On July 20, 1969, the whole world held its breath as a human stepped foot on the Moon for the first time. For the American people, this was more than a victory in a two-decade long space race—this was proof that when united with purpose, humans could rewrite history. For a moment, we looked upwards at the expanse of space and felt excitement. And yet, somewhere between that triumphant step and today, our gaze has drifted back downward.
Following the fateful moon landing, space has lost its novelty. The following space missions received significantly less attention, and after the major tragedies of Challenger (1986) and Columbia (2003), public trust in space programs dipped sharply. Space research and exploration appeared wasteful to the general public when there weren’t consistently dramatic milestones like the moon landing.
Space exploration isn’t an escape from Earth’s problems; it’s a way of confronting them in a different way.
With the rise of Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin, the image of space exploration has complicated for many. They view space research programs as vanity projects for billionaires who wish to take joyrides in space.
The issue, however, isn’t space exploration itself—it’s our inability to see the benefits it is bringing to us. Because of this, we often blame our struggles to solve problems on Earth on our investments in space. Global warming still an issue? Social injustice and public health concerns? Blame those blasted space programs.
But the truth? Scapegoating and defunding space programs won’t solve urgent issues on Earth—it might even make them worse.
Critics of space exploration love to repeat, “It’s too expensive.” Based on a 2018 Business Insider poll, the average American believes that NASA receives approximately 6.4% of the federal budget. This is a massive overestimation. Since the 2010s, NASA has accounted for only 0.3%–0.4% of total federal spending, and this number has been decreasing every year, according to the Planetary Society (2025).
But even if NASA required more money per fiscal year, space exploration is still worth investing in. Each year, new technologies emerge from space exploration. Take the cameras on your iPhone: in 1990, a team of engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory worked to create cameras small enough to fit on a spacecraft but big enough to preserve scientific quality. Now, one third of all cameras contain this technology. And there’s so much more: wireless headphones, water purification systems, LEDs, ear thermometers…I could go on and on.
Without investing in space exploration, we risk missing out on groundbreaking innovations.
NASA has also contributed significantly to the medical field. Space exploration programs developed a digital image processor that later led to the development of MRIs and CAT scans. The LVAD (left ventricular assist device), based off of a space shuttle’s fuel pump, helps keep people healthy as they wait for heart transplants and in some cases, can even rule out transplants as unnecessary. Without space exploration investment, we risk missing groundbreaking innovations.
Another space exploration contribution is the way it can deepen our understanding of our own planet. In the 1970s, renowned climatologist James Hansen was inspired by his research on runaway greenhouse effects on Venus to investigate climate change here on Earth. His early warnings about the phenomenon in the 1980s would later earn him recognition as the “Father of Global Warming.”
Space exploration, then, isn’t an escape from Earth’s problems as many believe; it’s a way of confronting them in a different way.
While exploring other planets for habitable possibilities may one day help secure humanity’s long-term survival, those pursuits shouldn’t, in any way, encourage destroying Earth in the meantime. After all, we do not build lifeboats because we plan to sink the ship—we build them because we value the lives aboard.
Leigh Phillips, a political journalist writing for The Guardian, writes, “If we cannot have space exploration until every last child on Earth is free from starvation, then neither can we have music or cinema or sport.” From brutal wars in Eastern Europe to tragic humanitarian crises at our own borders, there is no denying that urgent issues persist right in our world.
However, funding space programs need not delay action elsewhere. Space exploration isn’t the reason why the Earth’s problems aren’t being solved. We’re just unwilling to tackle them with the same boldness we once used to reach the Moon.
We must choose to reach upward again—not because it is easy, but because it is hard.
