I just started thinking about it. Why is space exploration even that necessary? They're spending so much money on it when we have so much problems in our own planet..

Yes

Space exploration is weight lifting for science.

"Necessary", no. We're all fine here on Earth, where we evolved, and all that. We've gotten along just fine without leaving the planet.

Desirable? Yes. But, I think we should do it with robots, because humans are too expensive due to being so fragile. Also, what should we do with what we find? Exploiting the resources of the Moon and Mars should not be allowed. Setting up human colonies there seems extravagant at this time.

Of course not, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it. We go to space because it’s cool and we can, and that’s a beautifully human thing to do. As for the money, it’s a baseline fact of this world that enormous sums will be spent on things that don’t fix our problems, and space is as good a use as any for that wasted cash. If it were space or solving hunger, solving hunger is the obvious priority, but practically speaking it’s “don’t solve hunger and go to space” or “don’t solve hunger.”

Agreed

Yes

Not really, at least not with the current technology and problems down here on earth. It's exorbitantly expensive and all of that money could be put to better use improving the lives of real people in real ways.

We had problems on earth before space exploration, and we’ll have problems on earth after space exploration. And if we colonize other planets we’ll have problems there.

Because every time humans solve a problem they create more, bigger, harder to solve problems.

Space exploration doesn’t affect this.

Necessary? No. Not much except eating, drinking and breathing is. Even reproduction is optional from the view of a single individual.

A good idea? Absolutely:

1. Exploring space tells us a lot about earth. We currently assume that the moon formed when something big collided with earth and threw lots of material into a stable orbit. This means moon is probably made of the same materials as earth and because there is no erosion nor tectonic activity on the moon, it lets us study what earth may have looked like billions of years ago.
2. Lots and lots of things that were originally developed for space are very useful on earth: teflon coating, memory foam matresses, efficient solar panels and many more. Sure, they could have been developed without space exploration but the pressure to get something exactly right helped a lot. And of course we directly use satellites for a lot of earth stuff, too. Think tv, weather prediction, monitoring of climate change, communication, GPS, accurate maps and many more.
3. It gives humanity something to unite behind. Even during the cold war, the USA and the Soviet Union ignored their feud for a bit to make Apollo-Soyuz happen. These days, the ISS is one of the biggest multinational projects and I dread the day it gets decommissioned because Russia will have one less reason to talk to the rest of the world.

Setting aside all the intangible benefits such as answering why we are here and providing inspiration to generations there are tons of short and long term benefits.

In the short/medium term, research is so much about solving problems and your solutions having unexpected applications in other areas. A lot of our minituarization in tech happened because we needed things smaller and lighter to lift into space, think things like your smart phone camera or laptops. Also things like cordless tools and even memory foam were originally developed for their application in space travel.

In the long term, let's take a look back, what if we had the same stance when we looked at the ocean, and thought why its even necessary to figure out how to navigate the waters. For our species to propagate or even survive, we need to expand. Right now we are one decently sized asteroid from extinction, but if one day we figured out how to expand to multiple worlds, then we become a heck of a lot of more resilient.

I am of the opinion that space exploration and settlement is the single most important thing humanity should be doing. Currently humanity exists only on this planet, which through the course of its existence has had numerous mass extinction events. It is hubris to believe that we will never be affected by one. Right now all of humanity's eggs are in this single basket, and if that basket gets kicked over, humanity could cease to exist.

Now I will grant you that there are lots of things down here on earth that we should be spending money on to better the lives of humans generally, but these things are not mutually exclusive. Right now we're spending orders of magnitude more money and resources waging war on one another than space exploration. In the US in 2025, the US military budget was around $920b, whereas NASA's was $25b. The military budget was 36 times higher than the space budget. It's not even close. Space is not where dollars are being wasted.

Studies have also shown that NASA's impact is a net positive on the economy, consistently generating more economic impact than is put into it. It creates well paying jobs that employees find fulfilling and satisfying, generates public interest in the sciences, and benefits society as a whole as new technologies are developed that we all get to enjoy.

I would argue that what we NEED to do is stop needlessly murdering each other over religious and social disagreements, and spend our resources on feeding, clothing and taking care of one another such that we all have the time, security and ability to watch humans go out into space with wonder in our hearts.

Is making pointy sticks necessary? Is flint knapping necessary? Is agriculture necessary? I'm pretty sure there were people asking these questions at each of those milestones of human development.

It is a virtual certainty that at some point a meteor large enough to wipe out all multicellular life on the planet will strike the Earth. It is an absolute certainty that the Sun will eventually burn out leaving the planet uninhabitable. Something else might wipe out our species long before either of these things happen, but it's not a bad idea to have another inhabited planet or two as a backups.

There have been over 1800 “spin-off” technologies that came from the world’s various space agencies. Some of those inventions are life saving and there’s people alive today thanks to the pioneering spirit of man and the funding of countries. I don’t see the benefit of stopping now.

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=E6c4IjUO0HY

Humanity has already outgrown the cradle called earth, the longer it takes us to leave it behind the greater the risk that will destroy it and ourselves.

It's good to keep in mind that the cost of space exploration vastly pales in comparison to most social programs which also vastly pale in comparison to the military budget.

We should absolutely focus on helping people on Earth, but we don't need to cut space exploration to do that, just war.

We're boiling the planet. Yes, it's essential. Lest we perish.

Space exploration is relatively cheap compared to our murder machines, and unlike the murder machines has practical benefits for a wide swath of people.

There's new innovations that come around in order to get into space, new innovations from discoveries made in space, and new innovations made because we've gone to space.

Some of these innovations even help address problems on our own planet. GPS helps keep planes from hitting each other (which was the catalyst for making high resolution GPS publicly available in the first place), satellite imagery aids in weather prediction and disaster response, even global communication is in part because of space travel.

I care less about finding backup worlds, but even that search gives us information about the needs of life and can hint at how life came to be--answers which may be helpful in some types of medical work.

Tardigrade can survive for a shockingly long time exposed to the harsh environments of space. We wouldn't have known that if we hadn't gone ourselves, and understanding why they can survive so long can help us look for ways to prolong resilience in other complex life forms and environments.

The knowledge gained about keeping people safe in space will be critical to keeping people safe in other extreme environments like through the ongoing climate catastrophe.

So for the sake of progress, yes, it's necessary. It's another frontier for humanity to explore, and the more we explore the more we find out about ourselves and how to help people.

Nothing is really necessary until you develop it enough to make it so. There is potential there. It could turn into something extremely useful, perhaps even life saving. I don't think we are anywhere close yet, but sometimes you get revolutionary breakthroughs that flip the landscape in a really short time.

Yes but we need to treat the earth as the only habitable place we will ever have and run sustainably. We need to be using less than one earth year of renewable resources each year and use a minimum number of non renewable. I don't think we should be sending people into space all that much. We should as much as possible seek to learn how to mine, process, and produce in space. Its certainly something we cannot do now but if we are ever to make any real progess it will have to be something we figure out. Its also likely the best direction for the resources we put to space as far as return. By that I mean the same way much of our technology was spurred by the space race due to the challenge of getting out into it and to the moon. I feel learning to mine and automate in space will have the greatest returns in technological advancement for us. I think ideally any time we send people to space whe have a destination built already for them to go to. So send rovers and such to the moon and try to excavate and build a dome or such and install equipment. I mean if we could figure out a way to automate making rocket fuel in space and could make fuel depots that would be huge. I also want to experiment with things on the moon. Like I think we should make a moon space elevator. Not because its a very necessary thing for the moon but to figure out the tech. maybe later we try to make one on mars. if we made them on a variety of space objects we might get sure enough to do one on earth.

Whitey on the Moon

Maybe eventually, but we should focus on juusssstttt one or two issues here on earth first.

Yes. Because I want an alien girlfriend.

The impact to society from space exploration is immense if not immeasurable.

• Weather forecasting
• GPS navigation
• Earth sciences
• Robotics
• Medical imaging

NASA has a website dedicated to the topic, as do other agencies around the world.

• https://www.nasa.gov/humans-in-space/benefits-to-humanity/
• https://www.asc-csa.gc.ca/eng/about/everyday-benefits-of-space-exploration/
• https://www.space.gov.au/why-space-matters
• https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Benefits_of_space_science

There's also a Wikipedia page on the topic:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benefits_of_space_exploration

We have plenty of problems on the surface as it is! Why should we go underground? The surface has enough resources to sustain us right now. We don't even need mining, if we pick up enough surface rocks.

Looking at the list of government expenditures, I don't see space exploration as problematic as other things we are spending money on.

Butt probe it is!

Hold your horses Zapp.

We came from the stars, we should learn about our origins.

Necessary, yes. Furthering our knowledge of the cosmos is a worthwhile pursuit for its own sake. That being said, the sudden focus on NASA is pure political distraction, a clumsy attempt to foment nationalism that isn't going to be as effective as its architects were hoping.

Literally and figuratively

From a risk assessment standpoint, space exploration is a VERY good investment. We need to be on multiple planets, preferably in multiple solar systems or even multiple galaxies.

BUT. It absolutely must be paired with NOT destroying the planet we have! This is the only planet we've got right now and the only one we've got a guarantee on habitability - if we don't fuck it up.

So yes, space is vital. But so it protecting this place.

Many people find hope in exploration, discovery, and pushing physical frontiers. These were necessarily parts of human history that shaped our intuitions and desires and I think without new frontiers people get cynical or bored that can lead to some awful behaviors and outcomes. It's the same with scientific research it doesn't need to take the majority of the public funds but there is a minimum especially for some planetary scale science efforts.

We have so many problems to fix isn't a good reason not to explore and inspire, I'm sure there were ancient people who thought investing in roads was a waste of public funds why do we need to connect to other cities or lands if we have problems already, but some of those problems were resolved with trade or treaties or pluralistic cultures the roads allowed.

Absolutely and unequivocally yes. Nothing should constrain the boundaries of scientific study in space, especially now that our years are numbered due to climate change and dumbass fascists and dictators with launch codes. Whities on the moon, while a noble and valuable sentiment, should be altered to whities on patrol or something.

I’m so sick and tired of seeing Americans bitch about space exploration colonialism and remain silent on the colonialism that continues to kill and exploit Innocent people across the world.

Yes, we need better social infrastructure desperately, but that should come at the cost of terrestrial imperialism, not space exploration.

Yes, absolutely, science in general is necessary for any kind of desirable civilization. Space exploration contributes a massive amount of knowledge to scientific research and betters the human race.

But it shouldn't be a playground for billionaires to plan space hotels for ultra-wealthy clientele. Public works for the public good, for the betterment of our human race as a whole, not just for the super rich.

All attempts to discover how the universe works benefits us. Even a lot of really esoteric stuff has proven useful in fields like medicine and civil engineering.

Honestly if we can pivot our high tech innovation efforts from being mainly driven by military needs to being driven by basic research (basic in this case meaning researching the natural world directly without any particular goal other than learning), we'd be a lot better off.

yes. there's two branching discussions here:

• Space as a scientific topic, it needs to be understood. Our observation of reality is very local, and although we can prove that some of our assumptions about physics, life and civilization work on our neighborhood, it doesn't mean that they're the same everywhere. That alone is sufficient reason for me, to explore.
• Space as the new frontier. Many if not all exploration done on planet Earth has been, in some shape or form, resource-motivated. Lands, food, medicine, minerals, routes, are all found through exploration and normally through people spending money looking for a return over investment. Space is no different.

I think the interesting part is where this two branches touch: If we ever plan on capturing an asteroid for mining, the technology needs to be there to do it, and hopefully the technology is about the benefit of all humankind. This kind of development is showing us the way to move forward and solve problems. Imagine a world when we don't need to destroy ecosystems in order to get iron because all iron comes from off-world.

Yes.

The cheapest way to maintain control over the globe via military force is to establish a moon operation that runs at only a slight deficit and hold the specter of lunar regolith asteroid strikes over every person on the planet earth.

Yes, but I think the efforts right now should go into solving the climate crisis rather than going to the moon.

Three tiddy alien girlfriend?

Only if music is.

Well… short term no it’s not necessary (although as other folks have said on the thread it does give some technology advancements, and gives humanity a warm fuzzy sense of achievement)

Long term, it depends on the eval criteria

1. If we want the human race to live as long as possible, then I would say yes - to diversify, distribute and minimise the risk of planetary (Earth) failure
2. If we don’t give a toss about the human race then no, the Universe will be just fine without us

And world hunger, world peace... there is a list of things that should take priority.

How else will we be able to someday mass travel through space to find another planet once we inevitably kill this one?

We CAN do both. They might contribute to each other.

But what we can definitely fucking all agree is that spending all of our money on weapons in an effort to kill each other over which colour clothes Santa is wearing is pretty dumb.

Not really, it's more like a childhood dream that nobody investing will see IF it will give any results and/or is just a over expensive hobby, for the sake of have the knowledge of guessing of what is the planet that is over 5000 years light away from us might be made of.
Who knows! It might have some form of H2O!

Spaceflight creates jobs.

autistic girls exist, you know?

No, it's unnecessary and a waste of money