Is the amount of money spent on space travel and exploration justifiable?

Philippa (Year 12)

Editor’s note: Year 13 student Philippa wrote this insightful essay during their time in Year 12. The essay discusses whether the financial investment in space travel and exploration is justifiable given pressing global issues such as hunger, inadequate housing, and climate change. It questions the morality and priorities of allocating vast sums to space programs instead of addressing urgent human and environmental needs. CPD

Humanity since our ancient civilizations have glorified, deified and generally been infatuated with the stars. We’ve explored the night sky, with whatever means we could throughout our history. It’s been our final frontier, this void beyond us. Stretching out into nothing. We called our explorers when we sent them, astronauts – as in astron (star) and nautes (sailor). They were our most intrepid explorers and they inspired millions as to what we could truly achieve as a species. Space travel has long been the feats of great nations proving their strength, the giant leap for mankind and in the opinion of many the final frontier for us as a civilization. Our final jungle, the last wild which we cannot understand but long to. Space has delighted the curiosity of millions of children, squinting up at the constellations, tracing their shapes and learning our names for them. It has inspired literature, art and innovation for centuries, including the novella “A True History” by Lucian in the 2nd century AD. (1) But is our modern focus on this great adventure entirely fair? Or should we turn our eyes back to our own planet before we attempt to reach for the stars once more? In the words of Stanisław Lem: “Man has gone out to explore other worlds and other civilizations without having explored his own labyrinth of dark passages and secret chambers, and without finding what lies behind doorways that he himself has sealed.”

As of 2022 the size of the Global Space Economy was sat at $546 billion with 91 countries (2). Estimates of what we might spend globally on space travel go up to 720 billion dollars by 2030. Is this amount of spending virtuous in the presence of the current situation globally? In the last few years, globally there have been several wars, various financial crises and as always we edge ever closer to the precipice of the Armageddon of an irrefutable climate change. Soon it might be too far in to address it, the concentration of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere as of May 2022 is the highest it has been in human history (3). Nature based solutions, like the protection or planting of tropical forests which stand as what is essentially the most effective carbon store and could theoretically provide a third of the mitigation action needed only currently receive about 3% of the funding available.(4) We are in an intrinsically difficult time of human history, with emerging pandemics set to increase and increasing levels of inequality (5). How can while we push our spaceships towards Mars while 828 million people lived under the effects of world hunger? Arguably, the amount spent each year on the space industry is wholly unjustifiable, due the negligence of the progressive global issues through the focus on the space industry.

So why would our spending be unvirtuous- how much of a difference could this money really be making- and where? Joel Berg, CEO of Hunger Free America, believes that the cost of ending hunger in the US is at only $25 billion. This from a country which spends (6) 73.2 billion U.S. dollars on its space programs in 2023. How can the US government justify fulfilling their curiosity over the safety and wellbeing of their citizens? When they actively could afford to feed it’s population, how can it justify not doing so? The end of hunger in America would allow it’s citizens to live longer, have more energy to work and contribute more to the economy and to society. It can surely been seen as a priority for a government to ensure that it’s citizens to the best of it’s ability should allow as much of it’s nation as possible to be able to eat sufficiently. Yet it instead, stubbornly continues it’s space spending. This pattern continues across the western world, as well as on a global scale. Globally, 1.6 billion people live in inadequate housing conditions, with about 15 million forcefully evicted every year (7). How can we justify this level of spending if it is not for the welfare directly of our global citizens, or to mitigate the impending and current disaster of climate change. Climate change, which is already creating loss of life around the globe, through a rise of natural disasters, scarcity of water and other impact which we cannot likely even see yet. Yet here in the UK, the same as the US, the spending on this urgent matter is disproportionate. 20/21, the UK committed at least £5.8 billion in international climate finance (ICF). The 2022 aid strategy commits the Government to increase funding to £11.6 billion (2021 to 2026), yet the administrative costs alone for the Space industry in the UK equalled £9.3 million in 2022 (8). Even if for the spending on climate change is higher, the money is still argueably misused as it could used to be funded to address the considerably more urgent issue of climate change. The impact of refusing to financially and socially address the issue of climate change cannot be ignored, the lives of our global citizens cannot be ignored.

Surely in order to advance our society into the final frontier, we must first build the best society we can here on earth and protect it’s people where we can. Or else we could risk reaching for the stars but having no home to return to.