Government Spending Habits
@silenciobarnes (249)
United States
April 6, 2007 2:01pm CST
How come money is being spent on space exploration when it could be put to good use right here on Earth?I know that there are a lot of private funders, and for them, it's alright. They can do whatever they want with their money. But what about all of the tax money...in all of the major countries of the world? Instead of putting that money into the people that make up their respective countries...they are putting billions into space programs. A lot of which bears little to no fruit (unless of course they just ain't telling us...and they probably ain't).
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1 response
@pumpkinjam (8535)
• United Kingdom
16 Sep 08
As far as I know, you are correct in thinking that space exploration is of little use to the "common people". Yes, it is quite interesting to some people and there are jobs to be had and money to be made by some of those who do take an interest. However, as far as I am aware, the only useful thing to come out of space travel which actually does benefit a lot of ordinary people is Teflon and that just saves on ironing because those non-stick Teflon pans are terrible.
Anyway, I have left the subject. I can not understand why so much money is spend by governments to aid such programmes but I don't find it surprising, considering the other pointless things which are aided by the government while useful things have to be aided by charity or fight for government money. Perhaps it is that the larger governments of the world think it makes them look good. I mean, who's going to notice them for giving money to Oxfam when they can "impress" the entire world with their space exploration?
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@silenciobarnes (249)
• United States
22 Sep 08
I understand the attraction of space exploration. I, of all people, am extremely excited about the future of space exploration and what can eventually be accomplished with it.
But I think that we need to take some time (and funds) out to improve Earth conditions, before we start messing around in the cosmos. We are a fragmented and petty planet right now, what right do we have exploring the space around us in such a state?
This ties into my belief that I think we need some sort of world unity...of some sort. We don't even know as much about our own planet as we think we do, yet we want to explore, excavate, and possibly colonize other planets. And considering how human beings are, you already know that space exploration is going to eventually turn to space warfare.
Different governments will want to control the resources and claims will be made; from the claims will come the disputes, from the disputes will come the bombs.
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