5 Reasons Why Space Exploration is So Much Important for Humanity

International Space Station on its orbit facing towards the Sun, Shining brightly

The situation on Earth is degrading day by day. Climate change, Increasing pollution, Overpopulation, and many more problems are taking over our lives slowly. In this scenario, why should we spend a big part of our economy on Space Exploration, and not use it to solve these issues? Well, the reasons are quite Astronomical!

New Technologies arise

The devices we use in daily life, are somehow linked to the space exploration going on for ages. The calls, video calls you make, GPS you use, and Television you watch, all are connected to the satellites revolving around the earth. And many more technologies, which were also developed during space exploration are used by many people to solve our daily life issues today.

Some of these technologies are extremely important for us, like Water purifiers, Solar cells, CT scan, and some medical research going on in space that can hopefully prolong our life expectancy.

We can be the next 'Dinosaurs'

There are millions of space rocks wandering around in the vastness of our solar system. Some are as small as a grain of sand, some as big as '1/13th the radius of earth (Ceres)'. Occasionally some of these giant space boulders pass by close to the Earth. Although NASA monitors the potentially hazardous Near Earth Objects (NEO), still sometimes they miss them because they are hard to find.

If we don't want to go extinct like the Dinosaurs, we must prepare, and for that Space exploration is a necessity. NASA will soon test the Mission Dart, by crashing on an asteroid, hoping to change its path just enough so that it diverts from the path to crash on earth, just in case it was coming.

"The Dinosaurs became extinct because they didn't have a space program" 

                                                                                   - Larry Niven

Earth doesn't have all the resources

Asteroid Psyche 16, one of the most Resource Rich asteroid in the Solar System

With all this increasing population, and the need for more materials to make necessary equipment to further advance as a species, our Blue Planet doesn't have those sufficient resources. Even if they are there, they are too deep inside the crust, or in the core itself. Due to that, Space Mining becomes an important part of our civilization in the distant future. All those future techs cannot be powered without the help of outer space resources. 

You may have heard of the Nuclear Fusion reactor, which can produce electricity more efficiently than these Fission reactors. It needs Tritium, a radioactive Isotope of Hydrogen. Earth doesn't have enough of that, but our fellow neighbor, The Moon does. This is only one of the things we can fulfill with space mining.

FunFact: There is an asteroid out there, called 'Psyche 16' with so many resources, that they all are worth more than 10 Quintillion$.

The Next step in our Development

We started by settling in various countries, then we settled in the extreme parts of the earth too, like Antarctica, then we settled Humans in space too in the International Space Station. The next step to this process of development as a species is becoming an Interplanetary Species. First by colonizing a planet such as Mars or our own moon, then trying to Terraform it for thousands of years, to make it habitable for human life, just like earth.

This is a major step for our survival since there are many mass extinction events possible, that can just end our whole species completely.

We are the Explorers

We started from Africa, and slowly explored Asia, then Europe, then all of the continents. We explored the vast blue Oceans, we explored Mountains, Deserts, Underwater ridges, and Icy tundras.

As evolution happened, we evolved into what we are, but this characteristic of us Exploring, by taking the risk, helped us survive in the long run. This can be thought of as an Evolutionary trait, that helped us to become the Modern Homo Sapiens.

Thus we must continue this legacy of exploration, and explore the Universe, without forgetting our roots, this Blue Planet we originated from. 

Keep Exploring!

Thanks for Reading