Paid Extinction

  Paid Extinction

Imagine that you are in space, there is the rhythmic puff of breath in the background of your suit and the surreal phenomenon of low gravity all around you, probably the best feeling one could ever experience. But how many people get to experience that incredible sensation compared to how many don’t? Why should countries pay $1.5 billion dollars per flight just for a handful of people to have an amazing experience? I believe that space travel is pretty much pointless because of all the good that money could be doing in other fields. Granted, a lot of does good through space travel and exploration: Samples from other planets or moons and exciting new discoveries,but all that, as good as it may be is simply not worth that much money!    

Think of everything that money would accomplish if we had put it to better use than blasting some scrap metal into orbit!  We could save rain forests, protect endangered species, or even  put an end to poverty. But NO we have to waste 196.5 billion dollars on exploring something that never stops expanding!  and now we’re blowing even more money on sending manned missions leaving every two years to MARS!

I for one would definitely rather spend all that money on the preservation of highly endangered species for example Tiger. There are only approximately 3,500 Tigers left in the wild and it would only take $10,000 per Tiger per year to save them. That would still leave 19.25 billion for their silly space programs and one of the most majestic creatures ever to walk the face of the earth would  again be safe, and tigers aren't the only animal in need of funding for their re-population.

And what about those animal's habitat? What about the rain forests? The Amazon rain forests are  5,500,000 km² in size, to reduce deforestation to almost zero in less than a decade would cost between $100 and $600 million. Mere pocket money to what the space program costs, why don’t we throw money at the space program AFTER we've saved the rain forest  and brought back the tigers? This is not Jurassic park people! When a species is gone we can’t bring them back!

  

Lucas.