Sunday, November 15, 2009

The Rationales of Space Exploration




The research that is conducted by national space exploration agencies, such as NASA and the RKA, is one of the reasons supporters cite to justify government expenses. Some even claim that space exploration is a necessity to mankind and that staying on our home planet will lead us to extinction. Some of the reasons are lack of natural resources, comets, nuclear war, and worldwide epidemic. Stephen Hawking, renowned British theoretical physicist, said that "I don't think the human race will survive the next thousand years, unless we spread into space. There are too many accidents that can befall life on a single planet. But I'm an optimist. We will reach out to the stars."

NASA has produced a series of Public Service Announcement videos supporting the concept of space exploration.

Overall, the public remains largely supportive of both manned and unmanned space exploration. According to an Associated Press Poll conducted in July 2003, 71% of U.S. citizens agreed with the statement that the space program is "a good investment", compared to 21% who did not.

Arthur C. Clarke (1950) presented a summary of motivations for the human exploration of space in his non-fiction semi-technical monograph Interplanetary Flight.[31] He argued that humanity's choice is essentially between expansion off the Earth into space, versus cultural (and eventually biological) stagnation and death.

Source: Wikipedia

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