Why space exploration matters to all of us

On humans, the cosmos and what brings us here

Joel E. Rego
Sep 2, 2018 · 4 min read

When I was 12 years old, I remember watching the “Into The Universe with Stephen Hawking” series on the Discovery Channel. It is one of fondest memories I have of my childhood.

In one of the episodes, Hawking makes the case for Mars. He claims the humans should visit Mars and, hopefully, colonize it. This will make humans an interplanetary species, thus reducing the possibility of complete human extinction from the cosmos.

Colonizing Mars does seems like a difficult, if not a near impossible challenge. Several government and private organization across the globe are attempting to put man on mars. Billions of dollars, and hundreds of thousands of hours of highly skilled scientists and engineers are spent on space exploration research. But why? Why is space the final frontier? Why is space exploration the answer? Why does it matter to ALL of us?

Well, the reasons are simpler than you’d expect. For one, space exploration will lead us to understand the cosmos better. That would in turn help us to solve a lot of problems here at home. For example, things we see and use in our daily lives, like Water Purifiers for example, and even the things that we don’t see around everyday but are still vital and crucial for the functioning of several industries, things like Firefighting equipment and Aircraft anti-icing systems, were all either direct or indirect inventions of NASA and other space agencies.

There is also a less practical, yet more philosophical reason. Space exploration will allow us the answer the big questions about our very existence. Is there any other intelligent life form out there? Just how big is the universe? Is time an abstract concept that humans created, or is it really the 4th dimension? Is time travel possible? Can gravity bend space? Can we create gravity artificially? What about God? Does God exist? Did we create God? What is our place in this vast cosmos? Are we alone?

Yet another reason, and I really like talking about this one, is that Space Exploration gives us hope. If we, humans succeed in becoming an interplanetary species, the chances of our extinction is greatly reduced. All the mathematical and physical relations that we have figured out, all the inventions and discoveries that we have made for the last 5000 years, all that information will not be simply destroyed in a few moments by a meteor strike.

Also, the cosmos has vast resources that humans can tap into. Every human will have access to unlimited resources if we are able to solve the problems of space travel. Space is the great equalizer. Space truly is the final frontier!

There are still a lot of people who believe that this will never happen, and humans will never become an interplanetary species. During the last few months, ever since I started JRUHQ, I have noticed a lot of these people. Their reasoning is not completely illogical. The only thing that they fail to understand is that we, as humans, thrive on solving problems. That’s how we learn, grow and evolve.

Here’s a brief timeline of quotes from some really brilliant people who failed to see this very important trait in human beings:

1. “Man will not fly for 50 years” -Wilbur Wright, 1901

2. “No flying machine will ever fly from New York to Paris.” — Orville Wright, 1908

3. “There is no hope for the fanciful idea of reaching the moon, because of insurmountable barriers to escaping the earth’s gravity.” — F. R. Moulton, 1932

4. “Man will never reach the moon, regardless of all future scientific advances.” -Lee De Forest, 1957 (We stepped foot on the Moon on July 20th, 1969.)

Putting man on Mars is an even bigger challenge, but that’s just the beginning. Colonizing the red planet will be the biggest challenge ever faced by man, but, like all the other challenges, we will be able to overcome it. After Mars, we may even try to colonize one of the moons of Jupiter. Eventually, space travel will be safe and accessible by millions, if not billions of human beings. Many scientific breakthroughs will be made, and people who will contribute in making these discoveries will be remembered for generations. More people will live happily than ever before, and for the first time in all of human history, we will have world peace, or should I say, “Universal Peace”. Until then, we can only look up to the sky and think about our place in the universe. After all, we are all just an advanced breed of monkey, in this vast, ruthless, rich, ever-expanding cosmos.

Joel E. Rego

Written by

Passionate about data analytics. Currently writing a 6-volume textbook titled The Art of Data Analytics which aims to thoroughly cover the subject.

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