This week when I was looking for an article to use for my current events I found an article on the debate on whether sending humans to space is absolutely necessary, or if everything could be done with robots. There are legitimate arguments on both sides of this issue. One of the most important is cost. It costs half a billion dollars to send a shuttle into space with humans on it! Another point is that if we send a robot into space there is no real reason for it to come back. It could simply orbit in space. In this economy spending that amount of money seems unreal to some people. It could be used to get our nation out of debt, or be spent on public defense, or poured into the stock market. Another point made is that it is simply too dangerous to send someone into space when we have the technology to send a robot and not endanger human life.
On the opposite side of this debate people argue that sending people into space has been a large part of our culture for the past 50 years. It brings excitement, and our nation’s curiosity is peaked by it. Almost every little kid wants to be an astronaut when they grow up at some point or another. But, I don’t know how many kids would want to grow up and design a robot that they send into space and never see again. It is conceivable that the future of NASA would be in jeopardy because of it. At a very extreme point, our world is becoming increasingly over populated. And some people believe that the way to save ourselves is to develop colonies in space. In this case, our future depends on us understanding how to send people in space.
I personally believe that sending people into space is absolutely necessary. It gives us an understanding of what surrounds us, and is humbling in a way. This effect cannot be achieved by staring at a screen while what a rover is filming is shown on earth. Another aspect of human life is the need to explore, (or as the article states “we need a frontier). Many centuries ago people tried to map the world, colonized North America, and traversed across Antarctica. Now that the world has been completely colonized people are looking for a way to go where no one has gone before. Civilians can scuba dive or climb Mount Everest, but as a nation, and as world, we need to discover space. We need to try to understand what is out there, and experience the unknown.
Derbyshire, John, John Logsdon, and Seth Shostak. “Is Manned Spaceflight Obsolete?” Editorial. Room for Debate. The New York Times, 9 Feb. 2010. Web. 10 Feb. 2010..
On the opposite side of this debate people argue that sending people into space has been a large part of our culture for the past 50 years. It brings excitement, and our nation’s curiosity is peaked by it. Almost every little kid wants to be an astronaut when they grow up at some point or another. But, I don’t know how many kids would want to grow up and design a robot that they send into space and never see again. It is conceivable that the future of NASA would be in jeopardy because of it. At a very extreme point, our world is becoming increasingly over populated. And some people believe that the way to save ourselves is to develop colonies in space. In this case, our future depends on us understanding how to send people in space.
I personally believe that sending people into space is absolutely necessary. It gives us an understanding of what surrounds us, and is humbling in a way. This effect cannot be achieved by staring at a screen while what a rover is filming is shown on earth. Another aspect of human life is the need to explore, (or as the article states “we need a frontier). Many centuries ago people tried to map the world, colonized North America, and traversed across Antarctica. Now that the world has been completely colonized people are looking for a way to go where no one has gone before. Civilians can scuba dive or climb Mount Everest, but as a nation, and as world, we need to discover space. We need to try to understand what is out there, and experience the unknown.
Derbyshire, John, John Logsdon, and Seth Shostak. “Is Manned Spaceflight Obsolete?” Editorial. Room for Debate. The New York Times, 9 Feb. 2010. Web. 10 Feb. 2010.
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