Space Exploration- Enriching our knowledge or Wasting our resources?

Space exploration has always been a central and well funded field of the 2 super powers in the world. Nowadays it seems that the United States is far more advanced and efficient in this area than Russia. Hundreds of millions of dollars are being invested in this field for research. Is it really worth it? Do we get anything else in return? Maybe we can invest that amount of money to improve the world's welfare situation. There are some arguments which might help us take better decisions.

Before stating the normal and obvious arguments, I believe that space exploration has been a part of a race.

A race between the 2 great superpowers in the world, this race is called the cold war and space exploration took a significant part in it. Space exploration isn't only about the research and the knowledge of space. Having achievements in it comes with a great feel of honor and prestige. And that is why those 2 superpowers raced between themselves for 4 decades and the winner received the honor and the respect it deserved. Fortunately, Space exploration isn't only about the honor and "fame", it's also about the research of the history and the future of our galaxy and universe. A Big part of the knowledge gained in this field is used to improve our quality of life on Earth. I believe those areas aren't less important than fame and glory.

Travelling to space has its disadvantages too. During the history of space travelling a lot of accidents occurred on the shuttles and 2 of them were fatal- they caused explosions.1 of them exploded after a few seconds of flight and the other while trying to get back to Earth. In the second one we lost our beloved Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon. Space exploration is not only risky but expensive too. Success in this business comes with huge amounts of money paid from us- the tax payers; the question we're facing is if we, as human beings, can tolerate any kind of ignorance with the current undergoing issues such as the economy crysis, global warming etc . Imagine if all the money that was spent on space projects was invested in improving upcoming issues on Earth, such as welfare problems, environment problems, political issues etc. , we could have had much better and healthier lives.

To sum up, I agree that space exploration is very important and we should finance it and push this field to success and achieve knowledge but, there are more important issues on Earth we should put in our top priority list. If necessary, we should put the space projects on hold and concentrate on the upcoming recession.