- Question
- Should we explore space?
- Position‹2 of 2
- "No, we shouldn’t explore space"
- Argument1 of 2›
Space exploration is a waste of money
NASA has tons of money to spend every year. Those who support it insist that space travel is one of the most important initiatives to fund. But there are more important things that money could be put towards.
The argument
The objection is one of opportunity cost. NASA operates on a budget of $22.6 billion, and $10.35 billion of that — 45.8%, close to half — goes to space travel. That is not a rounding error in public spending; it is a deliberate allocation of a large sum to a single category of activity, and the money is not available for anything else once committed. What makes the allocation hard to defend, on this view, is the uncertainty of the return. Space travel is justified by benefits that are projected rather than realised: discoveries that may be made, resources that may be found, capabilities that may one day matter. Some of it may never benefit us at all. Spending at this scale on outcomes of that kind is a gamble, and it is a gamble taken with public money by people who do not bear the loss if it does not pay off. The comparison the argument invites is with what the same money could do elsewhere. Small organisations survive on donations, operating without government funding and without any guarantee of continuing, and the work they do produces results that are immediate, measurable and local. A fraction of the space travel budget would transform what they are able to achieve. The contrast is between money spent on possibilities at the edge of the solar system and money spent on needs already identified and already going unmet. Proponents of this position therefore frame the choice as one of priorities rather than hostility to science. Governments are not obliged to fund everything that is interesting, and they are obliged to weigh what they do fund against the alternatives. Measured that way, nearly half of NASA's budget directed at space travel is money thrown away, and the conclusion drawn is that we should not explore space.
Premises
Counter-arguments
Space is worth funding because it could support humanity in the future. Since 1991, a tenth of the Earth’s ecosystems have already been destroyed, and it’s likely to get worse. That’s the perfect reason to find a different planet to inhabit. It should be done as soon as possible before the Earth can’t sustain humanity anymore.
Rejecting the premises
[Rejecting P1] Exploring space provides new knowledge for mankind. [Rejecting P3] Money going to a space program does not prevent it from going to other organizations. Government systems and relief projects already get more financial support than space travel.