Curiosity is currently up on Mars taking photographs, collecting data and samples, and shooting lasers at rocks. Some people are engrossed, following the daily activities taking place on the Red Planet, while others really couldn’t care less. This mission comes at a time when NASA‘s future direction is somewhat in question, and other countries/companies/individuals are likely to fill the void.
The whole idea of space exploration is one that has fascinated mankind for generations, but practical and monetary concerns have somewhat taken the shine off the excitement that exploring the final frontier engenders. This prompted a question regarding space exploration and how you personally felt about it.
What Do You Think Of The Exploration Of Space?
We asked you, What Do You Think Of The Exploration Of Space? The response was good, with a number of people expressing a broad range of opinions on the subject at hand.
I must admit the reasons for asking this question were selfish. I have mixed views on the subject and wanted to test the mood of the nation (or at least MakeUseOf) in the hopes of gaining new insights and/or an overall consensus. The new insights were indeed forthcoming, but there clearly is no overall consensus. People on both sides of the debate feel strongly, and they’re unlikely to be swayed from holding their particular viewpoint anytime soon.
There were some fantastic and fascinating contributions to the debate, many from people whose interest hasn’t been piqued by previous ‘We Ask You’ columns. These ranged from those totally for space exploration who feel it is an absolute must for the future of humanity, to those who would rather see all the money being spent on Earth solving existing problems instead.
As well as the comment of the week highlighted below, some of the more interesting comments included Brian pointing out of the minuscule size of NASA’s budget compared to the budget of other departments, Barry’s forward-thinking opinion on human vs. robot missions, and Elizabeth Sebastian’s essay-length comment which makes some very intelligent points in amongst the stream-of-consciousness outpouring.
Comment Of The Week
Comment of the week goes to Dan Sitter, who receives the respect of myself and hopefully everybody reading this. Unfortunately he cannot receive 150 MakeUseOf points to use for Rewards or Giveaways as he hasn’t registered an account. Doing so isn’t a pre-requisite for commenting on MakeUseOf but there are advantages to doing so. His comment read simply:
Take a child by the hand, look up into the night sky and say, “wow”. Look that child in the eye and remember when pure joy was intermingled with delight and Curiosity, and then happily pay the tax man for starting another great human adventure!
This is neither the longest or the smartest comment posted on the subject, but it’s succinct and heartfelt. Which is good enough for me.
We will be asking a new question tomorrow, so please join us then. ‘We Ask You’ is a weekly column dedicated to finding out the opinions of MakeUseOf readers. We ask you a question and you tell us what you think. The question is open-ended and is usually open to debate. Some questions will be purely opinion-based, while others will see you sharing tips and advice, or advocating tools and apps for your fellow MakeUseOf readers. This column is nothing without your input, all of which is valued.
Image Credit: Matthew Simantov
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We spend all this money for rovers to Mars–how about a couple to other planets, asteroids, and large moons throughout the solar system. Mercury, Ceres–the possibilities are endless! :-)
All I can say is that our world is so small. There is so much to know outside.
I’m all for trying to learn and explore regardless of the destination. As long as we don’t give up that we can continue to grow and advance.
I am personally excited to learn more about space and hope we can continue to explore it.
I’d much rather put (tax) money towards this than military (or silly wars), for example. Sure, we need ‘some’ military budget but the amount we spend on it is just insane. Think of all the things we could do if more of that money was spent on science.
i understand the curiosity we have about how did it all start or why are we here and are we alone….but I would be much happier if we spent a little more of our funds on solving the other problems down here on planet earth before we spend another billion to take pictures of systems none of us will ever see in our lifetime….I am a space geek and I love the idea of us not being alone but I also belive that we sometimes spend so much time looking up because we are scared to look ahead at all we have allowed and don’t know how to fix…