The Case for Space

Today was a disappointing day when a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket exploded a little over two minutes after liftoff.  It was a lot of work, a lot of money, and a lot of supplies for the space station that were lost.  But what else was lost?  Of course, spectacular failures like that bring out the enemies of space exploration. Like vultures waiting on something to die, they swoop in with their simple-minded ideas of why we shouldn't explore space.  Typically, as was the case with the one I saw today, they say the money should be used to "cure cancer" or "feed hungry people" or otherwise save human lives.

That is an ignorant and simple-minded point of view.  The space program has brought countless benefits that have improved and saved lives, and continue to do so every day.  Weather satellites have dramatically increased the accuracy of weather forecasting and can give early warning of large storms so that people can be evacuated.  GPS and communication satellites have improved individual safety and made it possible to locate someone who is lost or injured, or allow someone immediate communication that may save their or someone else's life.  Air, sea, and land navigation have become much safer thanks to communication and weather satellites.  Experiments that could only be conducted in space have led to research that continues to help medical science.  And all this with extremely expensive and limited availability to space.  Currently, SpaceX and other private companies are trying to commercialize space and make it much cheaper and easily available.  It isn't easy.  Or cheap.

But I'm not here to talk about the benefits we have already received from space exploration.  I want to talk about the one big benefit we will all gain.  Survival of the human race.  And we better get on it.

Currently, the Earth is holding about 7.2 Billion people.  That number is growing exponentially.  How many can it support?  We are already feeling the strain.  The UN is recommending we start eating insects because we need the land used to raise animals to eat to grow crops and build housing.  Technology can only go so far.  How many people can we feed and house?  What will life be like when the planet gets so crowded that everyone is crammed together?

On the Wikipedia page on world population there is a nice graph of UN projections for population growth.



There are three possible projections: low, medium, and high.  With the low projection the population is expected to actually decrease beginning around 2050.  The medium projection shows it starting to flatten out around the same time. The high projection shows around ten billion people on the Earth by 2050.  Most other estimates I have seen tend toward the higher number. Unless the numbers do actually start to decline, we will at some point reach the level that the Earth can't sustain the population.  That would mean hard times for everyone.  Just like a growing family in a small "starter" house, we are going to need more room. And if we were to somehow cure cancer, and aids, and end murder and war, what would that do the population?

What about natural disasters?  In recent years large meteor impacts and close encounters have been in the news.  There have been large impacts in the past.  It is believed a large impact caused the extinction of the dinosaurs millions of years ago.  Other large rocks from space have had devastating effects on the Earth.  It is just a matter of time before it happens again.  Will our society survive?  Would the human race survive?  I say the answer is a definite no on the first, and a likely no on the second.  We are keeping our eggs all in one basket.  We need to spread out.

Some might say we should shield ourselves.  Again, there is only so much we can do.  There is no way to completely protect ourselves and our planet from a large body crashing into it.  And, whatever we can do would require a good space program!  The only reason we know about a lot of the possibly dangerous rocks out there is because our small space exploration do date has made it possible.

So, it comes down to this.  Even if you ignore all the proven benefits space exploration has already given us.  Even if you deny that it will likely provide us many more as it gets more common and cheaper.  There is still one great reason to invest more in space exploration.  Our survival as a race depends on it.  Overcrowding and a near certain major impact some time in the future will not allow us humans to continue living here as we do now.  We need to find more places to go. Kids grow up and move out of their parents' homes.  It's time for us to find a place of our own.