is going on at home, and fixing issues here -- because there are quite a few -- should be the main priority.
McLean also mentions the idea of “stewardship,” saying that we as humans are not “owners of the solar system but [are] responsible managers of its wonder and beauty.” As we expand our influence in space, it is important to keep in mind that “space preservation”, “space conservation”, and “space sustainability” are all principles that must be considered (Source E). There is also the contamination issue, brought forth by Richard Greenberg (Source F). Basically there is worry, with just cause, of bringing back contaminants from space, or bringing contaminants to space. Either way, the results of this happening could be detrimental because there is so much we don’t know about what is beyond our planet’s atmosphere. While exploring space would bring us answers to these questions, it is not without great risk.
This international “space race” has been quite a benefit to society. Without it, the drive to make technological advances that better our everyday lives would not have come about. But this race to the worlds beyond ours has caused some clouding of judgement by some nations and their desire to be powerful. There are many issues on Earth, the planet we call home, that need to be dealt with before we travel to a new one. While studying space and exploring its every corner are very important, additional funding by the government -- basically coming from taxpayers -- is not necessary. America can keep its powerful status as a country by widely distributing it’s resources to remain a well-rounded nation.
