2008 Woodie Awards
Wasted space
Our taxes disappearing into thin space
by Matthew Jackson
Issue date: 2/25/08 Section: Opinion
The military recently spent between 30 and 60 million dollars of your taxes to shoot down a malfunctioning spy satellite, which the government had spent millions of dollars to send up. The satelite began to malfunction shortly after being launched and never actually served the purpose it was built for. Why does the government keep wasting our time and money?
The United States consistently continues to throw money away. Where you ask? Space.
Now, don't get me wrong, I am just as much of a stargazer as anyone. I would love to be able to board a space ship and dance among the stars, as Frank Sinatra would say. The fact is the costs associated with that are astronomical, pun intended.
In my opinion, the costs associated with our space program are not returning enough, in currency or in data, to warrant continually funneling money into it at the rate we are currently. Shouldn't we be worried about life on Earth before we worry about life on Mars? There are few things I am aware of that we have learned from space travel that actually have improved the condition of life here on Earth.
Granted, satellites have improved some things, but many of those are telecommunications satellites. What I am referring to is the government-funded exploration of space.
It strikes me as ridiculous that we are spending so much money to send probes and ships out into the far corners of the galaxy while there are other things here on Earth, such as poverty and hunger, that still remain a problem.
I think that we want to believe that something out there can help us, save us, or otherwise interest us. Colonizing Mars to solve space problems, finding resources on other planets to solve our fuel needs or finding another species of intelligent life to lend us a hand all sound like great solutions, but I think those solutions are a long way off. I think we need to look to more Earthly solutions.
Perhaps one day the dream of colonizing space will happen. Maybe we are reaching for that dream too soon and too quickly. Perhaps we could colonize another planet, but to what end? To transfer the problems of this world to another? I think that we need to stand back and take a long, hard look at the problems we are facing, and how to solve them, on this planet before unleashing ourselves, and our wallets, on the rest of the galaxy.
The United States consistently continues to throw money away. Where you ask? Space.
Now, don't get me wrong, I am just as much of a stargazer as anyone. I would love to be able to board a space ship and dance among the stars, as Frank Sinatra would say. The fact is the costs associated with that are astronomical, pun intended.
In my opinion, the costs associated with our space program are not returning enough, in currency or in data, to warrant continually funneling money into it at the rate we are currently. Shouldn't we be worried about life on Earth before we worry about life on Mars? There are few things I am aware of that we have learned from space travel that actually have improved the condition of life here on Earth.
Granted, satellites have improved some things, but many of those are telecommunications satellites. What I am referring to is the government-funded exploration of space.
It strikes me as ridiculous that we are spending so much money to send probes and ships out into the far corners of the galaxy while there are other things here on Earth, such as poverty and hunger, that still remain a problem.
I think that we want to believe that something out there can help us, save us, or otherwise interest us. Colonizing Mars to solve space problems, finding resources on other planets to solve our fuel needs or finding another species of intelligent life to lend us a hand all sound like great solutions, but I think those solutions are a long way off. I think we need to look to more Earthly solutions.
Perhaps one day the dream of colonizing space will happen. Maybe we are reaching for that dream too soon and too quickly. Perhaps we could colonize another planet, but to what end? To transfer the problems of this world to another? I think that we need to stand back and take a long, hard look at the problems we are facing, and how to solve them, on this planet before unleashing ourselves, and our wallets, on the rest of the galaxy.
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