What Are Debate Arguments for Space Research vs. Poverty.?
The basic reason is that basic scientific research is very valuable even if the value is not seen at the time the research is performed. One effect of the space race was the development of integrated circuits. Another was satellites for communications, global positioning, weather forecasting and so forth. These provided many jobs which kept people out of poverty. It is erroneous to think that it is space versus poverty. The cost of space research is much less than the money spent on poverty through Medicaid, aid to dependent families, education, school lunch programs and food stamps. There are many other sources of funds to fight poverty than the money spent on space research. The cost of the military dwarfs all of the spending on space plus the spending on poverty relief.
The two are unrelated. Poverty is a result of populations being too large for the economy. This can happen in a number of ways. The obvious being too rapid a growth of population, and economic collapse. Pockets of poverty can arise in an otherwise effluent society when a subgroup of the population is cutoff from the larger economy. This may happen due to factor such as exploitation of the subgroup, overpopulation within the subgroup, or economic isolation. There are many obstacles and possible solutions to the problem of poverty. It is a complex subject. Cutting the expenditure on space research is not one of them. It is a human problem. You need to look at politics, education, religious dogma, and the reasons behind exploitation. Cheers!
The arguments I always use are: 1: Space research is a tiny tiny fraction of the money being spent on other things like war and medical issues. In 2008 NASA, for example, got $17 billion. That sounds a lot, but the US miltary got over $400 billion, and almost $800 billion was spent on health and social security. The money spent on space research, even if it was all channelled elsewhere, would make very little difference to the exisiting efforts to deal with poverty and disease, and I’d rather see that money taken away from the funding for building weapons of war than from any kind of peaceful scientific endeavour. 2: Space research has led to some great advances in medical care and global communications, all of which have tremendous implications for poverty-stricken areas. Thanks to the money spent on space research, we have satellites mapping previously undiscovered natural resources, then other satellites beaming messages across Earth telling everyone about them, then still more sate
