Benefits of Space Exploration
Space exploration has many advantages both for an individual country and for humanity as a whole. First of all, it could potentially solve the problem of overpopulation. If humanity manages to conquer space, this problem will be solved by the appearance of human settlements on other planets. Moreover, the advantages include the development of space tourism, which will benefit the economy (Bazaka et al. 119). Finally, joint efforts in space exploration will help different countries to establish relations with each other.
Costs of Space Exploration
The United States spends the most on space in the world: NASA’s budget for 2018 amounted to $20.7 billion (Grimme 2848). The annual budget of the European Space Agency for 2018 amounted to $7 billion (Grimme 2856). Such costs are associated with the fact that the space industry is one of the highest–tech niches, with a huge and complex expensive ecosystem.
History of Space Exploration
In the first stages, the first spacecraft launch took place. After that, the first living beings were sent into orbit. Then, there was a human spacewalk and the first landing on the moon. In the next stages, the planets of the Solar System were explored, and humanity went beyond the Solar System (Levchenko et al. 881). This step began international integrated space exploration, and the International Space Station began its work. At this stage, further intensive space exploration is taking place.
Future of Space Exploration
The future of space exploration is primarily related to its commercialization. This concept includes the construction of private spaceports and space cruises (Bazaka et al. 120). The future is also characterized by implementing new projects and plans to colonize Mars.
Effects of Space Exploration
On Humanity
The significant reward of investigating the cosmos will be the possibility of solving the problem of overpopulation. The Earth’s population is growing every day, and medicine continues to develop, which significantly increases life expectancy. Resources on the planet are limited, and overpopulation can lead to their acute shortage. Creating a peace settlement, such as the colonization of Mars, will allow humanity to solve this problem.
The negative influence of space exploration on humanity lies in the unknown. One of the most brilliant astrophysicists who ever lived on Earth, Stephen Hawking, repeatedly mentioned in an interview that space exploration could become a global catastrophe for humanity (Bazaka et al. 119). One might think that alien civilizations that want humanity to disappear are just an invention of science fiction authors, but this may be true.
On USA Education Systems
Exploring outer space may have advantageous outcomes for US education systems because space research makes a huge contribution to world science. New materials capable of withstanding enormous loads are currently being developed in domestic spheres. Therefore, the introduction of the topic of space exploration into education will give rise to new research.
The adverse impact of space exploration on US education systems may be in a shift of focus (Bazaka et al. 118). Many areas of the Earth have not yet been fully explored. Therefore, removing too much attention to space research in education systems may shift priorities from Earth surface research and slow them down.
On Environment
The valuable influence of space exploration on the environment may be space tourism as an alternative to flying an airplane on Earth that destroys the ozone layer. However, space exploration has many more harmful effects on the environment. The main problem is space debris. There are no harvesting machines in space yet, so garbage floating in free space causes a lot of harm to spaceships. Garbage also falls on the Earth itself – in particular, a lot of waste falls in the mountains, polluting the environment with unburned rocket fuel (Levchenko et al. 891). If there is more space debris, it will have catastrophic consequences for the ecology of the planet. In addition to the fact that space debris creates problems with the environmental situation of the Earth’s orbital envelope, it does not benefit the cosmos itself. People do not clean up the wreckage of collapsed shuttles and satellites, creating debris deposits in outer space.
On the Economy
The uplifting role of space exploration in the economy may be a surge in space tourism. Space tourism will be very profitable for entrepreneurs and, accordingly, for the country’s economy, as businesses will pay significant taxes. However, this effect has potential: even though several large companies announced their intentions to send the first tourists into space before COVID-19, not a single flight ever happened (Bazaka et al. 120).
However, creating spacecraft capable of going into space requires substantial financial investments. Some countries cannot afford it, as the payback for space exploration is still very low. Even Elon Musk, one of our most promising space engineers, lost a lot on his projects (Crucian et al. 447). Therefore, at the moment, the negative impact of space exploration on the economy prevails, resulting in huge financial costs.
Works Cited
Bazaka, K., et al. “Space Micropropulsion Systems for Cubesats and Small Satellites: From Proximate Targets to Furthermost Frontiers.” Applied Physics Reviews, vol. 5, 2018, pp. 118–121. Web.
Crucian, B. E., et al. “Immune System Dysregulation During Spaceflight: Potential Countermeasures for Deep Space Exploration Missions.” Frontiers in Immunology, vol. 120, 2018, pp. 437–458. Web.
Grimme, S. “Exploration of Chemical Compound, Conformer, and Reaction Space with Meta-Dynamics Simulations Based on Tight-Binding Quantum Chemical Calculations.” Journal of Chemical Theory and Computation, vol. 15, 2019, pp. 2847–2862. Web.
Levchenko, I., et al. “Recent Progress and Perspectives of Space Electric Propulsion Systems Based on Smart Nanomaterials.” Nature Communications, vol. 9, 2018, pp. 879–894. Web.